La construcción de la memoria de la experiencia represiva en el Cono Sur de América Latina: memoria, apropiación y elaboración

Abstract

Between the years 1973 and 1989, the countries of the southern cone of Latin American underwent an abrupt and traumatic transformation of their social relations, by means of the implementation of military dictatorships which, based on the logic of the Doctrine of National Security implemented in the region by the United States since the 50’s and on the teachings of the French doctrines of counter-insurgence, deployed a concentrationist apparatus which bound up each of these societies. The core of these practices was based on the kidnapping —in most cases, clandestine— of thousands and tens of thousands of people and subjecting them to different forms of torture in environments that worked like concentration camps. In addition, in Uruguay, hundreds of people were killed; in Chile, the killings numbered in the thousands; and in Argentina, more than 20,000. The processes of “the transition to democracy” —1983 in Argentina, 1985 in Uruguay and 1989 in Chile— brought into discussion the problems of the manners of construction of memory, its connection to the possible “elaboration” of the traumatic consequences, the role of the judges and the levels of treatment of the different parties responsible for those actions.