Database on South America’s Transnational Human Rights Violations (1969-1981)
The Database on South America’s Transnational Human Rights Violations (1969-1981) was developed between 2017 and 2020 by the researcher Francesca Lessa in close collaboration with Lorena Balardini. The database contains the cases of 805 victims of the repressive coordination which operated in South America from at least between August 1969 and February 1981. From now onwards, the database will be regularly updated with new information, publications, and the judicial sentences that are continually arising.
This is the only database to have been developed through a methodological and meticulous exercise which involved revising the existing available information about the transnational repression during the 1970s in this region. The seven groups of sources detailed below were fundamental for assembling the dataset which brings together information compiled by state and non-state actors:
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Sentences from criminal trials in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Italy.
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The final reports of the truth commissions of Chile, Brazil and Paraguay.
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The victim sheets developed by the Secretary of Human Rights for the Recent Past (known in Spanish as the Secretaría de Derechos Humanos para el Pasado Reciente) of the Presidency of the Republic of Uruguay in relation to forced disappearances and political assassinations committed by the State.
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The report “A todos ellos” (“To All of Them”) by the NGO Madres y Familiares de Detenidos Desparecidos Uruguayos (Mothers and Relatives of the Uruguayan Disappeared Detainees).
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The report “Operación Cóndor: 40 años después” (“Operation Condor: 40 Years Later”) by the International Center for the Promotion of Human Rights – UNESCO in Argentina.
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The report “Investigación histórica sobre dictadura y terrorismo de Estado en el Uruguay (1973–1985),” (“Historical Investigation about the Dictatorship and State Terrorism in Uruguay (1973-1985)”) by the University of the Republic in Uruguay.
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The virtual database of Chile’s Museo de Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights).
The collected data was later triangulated with relevant information from the secondary literature, declassified archives, and interviews with victims and experts. The key criteria that allowed us to distinguish the cases of victims of transnational repression from those of repression at the state level, which, thus, determined whether cases should be included or excluded in the database, was that the perpetration of the crime needed to include the crossing of borders. This border crossing could take one (or more) of the following three forms:
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The exchange of information about a victim between two countries (usually the victim’s country of origin and the receptor country)
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The participation of foreign agents in the criminal act/s, that is to say the joint operations of transnational task forces
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The illegal transfer of the victim/s from the country of their detention to their country of origin
There is also a residual category of “connected cases” comprising two additional groups of victims who were included in the database: (a) minors and victims’ relatives who were often detained as part of the operations directed towards specific militants; and (b) the people detained in a parallel country at, or as a result of, operations in another country perpetrated against members of the same organisation.
More than 50 academics, judicial actors, public policy experts, victims’ relatives, and human rights activists from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay, participated in the Condor workshops that took place in Santiago (Chile) in 2015 and Montevideo (Uruguay) in 2016. The participants agreed that the above elements can be used to effectively identify cases of victims of transnational repression in South America.
By systematically applying these sub-criteria, 805 cases were assembled; this is a conservative number and we believe that the real number of victims is probably higher. The point of departure for each case that was registered and included in the database was the date in which the victim was initially captured and assassinated. In the cases in which a victim was captured on more than one occasion, we registered the most recent date and places of their capture, which, in general, tended to be the most severe case of repression. For example, if a victim suffered an assassination attempt and was later disappeared several months or years later, we registered his or her disappearance. This decision was taken in order to accurately register the number of victims without counting the same victim more than once.
This is the first and only database to systematically map the geographies of transnational terror in South America through the register of information on 17 variables. These are: the victim’s name and surname; sex; ethnic group; nationality; the country of the crime; city; date; militancy; the first place of detention in the country where the crime was initiated; the second place of detention (where applicable); the third place of detention (where applicable); the country of transfer; the date of the handover; the first place of detention in the country to which the victim was transferred (where applicable); the second place of detention (where applicable); the third place of detention (where applicable); and the final result (assassinated, disappeared, survived, etc.).
Public Launch of the Database
In 2022, in the framework of the project “Del terror a la justicia: promoviendo la judicialización e investigación de los delitos de la represión trasnacional en Sudamérica” (“From Terror to Justice: Promoting the Judicialisation and Investigation of the Crimes of South America’s Transnational Repression”), the database was opened to the public via the new open-access website that was created. While the data was being transferred to the new platform, the information was presented in a way that respected the following data-protection measures:
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The anonymisation of the names and surnames of victims whose cases have not been judicialised by national or international courts, and/or subjected to investigation by national organisations, such as truth commissions, and/or international organisations such as the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the different United Nations committees. This decision was taken with the objective of protecting the identities of such individuals and to comply with European Union data-protection laws.
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The publication of the names and surnames of victims whose cases have already been judicialised by national or international courts, and/or subjected to investigation by national organisations, such as truth commissions, and/or international organisations such as the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the different United Nations committees. We understand that, in such cases, the personal information of such individuals is already known to the public for having been included in court sentences and/or national and international judgements.
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Consideration of the victims’ sex and gender identity: in the framework of the data collection process, due to a lack of information (particularly regarding victims of disappearances or assassinations), we decided to only collect information about the sex of each victim, rather than their gender. We conceptualised sex as the distinction between a man and a woman and the category assigned to individuals at birth according to their primary and physical sexual characteristics. This was the type of information which was accessible to us and it was the dominant conceptualisation in the moment of the perpetration of the crimes. Regardless, we want to recognise the many victims throughout South America whose gender identity rights were violated, alongside the persecution suffered by LGBT+ people in the framework of state terrorism in South America which is recently starting to be researched in-depth in some countries of the region such as Argentina and Brazil.
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Cases of victims persecuted outside of South America: the victims of Condor operations in countries that were not formally part of the repressive coordination have been identified in the fact sheets with a map which shows the victim’s country of origin (in green) and the country where the operation took place (in red).
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Cases of victims of the so-called Montoneros Counteroffensive (Contraofensiva de Montoneros): the victims of the Counteroffensive have been identified in the fact sheet with a map that represents Argentina (in dark green), Brazil (in light green), Chile and Paraguay (with blue arrows indicating that the vast majority of these victims were captured while trying to return to the country from exile). The expression Counteroffensive refers to the fact that, at the end of 1978, the exiled Montoneros leaders decided to carry out a series of political and military initiatives to undermine the Argentine dictatorship. The group was comprised of approximately 450 militants, half of whom were in Argentina and the other half planned to return from exile.