On 16th October 1988, the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest in a hospital in London, where he was recovering from a minor surgery for a herniated disk. The Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón had issued the international arrest warrant in order to proceed with a trial against the assassination of Spanish citizens during the Chilean dictatorship and Operation Condor.
The “Paraguayan Archives of Terror” is the name that is used to refer to the official documents regarding the police and military repression that occurred in Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship. This archive also contains documents sent by the police and military forces of different authoritarian governments in the region, particularly linked to Operation Condor’s repressive coordination.
Between 22nd April and 14th August 1985, 78 public hearings were carried out during the trial of nine Argentine military leaders who were in charge of the Military Juntas of the Argentine dictatorship from 1976 to 1983: Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Orlando Ramón Agosti, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Omar Domingo Rubens Graffigna, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, Jorge Isaac Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo.
Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP) presents its “Nunca Más” (“Never Again”) report. President Raúl Alfonsín created the commission by decree on 15th December 1983, just five days after assuming the presidency, to investigate the enforced disappearance of thousands of people during the military dictatorship.
The prolonged resistance and the reorganization of popular and democratic movements that defeated the sustainability of authoritarian regimes in South America was a complex process. Democratization further deepened the demands for the clarification of crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorships.
The chronology of the recovery of democratic institutionalism in the countries that participated in the repressive coordination of Operation Condor was as follows:
Enrique Rodríguez Larreta was a Uruguayan journalist who was captured in Buenos Aires in July 1976. He had travelled to Buenos Aires to search for one of his children who had disappeared and, in doing so, he was also captured and detained at the Automotores Orletti clandestine torture and detention centre.
Alexei Jaccard Siegler was a Swiss-Chilean and a member of the Chilean Communist Party (Partido Comunista de Chile).
On 13th October 1974, he was captured and tortured by agents from the Chilean Army’s Security Service, which left him with severe physical injuries. On 21st December 1973, just a few months after his release, he went into exile in Switzerland.
After the Argentine coup d’état on 24th March 1976, repression against the Montoneros political organisation intensified, as its armed guerrilla movement became increasingly fragmented.
Agustín Goiburú Jiménez was a Paraguayan doctor and political leader of the Movimiento Popular Colorado (Colorado Popular Movement, MOPOCO) and a firm opponent to the dictatorship of Alfredo Stoesser.
