Master’s Degree Programme – Second Cycle (D.M. 270/2004 ) in Comparative International Relations Final Thesis Torture or Genocide: claiming the truth on the desaparecidos in Chile and Argentina Supervisor Ch. Prof. Sara De Vido Co- Supervisor Ch. Prof. Francesca Coin Graduand Teresa Tommasino Matriculation Number 833655 Academic Year 2014 / 2015 INDEX ABSTRACT 4 INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 1: Historical Background 11 1.1 The origins of Operation Condor 11 1.2 Operation Condor 17 1.3 Operation Condor and the military coup in Chile 20 1.4 The Chilean economic “miracle” 27 1.5 Military coup in Argentina 31 1.6 International Documents on the problem of enforced disappearances 36 CHAPTER 2: Torture as a strategy of political terror 44 2.1 The definition and prohibition of torture in International Law 44 a) International instruments 44 b) Regional instruments 56 2.2 The Shock Doctrine as a metaphor for torture 61 2.3 Torture in the detention centers 66 a) Kidnapping the enemy 66 b) The horror and torture wells 72 2.4 Prosecuting the torturers: Chile and Argentina after the coups 85 a) Prosecuting Pinochet 85 b) Fighting for the truth: Argentina cries out for “Nunca Más” 98 CHAPTER 3: The Genocidal characteristic of Chilean and Argentinian disappearances 108 3.1 Definition of Genocide and its constitutive elements 108 2 3.2 Analysis of the constitutive and omitted groups in the Convention 122 3.3 The Genocidal characteristic of political terror in Chile and Argentina 132 3.4 Claiming justice 142 3.5 Mothers of Plaza de Mayo: claiming the identity right 152 CONCLUSIONS 165 BIBLIOGRAFY 170 3 ABSTRACT Lo scopo principale di questo elaborato consiste nell’analizzare gli atti di repressione violenta, commessi in Cile e Argentina, negli anni 70: la ricerca si incentrerà sulle torture e i metodi di eliminazione a cui furono sottoposti i cosiddetti desaparecidos , ovvero coloro che, illegalmente tenuti prigionieri nei centri di detenzione equipaggiati e controllati dai membri delle forze militari, quali la Marina, l’Esercito, l’Aviazione ed i Servizi Segreti, non fecero più ritorno. Il primo capitolo dell’elaborato esaminerà il contesto storico in cui Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte rovesciò il governo socialista del presidente Salvador Allende, l’11 settembre 1973, e in cui Jorge Rafael Videla organizzò un colpo di stato per deporre Isabel Martinez de Perón, il 24 Marzo 1976. I due colpi di stato militari possono essere inseriti all’interno di quella che viene conosciuta col nome di “Operazione Condor”, basata sul terrore e sulla violenza volti ad eliminare la sovversione comunista, e sviluppatasi nel contesto della Guerra Fredda. Gli eventi riguardanti i desaparecidos saranno analizzati prendendo in considerazione gli strumenti legali inerenti alla protezione delle persone dalla sparizione forzata, esistenti sia a livello internazionale, come la Dichiarazione sulla Protezione di tutte le Persone dalle Sparizioni Forzate , che regionale, come la Convenzione Inter-Americana sulla Sparizione Forzata di Persone . In seguito, la Convenzione contro la Tortura ed altre Pene o Trattamenti Crudeli, Inumani o Degradanti , cosi come la Convenzione sulla Prevenzione e Punizione del Delitto di Genocidio saranno prese in considerazione per lo studio delle violazioni dei diritti umani avvenute in quegli anni: è corretto definire tali atti riguardanti le sparizioni forzate e le torture in Cile e Argentina come genocidio, o sarebbe più appropriato esaminarli solo nel contesto della violazione dei diritti fondamentali, facendoli ricadere nella categoria di crimini contro l’umanità? 4 L’analisi della Convenzione contro la Tortura permetterà, nel secondo capitolo, di comprendere a fondo cosa si intende per “crimine di tortura”: una volta chiarito quali sono gli elementi identificativi di tale crimine, gli eventi riguardanti i desaparecidos saranno esaminati: testimonianze di detenuti nei centri clandestini e di militari saranno presentate per comprendere quali atrocità i prigionieri furono costretti a subire. Il terzo ed ultimo capitolo si incentrerà sull’analisi della Convenzione sul Genocidio e si soffermerà sugli elementi caratterizzanti tale crimine, nonché sulla nozione di genocidio di gruppi politici, non inclusi nella convenzione. Anche il ruolo delle Madri e delle Nonne di Plaza de Mayo sarà riportato, per capire pienamente l’importanza del diritto all’identità, rinnegato cosi a lungo dai governi militari e dal silenzio intriso di paura e terrore di quegli anni. 5 INTRODUCTION “Orme nell’oceano dai voli della morte affogate nello stordimento. Adagiati in un letto di sabbia non un rumore non un lamento dagli abissi il silenzio. Nunca más! Nunca más!” (Patrizia Portoghese, Desaparecidos) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 th December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, in Paris, strongly highlights how fundamental the protection of human dignity and freedom is. All human beings, thus, are considered equal to each other, which implies no discrimination for racial, color, sexual, linguistic, religious, national or social property, birth and even political reasons. Even though these are ideals that should lay at the heart of the consciousness of the mankind, in order to guarantee a peaceful and fair framework all over the world, it is not infrequent for citizens to claim their own rights in front of those governments that proclaim themselves as the guardians of their people’s dignity and freedom. As a matter of fact, sometimes people are not guaranteed the possibility to freely show what they really are, or what they believe in: being or thinking different does not undermine equality, but it could be interpreted as an imminent threat to the stability of few but still most influential individuals; it is 6 then, thus, that the respect and protection of the basic human rights yield to ideological wars led by atrocity and repression of what is considered thorny or even diverse. The principal aim of this work, thus, is to examine the repressive violence which took place in Chile as well as in Argentina during the 1970s: the research will focus on the tortures and killings which the so called desaparecidos, people who underwent unacknowledged detention by security forces, came under in the detention centers equipped and ruled by the military juntas, such as the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) in Argentina or Villa Grimaldi in Chile: not only will this work evaluate these events focusing on torture and inhuman treatments, but it will also try studying them from a genocidal perspective. The first chapter will outline the historical background during which the Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army, Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, overthrew the socialist Unidad Popular government of the President Salvador Allende on 11 th September 1973 and during which the coup d’état led by the Commander of the Argentinian Army Jorge Rafael Videla deposed Isabel Martinez de Perón on 24 th March 1976. The two military coups can be placed in the context of the Operation Condor, which is a campaign of violence and terror enforced by the right-wing dictatorships in Southern America, and which aimed at banning and defeating the Communist subversion: this operation developed in the context of the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and was secretly backed and supported by the USA government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), aiming at torturing, exiling and killing all the members of opposition movements to the central governments in the Southern Cone. In order to reach its political repressive objectives, the USA elaborated the Doctrine of National Security which placed 7 the security of the State before that of the citizens and of every individual in general. Once analyzed the historical background in which many people began to disappear, this chapter will introduce the legal instruments for the protection of disappeared persons, existing at universal level, such as the Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance , as well as regional level, such as the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons . The Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide will be studied in the following chapters in order to focus on the issue which constitutes the basis of this work: is it appropriate to classify the events concerning the Chilean and Argentinian disappearances as genocide, or it would be more appropriate to examine them only in the context of the violation of the basic human rights throughout torture and degrading treatments? The second chapter of this work, thus, will first analyze the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment , in order to examine and clarify what the term “torture” exactly means. Once taking into consideration all the constitutive elements of what we evaluate as torture, the chapter will deal with the events concerning the desaparecidos in Chile and Argentina: testimonies by detained “subversives” during the military-junta governments as well as by members of the Army will be presented in order to understand which treatments and sufferings prisoners were subjected to. In this eerie context, detention camps such as the Argentinian