The Archives of Terror ( es, Archivos del Terror) are a collection of documents chronicling some of the illicit activities undertaken by Paraguayan Dictator

Alfredo Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan army officer and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 to 3 February 1989. Stroessner led a coup d'état on 4 May 1954 with the ...

's secret police force. The documents have since been used in attempts to prosecute Chilean dictator

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

and in several human rights cases in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. The collection of files proved the existence of

Operation Condor Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of o ...

- a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

clandestine campaign of

state terror State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111. Definition There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...

and political repression in countries throughout Latin and South America."How Paraguay's 'Archive of Terror' put Operation Condor in focus"
By Simon Watts. 22 December 2012.

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

. The documents were originally found on December 22, 1992, by lawyer and

human-rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

activist Dr.

Martín Almada Martín Almada (born 30 January 1937) is a lawyer, writer and educationalist from Paraguay. A noted dissident and human rights activist, he was a prisoner of the Alfredo Stroessner regime. He is notable for uncovering the Archives of Terror. Bio ...

, and judge José Agustín Fernández, in a police station in a suburb of

Asunción Asunción (, , , Guarani: Paraguay) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of ...

(

Lambaré Lambaré () is a city in Central Department, Paraguay, part of the Gran Asunción metropolitan area. With a population of approximately 140,000 inhabitants, it is the List of cities in Paraguay by population, sixth-most populous city in the countr ...

), capital of

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

."Paraguay's archive of terror"
By Mike Ceaser. 11 March 2002.

Overview

Fernández was looking for files on a former prisoner. Instead, he found archives describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina,

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Chile,

, and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

with cooperation of the

. This was known as

. The "terror archives" listed 50,000 people murdered, 30,000 people

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...

and 400,000 people imprisoned. Also revealed was a letter written by

Manuel Contreras Juan Manuel "Mamo" Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda (4 May 1929 – 7 August 2015) was a Chilean Army officer and the former head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Chile's secret police during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pin ...

, head of the Chilean National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) at the time of writing, which invited Paraguayan intelligence officials to

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

for a clandestine "First Working Meeting on National Intelligence" on 25 November 1975. This letter also placed intelligence chiefs from Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay at the meetings, additionally solidifying those countries' involvement in the formation of Operation Condor. Other countries implicated in the archives include

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, which cooperated, to various degrees, by providing intelligence information that had been requested by the security services of the

Southern Cone The Southern Cone ( es, Cono Sur, pt, Cone Sul) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bou ...

countries. Some of these countries have used portions of the archives, now in

Asunción's Palace of Justice The Supreme Court of Justice of Paraguay ( es, Corte Suprema de Justicia del Paraguay) is the highest court of Paraguay. The Senate and the President of Paraguay select its nine ministers (judges) on the basis of recommendations from a constituti ...

, to prosecute former military officers. Much of the case built against Chilean General

by Spanish judge

Baltasar Garzón Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a former Spanish judge. Garzón formerly served on Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'', and was the examining magistrate of the ''Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5'', ...

was made using those archives. Almada, himself a victim of Condor, was twice interviewed by Baltasar Garzón. " he documentsare a mountain of ignominy, of lies, which

Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan Officer (armed forces), army officer and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 to 3 February 1989. Stroessner led a 1954 Paraguay ...

araguay's dictator until 1989used for 40 years to blackmail the Paraguayan people," states Almada. He wants the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

to list the "terror archives" as an international cultural site, as this would greatly facilitate access to funding to preserve and protect the documents. In May 2000, a

mission visited Asunción following a request from the Paraguayan authorities for help in putting these files on the

Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

, one element of a program aimed at safeguarding and promoting the documentary heritage of humanity to ensure that records are preserved and available for consultation.

Notes

Bibliography

''Paraguay: The Forgotten Prison, the Exiled Country''

External links

''"Democracy in the light of dictatorship"'' by

Alain Touraine Alain Touraine (; born 3 August 1925) is a French sociology, sociologist. He is research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he founded the ''Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux''. Touraine was an important ...

, article for the

.
www.pittstate.edu

''Voces: Boletin Informativo de la CODEHUPY.'' 4(1) January–March 2004. Translated by D. Schenck-Hamlin and N. Ossar. Consequences of the discovery of the archives of terror. {{DEFAULTSORT:Archives Of Terror Operation Condor Classified documents Dirty wars Memory of the World Register 1992 in Paraguay Enforced disappearance Archives in Paraguay

Overview

See also

Notes

Bibliography

External links