Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 02/2009

El relato canónico de las desapariciones en Argentina: El informe "Nunca Más"

Emilio Crenzel

October 2008

CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política

Abstract

The canonical narrative about the disappearances in Argentina: The report "Never Again"

This paper analyzes the content of the report Nunca Más (Never Again) elaborated by the "National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons" (CONADEP) created in Argentina in 1983 by the President Raúl Alfonsín to investigate the destiny of the thousands of missing persons caused by the state repression. It examines its strategy to expose the system of disappearance and its reading of the political violence. The paper conclude that Never Again articulated the premises of the restored democracy to think the political violence on the basis of the constructed narrative done to denounce these crimes by the affected of the disappearances. These elements did not illustrate the past in historical terms and they did not even assume the citizenship universal condition of people affected by the state violence.