ICA SAHR: Italian Condor Trials - Giulia Barrera

Giulia Barrera Operation Condor was a secret, illegal cooperation agreement among Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay in 1975 to track down and eliminate political opponents who had taken refuge abroad. After the 1973 coups in Chile and Uruguay, thousands of opponents from these countries fled to Argentina, which already hosted a wide community of Paraguayan refuges; in the following years, thousands of Argentinians took refuge abroad as well. Due to the Condor system of cooperation, once abroad political opponents still were not safe from being forcibly disappeared at the hands of intelligence operatives of their own countries: hundreds of them, in fact, were tracked down and killed. A few of them had Italian citizenship. During the past decade, Italy tried military personnel who, as part of Operation Condor were responsible for “disappearing” and killing Italian citizens, and convicted 11 Uruguayans and three Chileans. Giulia Barrera testified at this trial, using archival documents to provide evidence of the functioning of “Condor.” Join us as Dr. Barrera describes the role of archival documents in the Italian Condor trial.