NAS TRAMAS DA REDEMOCRATIZAÇÃO CHILENA: A MEMÓRIA HISTÓRICA DAS VIOLAÇÕES HUMANAS NOS INFORMES DAS COMISSÕES DA VERDADE RETTIG E VALECH (1990 – 2005)

Abstract

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE GOIÁS FACULDADE DE HISTÓRIA PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM HISTÓRIA DOUTORADO EM HISTÓRIA

LEONARDO DE OLIVEIRA SOUZA

IN THE FRAMES OF CHILEAN REDEMOCRATIZATION: THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF HUMAN VIOLATIONS IN THE REPORTS OF THE RETTIG AND VALECH TRUTH COMMISSIONS (1990 – 2005)

ABSTRACT The present work is part of the line of studies on transitional justice in the context of the redemocratization of the Southern Cone, after military regimes. Specifically, we focus on the Chilean experience, seeking, as a central objective, to analyze the construction of the historical memory of human violations between 1990 and 2005, using, for this, the narrative productions of the two truth commissions: Rettig (1991) and Valech (2004). The first, carried out between 1990 and 1991, investigated the circumstances of the violations of victims who died and disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973 – 1990), finally publishing a report aimed at reconciliation, but which stimulated and guided the public uses of the between the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, with regard to the triad of transitional justice: truth, memory and justice (reparative and punitive). The second Commission, Valech (2004), in an unprecedented way in the world, resorted to the testimonies of survivors to clarify the crimes of torture and political imprisonment that occurred during the regime, publishing another more emphatic report on the need to advance the horizon of transitional justice. The purpose and means of this work, therefore, aim to analyze the construction of the Final Reports of the Commissions, apprehending the power relations that involve social actors (Human Rights organizations, Armed Forces, press and governments) and the narrative strategies, which, together, they gave rise to an institutional version of the historical memory of human violations in Chile – prevailing until today – during the governments of the Concertación. In this sense, this research brings History closer to the fields of memory and transitional justice, as foundations to advance this line of studies, in order to demonstrate how Chilean society dealt with its past of violations during redemocratization.