The Condor Trials
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Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America
Francesca Lessa
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Format: HC - Paper over BoardPrice: $65.00
Stories of transnational terror and justice illuminate the past and present of South America’s struggles for human rights
Through the voices of survivors and witnesses, human rights activists, judicial actors, journalists, and historians, Francesca Lessa unravels the secrets of transnational repression masterminded by South American dictators between 1969 and 1981. Under Operation Condor, their violent and oppressive regimes kidnapped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of exiles, or forcibly returned them to the countries from which they had fled. South America became a zone of terror for those who were targeted, and of impunity for those who perpetuated the violence. Lessa shows how networks of justice seekers gradually materialized and effectively transcended national borders to achieve justice for the victims of these horrors. Based on extensive fieldwork, archival research, trial ethnography, and over one-hundred interviews, The Condor Trials explores South America’s past and present and sheds light on ongoing struggles for justice as its societies come to terms with the unparalleled atrocities of their not-so-distant pasts.
Francesca Lessa is a lecturer in Latin American studies and development University of Oxford. She is also the author of Memory and Transitional Justice in Argentina and Uruguay and the honorary president of the Observatorio Luz Ibarburu (Uruguay).
“This gripping account of Operation Condor breaks important new ground in our understanding of complex justice processes for grave human rights violations. Lessa's analysis of ‘justice seekers’ highlights the central role of victims in transitional and transnational justice processes. Most importantly, she centers the deeply moving stories of the victims of Operation Condor, whose lives were forever altered by transnational state terror.”— Jo-Marie Burt, George Mason University
Publication Date: May 31, 2022
7 b/w illus.
