This afternoon at Palacio San Martin, Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Foradori and Secretary for Human Rights Claudio Avruj announced the publication of 75 UNESCO documents, dated between 1978 and 1982, concerning human rights violations in Argentina, in response to requests made by our country, both by previous administrations and by the incumbent one.
"These are complaints that were recorded at UNESCO’s Committee on Conventions and Recommendations. The files include responses made by the then military government to complaints submitted in relation to disappeared people. There are cases of Uruguayan and Chilean citizens as well. It is also worth highlighting that, back then, UNESCO was one of the few international organizations in which these kinds of complaints could be submitted", Foradori explained.
"UNESCO's Committee examined human rights violations mainly related to victims in the fields of education, culture, science and communication. We received these documents two or three days ago and, following Foreign Minister Malcorra's precise instructions from the very beginning, we are going to submit them without delay to the Secretariat for Human Rights for it to process them and conduct the relevant cross-checks", added the Deputy Foreign Minister.
Foradori further stated that "this is important information for our country on a black page in our history and its tragic consequences". He also recalled that, on occasion of President Obama's visit to Argentina, President Macri's administration requested the US to declassify the files, "a process that is moving forward" according to Foradori.
For his part, Avruj thanked the victims' family members who were present and pointed out that "the arrival of these documents and their inclusion in the archive ratifies our commitment to memory, truth and justice as State policies, as well as to the Memory Archive as a State institution that must be preserved and strengthened and accessible to all. We are determined to meet this commitment."
“We are going to take care of, preserve and digitalize the documents as soon as we receive them, and then make them available to the victims’ direct family members, as well as provide them to the courts upon request as they are public documents that are part of our history”, concluded Secretary Avruj.
The 75 complaints that UNESCO made public at Argentina’s request include the cases of Alfredo Bravo; the Tarnopolsky family; musician Miguel Ángel Estrella; Uruguayan siblings Julien Grisonas, who were kidnapped in our country and later found in Chile; Fernando de Hallgarten; Alejandro Gutiérrez, son of the late former president of the Argentine Association of Relatives of Missing Persons and Detainees for Political Reasons; Claudia Falcone, a victim of the Night of the Pencils, and poet Claudio Grandi, among others.
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UNESCO ordered the digitalization of these confidential documents, which contain records of murders, disappearances, detentions without trials, newspaper shut-downs, prohibition and destruction of publications, imprisonment of teachers on ideological grounds, burning of books and "the deterioration of the scientific and cultural heritage of the Argentine Republic" during the last military dictatorship.
This mechanism of UNESCO is meritorious as it was, during the years of the dictatorship, one of the few means of the United Nations system that received and processed complaints related to human rights violations. In this context, it is worth highlighting the case of Argentine pianist Miguel Ángel Estrella, which constitutes a landmark as the complaint submitted to the CCR gained him international visibility and protection.
Press release No. 133/16
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