A-HRC-13-42

A/HRC/13/42
page 30
61. Latin American Governments justified practices of secret detention, among other
exceptional measures, referring to the national security doctrine, which provided fertile ground
for the creation of a repressive system by the military in which, in the name of security, human
rights and fundamental freedoms were violated on a massive scale, and the rule of law and the
democratic system damaged. The model was formulated in the 1940s, on the basis of French
counter-insurgency concepts used in Algeria and Indochina. It was spread by the United States
through the training of Latin American armies in “the school of the Americas”, located in
Panama. Politically, the doctrine was strongly influenced by the bipolar cold war paradigm. It
extended the notion of the alleged internal war against communism, which soon acquired a
regional dimension. Practices of secret detention were first used against armed movements, later
against left-wing groups, Marxist and non-Marxist, and ultimately against all groups suspected
of political opposition. The latter were labelled as “subversives”, “terrorists” or “communists”.
62. Practices of secret detention ran in parallel, at the national and regional levels. They were
carried out by several governmental entities, which worked with little regulation and wide
authority to interpret the few rules and regulations that did exist. Each entity had its own staff
and facilities. Each organization worked in secrecy. 73 The prime example of the regional scope
of these practices was operation Condor, involving the exchange of intelligence information, and
relying upon inter-State programmes of renditions. 74 The operation was endorsed by the Chilean
National Intelligence Directorate, which operated as the main intelligence service engaged in
political repression between 1974 and 1977. Among its different functions, it was responsible for
running secret detention centres, where victims were interrogated and tortured. 75 The Directorate
soon began to work in Argentina, and later in other Latin American countries, the United States
and Europe. 76 Similar intelligence services were established in Argentina, Paraguay and
Uruguay, and integrated into a coordination network, closely linked to the United States. 77
63. In Argentina, for instance, there were close to 500 secret detention centres, operating
mainly on military or police premises. 78 Others were located in such diverse settings as hospitals,
73 Memorandum of conversation, unclassified, 7 August 1979, Embassy of the United States of
America, Buenos Aires.
74 See International Commission of Jurists, “Assessing damage, urging action”, report of the
eminent jurist panel on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights, p. 32.
75 Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (Notre Dame,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), p. 22.
76 Ibid., p. 617.
77 See for example the references in the document entitled “Declassified documents relating to
the military coup, 1970-1976”.
78 See, inter alia, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.49, Doc. 19 corr.1, 11 April 1980. During its on-site
observation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights interviewed several persons in
prison who claimed to have been kept in places they could not identify.