Latin American Sites of Conscience Network

Promoting Debate through the Construction of Memory of the Recent Past
Led by Memoria Abierta, this network builds the capacity of sites remembering periods of violent internal conflicts and state terrorism in Latin America, to preserve the memory of what happened during these dictatorships and the consequences of these dictatorships on their societies; to use that memory to influence political culture; and to work with young people to prevent all forms of authoritarianism in future generations.

Read about the latest activities of this and other networks here.

Participants

Archivo de la Memoria de la Provincia de Córdoba
Contact: Ludmila da Silva Catela
Pasa de Santa Catalina 66
Córdoba Capital – Provincia de Córdoba
Argentina
CP: 5000
Tel/fax: 0054 351 4341501
Email: archivodelamemoria@gmail.com
Web: www.apm.gov.ar

Located in Santa Catalina in the heart of the City of Cordoba, the Department of Information (D2) – the Intelligence Section – of the Provincial Police functioned as a clandestine detention center, moving from legal to illegal as the political context changed during different historical periods. During the dictatorship of 1976-1983, it functioned as the operational headquarters of “Commando Libertadores de America”, a name taken by the Fascist organization Triple A (Alianza Anti Argentina) in Cordoba.

Asociación Caminos de la Memoria (El Ojo Que Llora)
Contact: Rosario Narvaez Vargas
c/o Aprodeh, Pachacutec 980, Jesus Maria
Lima 11
Peru
Tel: 51 1 4247057
Email: charo@aprodeh.org.pe

Asociación Caminos de la Memoria is an organization of diverse individuals with a proven track record for human rights promotion in Peru. As part of its efforts to build a culture of peace, Asociación Caminos de la Memoria promotes initiatives dedicated to historical memory. Drawing on the recommendations in the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Asociación Caminos de la Memoria organizes educational and cultural activities that encourage reflection on human rights and tolerance around the memorial “The Eye that Cries”, an interactive artwork that has become a symbolic space of national remembrance.

Asociación Paz y Esperanza
Contact: German Vargas Farias
Urbanización Mariscal Caceres Mz L lote
Ayacucho
Peru
Tel: 066 312779
Email: gvargas@pazyesperanza.org
Website: www.pazyesperanza.org/

Asociación Paz y Esperanza is a Christian non-profit association in Peru, which works to promote social justice and the integral development of the indigent and the outcast. They do this through the defense and comprehensive care for people and communities living in situations of injustice; taking part in strengthening democracy and reconciling the country; promoting capacity development for empowerment of the population, in defense of their rights and in promotion of a culture of peace; and by bringing local actors together; with an intercultural and gender perspective; seeking sustainability of our proposals and promoting the comprehensive mission of the evangelical churches. The association was founded in 1996 by a group of professionals, pastors, and members of various evangelical churches.

Casa por la Memoria y la Cultura Popular
Contact: Maria Susana Muñoz
Pasaje Las Orequideas 767
Mendoza, C.P. 5501
Argentina
Tel: + 54-0261-429-5667
Email: bibliotecaycasaporlamemoria@yahoo.com.ar

Casa por la Memoria y la Cultura Popular (House of Memory and Popular Culture) works to coordinate the efforts of organizations in Mendoza and surrounding areas on several projects: opening legal processes for the disappeared people from the region, identifying clandestine detention centers, and creating an oral archive.

Centro Cultural Museo de la Memoria
Contact: Arq. Elbio Ferraio
Departmento de Cultura -Intendencia Municpal de Montevideo
Avenida de las Instrucciones No 1057, Montevideo
Uruguay
Tel: 0598 02 355 58 91
Email: museodelamemoria@imm.gub.uy
Website: http://www.montevideo.gub.uy/

Centro Cultural Museo de la Memoria – MUME, is a space dedicated to recovering the memory of the horrors of State Terrorism and the struggle of the Uruguayan people against the dictatorship. It aims to bring knowledge of Uruguay’s recent history to the new generations and strengthen the elements of national identity. MUME is a space for social exchange. As an institution that includes historic research as well as artistic, educational and cultural development, MUME promotes critical thinking and works to use memory as a tool to develop a critical consciousness within the society.

Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew
Conesa 284. 1er Piso
Rawson, Chubut. (9103)
Argentina
Tel: +54-2965-483710 / 483738
Email: privado.dhchubut@gmail.com/ddhh@chubut.gov.ar
Website: www.chubut.gov.ar/

in August of 1972, during the military dictatorship of Gen. Alejandro A. Lanusse, twenty-five political prisoners escaped from the Rawson Penitentiary in order to fly to Chile. Due to the failed effort, only six managed to flee the country. The rest of the nineteen members appeared before a federal judge, a doctor and journalists at the airport of Trelew, and were then transferred to the Almirante Zar naval air station in Trelew. These nineteen prisoners were executed in the cells of the naval air station. The details of the slaughter became known thanks to the testimony of three of the survivors. The brutal violence carried out by the State was followed by the censorship and persecution of social activists and journalists who reported on the event. The murderers remained unpunished until the court opened the case in February 2008, achieving the arrest of most of them. The Cultural Center for Memory in Trelew is located at the old airport of Trelew

Comisión de Homenaje a las Víctimas de los CCD el Vesubio y Proto-Banco
Contact: Jorge Frederico Watts
Altolaguirre 2514 dto. C
Buenos Aires 1431
Argentina
Email: wattsjorge@yahoo.com.ar

Comisión de Homenaje a las Víctimas de los CCD el Vesubio y Proto-Banco (Commission of Tribute to the Victims of El Vesubio and Protobanco Clandestine Detention Centers) works to document evidence of human rights abuses in La Matanza during the military dictatorship, gather evidence and offer testimony in the legal trials against members of the dictatorship, and reclaim the El Vesubio and Proto-Banco Detention Centers as evidence in prosecutions and as a future site of memory.

Corporación por la Paz Villa Grimaldi (Villa Grimaldi Peace Corporation)
Contact: Margarita Romero, President
Avenida José Arrieta
Peñalolen, 8401, Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56-2-273-6543
Email: villagrimaldi@villagrimaldi.cl
Website: www.villagrimaldicorp.cl/

Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi is located at the former site of one of the most important clandestine centers of detention and torture throughout Chile, where thousands of prisoners were incarcerated, and 230 disappeared or were executed under the command of the security forces of the Pinochet regime. Inaugurated in 1997 in a poor neighborhood with a high indigenous (Mapuches) population, Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi provides a public space welcoming people from diverse political, cultural and religious backgrounds. Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi is dedicated to remembering victims of human rights violations; to disseminating information on the history of state terrorism in Chile; and to promoting a culture of human rights.

Dirección de Derechos Humanos del Municipio de Morón: Proyecto de Investigación Antropológica y Arqueológica Mansión Seré
Contact: Antonela Di Vruno, Director
Santa María de Oro 3530
Castelar Provincia de Bs. As. 1712
Argentina
Tel: + 54-011-4458-0134 /35
Email: ddhh@moron.gov.ar
Website: http://www.moron.gov.ar/ddhh/

Dirección de Derechos Humanos del Municipio de Morón: Proyecto de Investigación Antropológica y Arqueológica Mansión Seré (Department of Human Rights, Municipality of Morón: Mansión Seré Anthropological and Archaeological Investigation Project) is conducting an excavation of Mansión Seré, a former clandestine torture and detention center run by the Air Force during the early years of the Argentine dictatorship. The center was shut down after two years because several prisoners escaped. The building was later destroyed and a football field and playground were built on the site. In addition to operating a House of Memory on the site for public tours, the Department of Human Rights of the Municipality of Morón involves local youth groups in the site’s excavation, collecting artifacts and photographs associated with the site, and investigating abuses that took place during the dictatorship.

Estadio Nacional
Contact: Wally Kunstmann, President
Avenida Vicuna Mackenna 79
Depto 401
Santiago Centro
Santigo de Chile
Region Metropolita, 8330017
Chile
Tel: +56 5626659518
Email: wallykunst@gmail.com

The military dictatorship began in Chile with the bombing of La Moneda Palace and subsequent death of the President of the Republic, Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973. From the first day, the military used Estadio Nacional, the National Stadium and main arena of the country, as a concentration camp for civilian and military opposition. The sports venues were allocated to various enforcement agencies and were used as jails and places of torture and execution. Estadio Nacional is the site that received the largest share of prisoners.

FLACSO-Ecuador
La Pradera E7-174 y Diego de Almagro
Quito
Ecuador
Tel: 5932 3238888
Email:
ecuadorbicentenario@flacso.org.ec
Website:www.flacso.org.ec/

The headquarters of FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales – [Latin American School of Social Sciences]) in Ecuador was set up in 1974, by means of an agreement between the Ecuadorian government and the FLACSO international system. The institution is part of the Ecuadorian university system and was recognized by the Higher Education Law in 2000. The institution enjoys administrative and financial autonomy in accordance with its founding decree. Its mission is to produce and spread knowledge in the social sciences, through the work of quality research and teaching, governed by criteria of pluralism, freedom, and academic autonomy, and aimed at contributing to the development of Latin American thought and promoting social justice.

Instituto de Diálogo y Propuestas
Contacto: Rocio Romero
M. Gonzáles de la Rosa 394
Lima 27
Peru
Tel: 5114 610397
Email: m.rocio.romero@gmail.com

The Instituto de Diálogo y Propuestas (IDS) is an organization that works to promote the decentralization process in Peru. Its mission is to contribute to the construction and consolidation of experiences of social and political democratization and of a renewed political culture to strengthen the civil state and relations between social and political actors and the state. The IDS was founded in 1986 by a group of social-science professionals and leaders from different sectors of Peruvian society with the aim of promoting the development of democracy, taking up the agenda of social and economic transformation of the country. Since 1986 the organization has done a great deal of research in the political sphere and proposals from citizens for the democratization of the state and its institutions.

Memorial da Resistência Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
Contacto: Marcelo Mattos Araújo
Largo General Osório, 66 – Luz
São Paulo
SP. CEP 01213-010
Brazil
Email: memorialdaresistencia@pinacoteca.org.br

The Memorial de Resistencia de Sao Paulo is devoted to preserving the memory of resistance and repression upon transforming a portion of the old building headquarters of the State Department of Political and Social Order of the State of San Paulo – DEOPS/SP. In exposing the control mechanisms and abuses of repression of the Brazilian republican state and in retrieving the many manifestations of resistance of the different segments of the population, this Memorial seeks to promote the creation of awareness of human rights and to collaborate for the education of the citizenry, because these memories must be preserved and life lessons must be drawn from them so as to allow proper understanding of our time, despite the indignation still caused by these events. The museum program of the São Paulo Resistance Memorial is built around procedures of heritage research, safeguarding and communication, aimed at taking up thematic approaches that set forth the broad ramifications of repression and the strategies of resistance through six lines of action: Reference Center, Memory Sites, Regular Registry of Testimonies, Expositions, Educational Action, and Cultural Action. The São Paulo Resistance Memorial especially seeks to be a tribute to all those who, imbued with the ideal of justice and democracy, struggled and still struggle against oppression.

Movimiento Ciudadano Para Que No Se Repita
Contact: Rosario Giraldo Urueta, Executive Secretary
Jr. Camilo Carrillo 479, Jesus Maria
Lima, 11
Peru
Tel: +511-433-6453 /330 6307
Email: rgiraldo@paraquenoserepita.org.pe
Website: http://www.paraquenoserepita.org.pe/

Movimiento Ciudadano Para Que No Se Repita (Never Again Citizens Movement) is a coalition of over 400 human rights organizations and community groups across Peru. The coalition was established to disseminate the findings of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was charged with investigating the violence and human rights abuses that surrounded the bloody conflict between the Maoist rebel group “Sendero Luminoso” (Shining Path) and government forces between 1980 and 2000. The coalition is now working to respond to requests for assistance in organizing memorialization events and sites for victims and survivors of the conflict.

Museo de la Memoria – Rosario
Contact: Rubén Chababo, Director
Av. Del Valle y Callao
Rosario, 2000, Argentina
Tel: +54-341-480-4511 x 231
Email: museomemoria@rosario.gov.ar
Web site: http://www.rosario.gov.ar/sitio/lugaresVisual/verLugar.do?id=2008

The origins of the Museo de la Memoria de Rosario [Museum of Memory of Rosario] is connected to the demand pressed for many years by different human rights bodies in the city of Rosario aimed at achieving a place where the memory of the years of the most recent dictatorship could be retrieved. The Museum of Memory of the city of Rosario is the first one in Argentina to be recognized as of national interest and one of the first in Latin America that works on the causes and consequences of what the terrorist state did. Over these years our museum has achieved the status of a benchmark institution on the issues of memory and human rights. This is clear in the conventions and agreements of collaboration signed with academic institutions in the country, as well as with other institutions working in different places in Latin America and Europe for the sake of the reconstruction of memories of post-genocide periods.

Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos
Contact: Romy Schmidt, Executive Director
Matucana 501
Santiago
Chile
Tel: (562) 365 11 65
Email: info@museodelamemoria.cl
Website: http://www.museodelamemoria.cl/

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights is a space for ethical reflection on the violations on human life and dignity committed by the State of Chile between September 11, 1973 and March 10, 1990. Among its main objectives the museum want to give visibility to the outrages, commemorate the victims and their families and stimulate thinking and discussion on the importance of democracy and tolerance so these acts would never again be repeated. In addition, the Museum aims to be a bridge between the citizenship today and history, to generate a deep commitment to an unrestricted evaluation of human rights in the various areas of society: family, schools, workplace, politics and everyday life.

Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen
Contact: Carlos Henriquez Consalvi, Director
27 Av Norte # 1140, Urb La Esperanza
San Salvador
El Salvador
Tel: 503 22754870
Email:museopalabra@telesal.net
Website: www.museo.com.sv

Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, a citizen initiative founded after El Salvador’s Peace Accord, preserves significant records on Salvadoran history and culture. The museum organizes exhibitions and brings out books and audio-visual documentaries on historical memory and human rights. Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen is dedicated to preserve the memory of the massacres carried out by authoritarian regimes, like the massacre of 1932 against indigenous communities and the murder of peasants in El Mozote in 1981. Along with other civil society organizations, the museum implemented the Monumento a las Víctimas Civiles de Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos, honoring the victims of human rights violations.

Museo de las Memorias: Dictadura y Derechos Humanos
Contact: María Stella Cáceres
1066 Museo y Auda Carlos A. Lopez 2273
Asunción
Paraguay
Tel: 598-21-425873/425345
Email msedu@rieder.net.py

The Museo de las Memorias: Dictadura y Derechos Humanos created and managed by the Celestina Pérez de Almada Foundation. Its origins lie in the discovery of the archive of the Stroessner military dictatorship in 1992, “MEMORY OF THE WORLD” by UNESCO, located in the Courts of Asuncion. The Museum of Memory operates in the building of the National Bureau of Technical Matters (1956 to 1992), a clandestine center for torture, executions, and forced disappearances. It has three areas of activity: Expositions; Center for Research, Documentation and Education in Recent History; and Historic and Social Reparation. It is a space for reflection and dialogue on the past so that the visitor may learn and comprehend the factors that make state terrorism possible so as to prevent it from being repeated in the future, and to cultivate a culture of peace. The Museum sets up museums in historic sites like San Juan Misiones, Caacupé, and Caaguazú.

Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana
Contact: Luisa De Peña Díaz
Dirección General de Museos
Secretaría de Estado de Cultura, Ave George Washington, Esq. Pte. Vicini Burgos
Santo Domingo
República Dominicana
Tel: 1 809 696 2517
Email:museodelaresistencia@gmail.com
Website: www.museodelaresistencia.org

The Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance collects, organizes, preserves, researches, distributes and displays the tangible and intangible heritage of the struggles of several generations of Dominicans during the dictatorship Rafael L. Trujillo, its background and its consequences. The museum, currently in development, will use modern audiovisual resources, complemented with artifacts belonging to the heroes and survivors of the dictatorship as well as testimonies, recordings, photographs and videos. The project comprises dioramas and models of the torture centers and certain historical episodes and includes the restoration and extension of the Jail site 9. The museum is aimed at students, teachers, members of the police and armed forces and the general public. It will commemorate the victims of the struggle for democracy, but more than anything it is an educational institution devoted to educate new generations about the value of life and the fundamental human right to liberty, the right to act and express ideas without the fear of losing your family, your dignity or life.

Núcleo de Preservação da Memória Política
Contact: Maurice Politi
Avenida Brigadeiro Luiz Antonio 2344 conjunto 45
CEP 01402-001 São Paulo- SP
Brazil
Tel: +55 11 2306 4801
Email: nucleo@nucleomemoria.org.br
Website: www.nucleomemoria.org.br

The Core Memory Preservation Policy (known as core memory) is a working group formed in the “Permanent Forum of Former Prisoners and Political Refugees from Sao Paulo”, an institution founded in Sao Paulo in 2001 to defend the interests of former political prisoners during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985). The Core was developed as an independent institution in 2008 and its main activity is public policy advocacy on issues relating to memory. Its activities focus on the defense of human rights and educational efforts to preserve the memory of people’s struggle against the illegal military regime that lasted 21 years in Brazil.

Paine Memorial
Contacto: Juan Leonardo Maureira Carreño
Baquedano #868, PaineRegión Metropolitana de Santiago
Chile
Email: afddpaine@gmail.com

Paine is a rural county located to the south of Santiago in Chile. In 1973, during the Pinochet dictatorship, 70 members of the local community disappeared or were executed. According to Chile’s official truth commission report, the 1991 “Rettig Report,” Paine has the tragic distinction of having suffered the highest per capita rate of disappearance of any Chilean settlement during the dictatorship. The Paine memorial to the disappeared consists of a timber ‘forest’, composed of one thousand individual logs, minus 70. The missing 70 represent Paine’s disappeared or executed, while the remaining logs each stand for a surviving family member. Three generations of Paine citizens actively participated not only in the design but also in the physical creation of the memorial: replacing each missing pine is a family mosaic, made by the relatives themselves. The memorial deliberately emphasizes life, “una memoria viva,” living memory, with the layout incorporating space for contemplation, events, and regular meetings.