Dictatorial silences and resistance

Abstract

Different silences have covered up the political violence perpetrated by the state during the dictatorships of the Latin American Southern Cone. The literature that has dealt with this period of recent history is evidence of this, as are the testimonies of survivors of the Chilean and Argentinean dictatorships. This paper seeks to deepen and analyse the silence of the survivors, both during the concentration camp experience and the silence that exists once political imprisonment has ended, by reviewing the literature and analysing testimonies.

In order to explore this in greater depth, it has been decided to present the silences based on what are considered to be moments of the concentration camp experience during the Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships. It is understood that there are at least two main moments: one, the political imprisonment experienced in clandestine detention centres, which begins with the detention and extends until the prisoner's recognition-appearance, which can happen either with the transfer from the illegal detention centre to a prison or another instance of legal imprisonment, or with apparently unrestricted freedom. The second is that which begins with the exit from the illegal detention centre, giving way to a different process that does not necessarily imply an end to the concentration experience, above all because of the silence in which the experience is kept.

One of the silences identified in the literature is related to sexual torture. This work highlights that women former political prisoners have managed to face a series of difficulties in denouncing and talking about this type of violence. It is different in the case of men, where such violence is still covered by a cloak of silence.