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Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission: Argentina’s

CONADEP and the Role of Victims in Truth-Seeking

Article  in  Journal of Human Rights Practice · January 2023

DOI: 10.1093/jhuman/huac060

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 Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2022, XX, 1–18
https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huac060
Advance access publication XX XX XXXX
Article

Exploring the World’s First Successful

Truth Commission: Argentina’s CONADEP 1.45
1.5
and the Role of Victims in Truth-Seeking
Valeria Vegh Weis*,
1.50
1.10
Abstract
This article will present the case of Argentina and the conditions, struggles and social actors that made
the establishment of the world’s first successful truth commission possible after the most recent dic-
tatorship, in power between 1976 and 1983. This study is aimed at not only acknowledging the work 1.55
of civil society organizations, who pressure powerholders to be responsive to victims’ concerns, but
1.15 to argue that victims’ organizations were the ones who took a leading role in the truth commissions/
achieving justice or human rights. The article will also show that victims’ organizations have worked
to reach their goals by engaging with the state from a proactive and empowered position that pushed
the process forward over government resistance. Through this in-depth case study, the article aims to
transform the question from what shall be done in terms of truth commissions to who shall do it. The
1.60
assumption is that the leading role of victims’ organizations in engaging with the state through partici-
1.20 patory democracy can foster truth-seeking mechanisms beyond the limits of realpolitik.
Keywords: Argentina; democracy; social change; truth commission; victims’ organizations

1. Introduction 1.65
1.25 ‘Even the most comprehensive and objective recounting cannot fully communicate the expe-
rience of those who have lived through atrocities’, claims Daly (2008) in a thought-pro-
voking article on the role of ‘truth’ in truth commissions. Sharing these concerns and
acknowledging the challenges of being faithful to their experiences, this article will deploy
a victims’ lens to explore the history of the National Commission on the Disappearance of 1.70
1.30 Persons (CONADEP), the 1983 Argentinean truth commission and the first one worldwide
(Crenzel, 2008). Interestingly, the CONADEP emerged when the term ‘truth commission’
was not yet common parlance. In this vein, Sikkink explains that ‘Argentine groups and
leaders were essentially improvising new tactics and institutional forms that later would
[only later] be named truth commissions’. (2008: 5). 1.75
1.35 Based on a revision of the requirements articulated by Roht-Arriaza and Popkin (1995)
to achieve an effective truth commission, it will be argued that the CONADEP had short-
comings but can, overall, be regarded as a successful experience. This comes as a result of
the achieved historical record, the design and implementation of its mandate, the account-
ability implications, and redress of the victims. 1.80
1.40

*  The author is a Research Fellow at Konstanz Universität (Germany) and a Professor of Criminology at
UNQ and UBA (Argentina).

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email:
journals.permissions@oup.com
 2 Vegh Weis

Moreover, it will be claimed that this success can be at least partly explained by the
fact that victims were not just recipients or participants but have been the fundamental
drivers of the process, pushing the government to go beyond the initial narrow design of 2.55
the truth commission. As Méndez highlights how: ‘in Argentina, the inherent force of the
2.5 idea of accountability has resulted in magnificent efforts by civil society to document past
violations and to rescue the memory of the victims from oblivion’ (Mendez, 1997: 3). Also,
Sikkink underlines this:
2.60
other countries experienced repression as great as or greater than that in Argentina and
2.10 did not put forth the same vibrant response from both civil society and governmental
actors … In Argentina, social movements not only took advantage of existing opportunity
structures but also helped create them at both the domestic and the international levels
(2008: 2–3). 2.65

2.15 In this vein, the inquiry is aimed at not only acknowledging the participation of victims’
organizations in a state-run commission but arguing that these groups were the ones who
took a leading role, pressuring powerholders to be responsive to their concerns and to go
beyond their timid plans. Furthermore, the article will show that victims’ organizations 2.70
reach their goals by engaging with the state and civil society from a critical, proactive and
2.20 empowered position that moved the process forward over government resistance.
In sum, it will be argued that Argentina hosted the first successful truth commission
worldwide in what can be described as a victim-driven process. This means that the case
of Argentina and the leading role of victims’ organizations engaged with the state and 2.75
with civil society demonstrates how participatory democracy has been able to foster a
2.25 truth-seeking mechanism beyond the limits of realpolitik. On this basis, the article advo-
cates that when truth commissions are designed with inherent limitations or weaknesses,
the input of victims’ groups can fill relevant gaps.
This study is based on secondary literature while it also profits from the observations 2.80
made during the documentary analysis conducted in the archives of the victims’ organiza-
2.30 tions and Memoria Abierta (2022)—a network of human rights organizations that holds an
oral memory archive—between 2019 and 2022 (http://memoriaabierta.org.ar/wp/).
Building on this background, Part 2 will briefly discuss who were the actors targeted by
the dictatorship, who are defined as victims and how they formed a human rights move- 2.85
ment. Part 3 will assess the degree of success of the CONADEP based on Roht-Arriaza and
2.35 Popkin’s analysis while exploring these organizations’ essential roles in the development of
the truth commission. This section will argue that their critical position calls for labelling
this a victim-driven institution, opening the path toward a new theoretical and policy model
in post-atrocity confrontation. 2.90

2.40
2.  Victims’ organizations in Argentina: the seed of the human rights
movement
2.1  The particularities of the last dictatorship: the detained—the 2.95
disappeared and abducted children as the core victims
2.45 Like most Latin American countries, Argentinean democracy has been systematically inter-
rupted by electoral fraud and subsequent coups d’état throughout history. However, the
most recent dictatorship (1976–83) was different from previous ones, constituting a nota-
ble break in several ways. 2.100
In structural terms, the military junta brought about a drastic and destructive economic
2.50 transformation, including a seven-fold increase in the nation’s external debt and extreme
liberalization of the economy (Conte and Mignone 2006; Verbitsky and Bohoslavsky 2013).
Even though the coup was carried out by the military, the media and other corporations 2.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 3

supported and took advantage of the repression either by suppressing unions or by acquir-
ing assets from the regime’s victims (Payne et al. 2020).
The last dictatorship was also unusual in terms of the extension and the features of 3.55
its human rights violations: the Military Juntas carried out a systematic plan of unlawful
3.5 imprisonment of so-called ‘enemies’ in 340 clandestine detention centres spread throughout
the country where torture was carried out. In particular, the military enforced a plan of ‘dis-
appearances’, a term which was then used as a euphemism glossing over the experiences of
30,000 people kidnapped, tortured, and murdered, whose final whereabouts were never dis- 3.60
closed (Proyecto Desaparecidos 2018).1 The term ‘disappearances’ would be later codified
3.10 in the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Another
criminal innovation by the military was the operation to abduct at least 500 children from
pregnant women or young mothers detained and forcibly disappeared, and unlawfully give
them up for adoption under false identities (Luna 2003). 3.65

3.15 2.2  Who were/are the victims?

Two levels can be distinguished when looking into the definition of ‘victims’. On the one
hand, there is the normative and, from this standpoint, those affected by the crimes of the
dictatorship will be regarded as victims under international law and in domestic courts. In 3.70
Argentina, this category includes, as mentioned, the detainee-disappeared and the abducted
3.20 children, along with the murdered, the survivors from the clandestine centres, those forced
into exile, and the relatives of all these different parties. On the other hand, there is a
subjective dimension of victimhood that involves self-identification. As APDH (Asamblea
Permanente por los Derechos Humanos/Permanent Human Rights Assembly 2022) states: 3.75

3.25 Being a victim of state terrorism or any crime is not a choice of the affected person but
of whoever acts as the victimizer, in the case of human rights violations it is the State.
However, people who have been victims of human rights violations can choose to name
themselves as such or not, this must be considered when communicating. When giving 3.80
testimony, people can have different feelings, depending on their experiences and their
3.30 subjectivity (2019: 59).

Therefore, the question is how do organized relatives of the disappeared, murdered or the
abducted children, organized survivors from the concentration camps, those forced into 3.85
exile and the recovered children name themselves? The short answer is that most of them
3.35 rarely identify themselves as victims. When asked about victimhood, they refer to others
in the worst situation: those who have died, those who have experienced something even
worse than them, those who are currently experiencing a more terrible present, and those
who were tortured. Levi, a survivor, expressed it thus: 3.90

3.40 we, the survivors, are not the real witnesses … The demolition is finished, the task com-
plete, and there is no one to have told it, just like there is no one that returned to tell
about his death. Even if the drowned had had paper and pen, they would not have written
their testimony, because their true death had begun before their bodies perished. Weeks 3.95
and months before life left their bodies, they had already lost the power to observe, to
3.45
1  There is no official consensus on the final number of victims. Fernández Meijide, who was part of the
CONADEP, states that the Commission received 7,380 complaints, which became 8,960 with cases referred
by other bodies (Fernandez Meijide 2009). Brysk refers to ‘tens of thousands of disappeared Argentine citizens’ 3.100
(Brysk 1994: xii). However, human rights organizations insist that the figure is 30,000 because they have accu-
mulated information on 10,000 disappeared and 2,400 murdered, which constitute only a fraction of the total.
3.50 In many cases, the disappearance has not been reported because of fear, disconnection with the family, and lack
of information on where to report it, among other factors. Agencies insist that the only ones who know the real
number are those responsible for these human rights violations, but that the figure of 30,000 is a rough rep- 3.104
resentation of the actual number of people who disappeared (Proyecto Desaparecidos 2018).
 4 Vegh Weis

remember, to cherish, to express themselves. We speak for them. It has been delegated to
us (1989: 35–6).
4.55
An opportunity to openly discuss the victim label occurred when the government set up a
4.5 commission to plan a memorial in Buenos Aires City in 2001. Some participants identified
themselves as familiares de las víctimas (relatives of the victims), others as compañeros de
militancia (fellow activists), sobrevivientes de la dictadura (survivors of the dictatorship),
and even miembros de la generación del 70 (members of the 1970s generation). Many oth- 4.60
ers chose to identify under current professional identities, such as senator, deputy or expert.
4.10 There were many disagreements among the participants about who to remember and how
to name them, but there was common ground about applying the term victims and more
particularly víctimas del terrorismo de Estado (victims of state terrorism) only to those
murdered or disappeared (Vecchioli 2005). 4.65
More broadly, most groups make direct reference to their collective, for example mem-
4.15 bers of Madres de Plaza de Mayo identify themselves as Madres (mothers). Interestingly,
many identify themselves as part of the even broader network that encompasses all the
organizations dealing with the crimes of the dictatorship, under the label organismos de
derechos humanos (human rights organisms/agencies/bodies). The word choice is interest- 4.70
ing: the Spanish Real Academy defines organismos as 1. an assembly of animal or vegetable
4.20 organs and the laws that rule them; 2. Vital entity, 3. Set of laws, uses and traditions that
rule a social institutional body (Diccionario de la lengua Española 2022). This word, there-
fore, highlights the collective nature of the organization, which is composed of individuals
that form it, and at the same time are sustained by it. An organismo is also alive and it 4.75
continues expansion.
4.25 Some variations of the term include the notion of organismos de afectados (organisms of
affected/concerned people), which specifically refers to those groups whose members have
a family relation to someone who was murdered, disappeared, or abducted by the Military
Juntas. In turn, the organismos de no afectados attracted direct victims and relatives of 4.80
victims but also professionals/activists with expertise in human rights. Even when in both
4.30 type of groups, victims are at the core of the organizations, the first groups were char-
acterized by more direct actions (demonstrations, petitions), while the latter were more
concerned with strategic politics (meetings with authorities, strategic litigation) (Jelin and
Azcárate 1991). 4.85
The organismos de afectados include Madres (Madres de Plaza de Mayo/Mothers of
4.35 Plaza de Mayo), formed in April 1977 by the mothers of those forcibly disappeared, who
publicly demanded that the government inform them of the whereabouts of their children
and who fought nationally and internationally to find them, often alive; Abuelas (Abuelas
de Plaza de Mayo/Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo), formed in 1977 as a break-off group 4.90
from Mothers, specifically organized by those whose grandchildren were born before or
4.40 during the detention of their daughters and sons, abducted by the military and given to
connected families under false identities; and Familiares (Familiares de Desaparecidos
y Detenidos por Razones Políticas/Relatives of Disappeared and Detainees for Political
Motives), composed of direct relatives of enforced disappeared and political prisoners.2 4.95
In this vein, the leader of Abuelas refers to: ‘Us … the “organismos de afectados …”’. She
4.45 clarifies that, as an organismo de afectados, ‘we do not have a political party, we have a
human rights policy’. This self-identification is powerful as it has to do with putting in the
forefront of their identity the relevance of the collective and the activism over the victim
label attached to the specific harm they suffered. 4.100

4.50 2  After the creation of the CONADEP, other organismos de afectados were created. The main ones are the
AEDD (Asociación de Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos/Association of Former Detainees-Disappeared) and HIJOS
(Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio/Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice
against Oblivion and Silence). 4.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 5

Interestingly, the other organismos (known as organismos de no afectados/organisms of

the non-affected) involve persons not targeted by state violence who nevertheless contrib-
uted in important ways with the organizations. However, it is still victims who hold and 5.55
have historically held the important roles within the network. In other words, even the
5.5 organismos de no afectados, included—and were even led—by people who were directly
targeted by the dictatorship or whose relatives were unlawfully imprisoned, murdered or
disappeared. However, the main difference is that members of these organismos de no afec-
tados or de afectados indirectos choose to put their legal expertise or religious or social 5.60
membership as their main identity.
5.10 To exemplify, most of APDH’s founding members were victims themselves (such as
Alfredo Bravo and Adolfo Perez Esquivel) or relatives of disappeared (for example Emilio
Mignone and Augusto Conte Mac Donell). However, the identity of the organization was
not based upon family relationships or victimhood but on political, social and religious 5.65
affiliations in the defence of a liberal-democratic position. As the APDH website clarifies,
5.15 the organization was formed to ‘detain the para-military group and defend democracy’
(APDH).
Similarly, CELS (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales/Centre for Legal and Social
Studies) was formed by parents of disappeared or detained children or victims themselves 5.70
(Emilio and Chela Mignone, Augusto Conte, Elida and Alfredo Galletti, Boris Pasik,
5.20 Carmen Lapacó, Jose Westerkamp and Noemí Labrune) but, as with APDH, CELS mem-
bers presented themselves as human rights lawyers and politicians rather than victims.
SERPAJ (Servicio Paz y Justicia/ Service Peace and Justice) has been led by Perez Esquivel,
who was detained and tortured but chose to identify himself and the organization as part 5.75
of a continent-wide non-violent ecumenical Christian movement committed to liberation
5.25 theology.
To sum up, there are different labels that deserve attention but, overall, it is possible
to affirm that the Argentinean organizations were mainly composed of (direct and indi-
rect) victims—as defined by international law and domestic reparations laws—who chose 5.80
to identify themselves either as victims, survivors, relatives of victims, social or political
5.30 experts or representatives, or in reference to their network (‘I am a member of …’), and
who unified their struggle under human rights language.

5.85
3.  Unpacking the role of the victims in the path toward the first
5.35 successful truth commission
Following Roht-Arriaza and Popkin (1995), an effective truth commission must fulfil
four requirements: issue an authoritative historical record, implement its mandate, foster
accountability and achieve redress for victims. 5.90
Regarding the first requirement, the commission must compile and present an authorita-
5.40 tive historical record of the scope, means, and victims of the perpetrated human rights vio-
lations. This full and unbiased record will counter the deceptions and justifications of the
perpetrators and establish a line between past and present. How this challenging task can
be accomplished depends on the composition of the commission and its scope and method 5.95
of investigation. A successful investigatory commission must appoint members who are
5.45 independent of all contested actors and parties, and who represent a moral authority. In
terms of scope and methodology, the final report must cover the principal crimes within the
appointed period under research, include fact-finding methods, provide detailed evidence,
and expose overall patterns and explanations to counter denial. 5.100
Second, an effective commission must include a proper design and implement the issued
5.50 recommendations. Third, it must contribute to establishing individual as well as institu-
tional accountability by naming names (that is publicizing the names of the perpetrators),
and/or turning the evidence over to the regular courts for prosecution. 5.104
 6 Vegh Weis

Finally, according to Roht-Arriaza and Popkin, a successful commission must gain

redress for victims and achieve reconciliation. While the authors relate reconciliation with
forgiveness, this goal can be understood, following Salvioli, as a result of accountability. In 6.55
this sense, reconciliation relates to:
6.5
the reconstruction of trust between the State—the guarantor of individual rights—and
society. This trust can only be achieved when the State upholds its legal and institu-
tional obligations. The enforcement of criminal sanctions is a vital tool for the reconcil- 6.60
iation of society with the State and does not hinder the personal forgiveness of victims
6.10 (Salvioli 2019).

In this vein, a vital requirement for a successful truth commission is to contribute to

accountability and ensure that the evidence gathered is made accessible to civil society 6.65
to send the message that human rights violations have occurred and that this will not be
6.15 tolerated ever again. In other words, based on Salvioli’s understanding of the notion of rec-
onciliation suggested by Roht-Arriaza and Popkin, the fourth requirement of a successful
truth commission can be articulated as the engagement of civil society with the rule of law
toward non-repetition. 6.70
Based on this analysis, the following section will unpack the work of the CONADEP and
6.20 the role of the victims’ organizations toward the accomplishment of the four requirements.

3.1  Issuing an authoritative historical report

3.1.1 Composition of CONADEP 6.75
Already in the early post-dictatorship context, survivors and relatives of the victims pushed
6.25 for a bicameral parliamentary inquiry commission to investigate state terror (Crenzel
2012). They demanded that the commission have coercive powers to subpoena the military,
conduct inspections without a warrant, seize documents, call witnesses, temporarily detain
the accused, submit evidence to the courts and politically condemn state terror. Moreover, 6.80
victims’ organizations argued that the commission should be comprised of newly elected
6.30 members of Congress to ensure its democratic composition.
Augusto Conte—a father of a disappeared detainee, member of the APDH and found-
ing member of CELS—was elected as a congressman in the pioneering democratic elec-
tions of 1983 and wielded his political power to formally push for the establishment of 6.85
the parliamentary commission. He succeeded in gaining support from the Peronists (then
6.35 the main opposition party) and from some members of the ruling Radical Party, a histor-
ical party committed to social-democratic values that were extensively supported by the
middle class.
However, the recently elected President, Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín, who belonged to the 6.90
Radical Party, rejected the proposal. He feared that a bicameral commission would lead
6.40 legislators to try to outcompete one another in imposing harsher punishments, revive polit-
ical confrontation and open the door to unrestricted criminal prosecution (Nino 1997).
These outcomes were considered too risky, the government argued, in the extremely tense
political context which demanded the prioritizing of democratic stability (Gorini 2006). 6.95
Instead, Alfonsín aspired to create a mechanism over which he could have political control,
6.45 and which would lead to a report naming those who were forcibly disappeared, but not
much more (Crenzel 2010).
With this goal in mind, the government decided to proceed with a watered-down version
of the political component of the victims’ proposal by naming ‘well-respected’ members 6.100
of society (rather than members of Congress). In this vein, the government’s final deci-
6.50 sion was to dismiss the victims’ proposal of a parliamentary inquiry and instead created
a special commission without a parliamentary basis and whose members were directly
appointed by the President. This proposal was modelled on the civil society commissions 6.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 7

set up by the US Congress to deal with specific issues, in disregard of the discouraging
experiences of past national commissions that investigated enforced disappearances in
Uganda and Bolivia.3 7.55
Following this, via executive order 187/83 issued on 15 December 1983, the President
7.5 created the CONADEP. It was led by Ernesto Sábato (a writer) along with Jaime de Nevares
(a bishop and APDH member), Marshall Meyer (a rabbi and founding member of the
Jewish Movement for Human Rights (Movimiento Judío por los Derechos Humanos/
MJDH), an organization created in 1983 in opposition to traditional Jewish institutions, 7.60
who failed to support Jewish victims during the dictatorship), Ricardo Colombres (a
7.10 Supreme Court judge), René Favaloro (a cardiologist and pioneer in heart-bypass surgery),
Hilario Fernández Long (an educator), Carlos Gattinoni (a bishop and founding APDH
member), Gregorio Klimovsky (a scientist and APDH member), Eduardo Rabossi (a phi-
losopher and APDH member), Magdalena Ruiz Guiñazú (a journalist committed to human 7.65
rights), Santiago Marcelino López (a congressperson and former defence attorney for polit-
7.15 ical prisoners), Hugo Diógenes Piucill (a congressperson and APDH member) and Horacio
Hugo Huarte (a congressperson, teacher and lawyer).
The Alfonsín government not only rejected the victims’ proposal of a parliamentary
inquiry but also created CONADEP without informing them. When they were finally made 7.70
aware of the initiative, the victims requested an urgent meeting with the President (Gorini
7.20 2006). Not only did they criticize the nature of the organization, but they also pointed
out that as a result of the government selecting the commission’s members without formal
consultation, there was no opportunity for vetting. This was particularly sensitive as some
of the appointed commissioners, including its president, Ernesto Sábato, had been accused 7.75
of compliance with the dictatorship. Among the strongest voices opposing CONADEP was
7.25 that of Hebe de Bonafini, the leader of Madres, who argued ‘I do not agree with the fact
that the people are appointed by the President and not by the popular vote as would happen
in a parliamentary commission.’ (Verbitsky 1987; 52).
In turn, Augusto Conte and Emilio Mignone from CELS and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, 7.80
Nobel Peace Laureate and head of SERPAJ, turned down an invitation to join CONADEP.
7.30 SERPAJ’s leader explained ‘I told Alfonsín I would not join CONADEP because I was
convinced that we needed to send all the gathered information to the federal courts. Because
he did not accept this, I did not take part in the commission’ (Verbitsky 1987: 52).
Following these exchanges and at least in the first moments of the commission, every 7.85
victims’ organization except for APDH and MJDH (whose leaders joined the body) rejected
7.35 the newly created mechanism because of its mandate and composition and derided it as an
insufficient step. As far as party politics, the Peronist party also rejected the commission
and, thus only the three above-mentioned congresspeople from the Radical Party partici-
pated (López, Piucill and Huarte).4 7.90
Moreover, on the same day the creation of CONADEP was announced, Madres called
7.40 for a demonstration at the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the seat of the President, which
would be their first protest under democratic rule. In this symbolic act, whereby victims’
organizations denounced the recently elected democratic government, Hebe de Bonafini
noted, ‘I cannot see how a group of people can successfully investigate without enormous 7.95

7.45
3  In Uganda, the Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearance of People in Uganda on the 25th of January
1971, was created by President Idi Amin in 1974, and in Bolivia, the Comisión Nacional de Investigación de
Desaparecidos was created in October 1982 by the constitutional president, Hernán Siles Suazo. The report
issued by the Ugandan Commission was kept secret because it attributed responsibility for the crimes to state 7.100
officials, while the Bolivian Commission did not finish its inquiry.
4  Interestingly, parliamentary commissions were settled in the provinces of Chaco and Tucuman. In Chaco,
7.50 it was entitled Human Rights Commission of Deputy Chambers (Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Cámara
de Diputados). In Tucuman, the commission was created on 22 February 1984, had representatives from both
chambers and oversaw receiving testimonies, interviewing the human rights organizations, inspecting places run 7.104
by the military and the police, and summoning the accused.
 8 Vegh Weis

enforcement powers’ (Gorini 2006: 70). In the same vein, the Madres newsletter from
February 1984 clarified their stance under the title ‘Why we keep going to the Plaza’:
8.55
As citizens and mothers of the disappeared detainees, we have participated and will con-
8.5 tinue actively participating in this nascent democracy … This active participation involves
supporting the constitutional government without hesitation … but it also involves
expressing our discrepancies … It is healthy and necessary to exercise critical support …
This is why we will continue to go to the Plaza every Thursday. This is why we insist on 8.60
the need to create a bicameral parliamentary commission as Parliament, whose chambers
8.10 represent the people, is the appropriate setting to consider a problem that affects the entire
population (Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo 1984: 3).

Nevertheless, their demands proved unsuccessful as the government preferred dealing with 8.65
the victims’ groups in opposition than creating an arguably politicized commission that, in
8.15 its understanding, could have endangered Argentina’s fragile democracy. In turn, because,
as Androff Jr. argues, the role of the state is fundamental to achieving legitimacy, status,
visibility and recognition in official transitional justice projects (Androff 2012), most of
the Argentine victims’ organizations, except Madres, then decided to leave their demands 8.70
for a parliamentary commission aside and push forward for a broader mandate that could
8.20 ensure truth-seeking and a basis for accountability within the established truth commission.
From then on, victims’ organizations not only accepted the government proposal and
provided external aid but also became part of the commission’s composition, in what might
be described as a ‘porosity mechanism’. This means that victims’ organizations preserved 8.75
their independence, avoided being politically co-opted and continued to hold public pro-
8.25 tests and events as a central part of their work, as well as engaging with the governmen-
tal structure to advance their claims, with the result that the victims’ groups penetrated
the state. As mentioned, Marshall Meyer, a member of APDH and founding member of
MJDH, and Bishop Jaime de Nevares, an APDH member, joined CONADEP. Furthermore, 8.80
Raúl Aragón, an APDH member, Alberto Mansur, an exile himself, and Graciela Fernández
8.30 Meijide, mother of a disappeared detainee and APDH member, were appointed as the heads
of three CONADEP departments or secretariats, and they also brought in volunteers from
other victims’ organizations. In total, 100 members of the personnel of the CONADEP
came from victims’ groups (Alfonsín, 2009). 8.85
From inside and outside of the commission, the essential supporting role of the victims
8.35 reveals how ‘despite an unstable political and institutional context, governments and civil
society organizations (particularly human rights organizations) can collaborate with the
state in the search for the truth without risking their crucial independence’ (Crenzel 2013a).
Moreover, the involvement of victims served to back up the members of the commission 8.90
against the backlash by junta-connected groups, including harassment and individual
8.40 threats faced by the commissioners and personnel, along with later several attempted coups
(Quiroga, 2011).
Overall, the victims’ demands for a commission composed of parliamentary members
and for a thorough vetting process were not fulfilled. However, they still engaged with the 8.95
work of the commission through a two-pronged strategy: to actively cooperate with the
8.45 CONADEP while exercising pressure to push its mandate further.

3.1.2  Scope and methodology of the report

3.1.2.1 Fact-finding mission 8.100
To push the CONADEP to go beyond its original narrow scope, Madres, Abuelas,
8.50 Familiares and CELS published a solicitada (press release) in Clarín, a mainstream newspa-
per, demanding that the commission include a fact-finding mission, investigating all leads
indicating that the forcibly disappeared were still alive (Gorini 2006). Responding to this 8.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 9

pressure, CONADEP’s first measure was to audit prisons and hospitals in search of the
disappeared detainees. The commission also changed the course of its inquiry and publicly
announced that they would not only accept victim testimonies but would also identify those 9.55
believed to be responsible for the enforced disappearances so that these individuals could
9.5 explain the events in court, linking the search for truth to eventual justice (Crenzel 2013).
Additionally, while CONADEP was responsible for conducting the exhumation of
mass graves, the forensic authorities and cemetery workers who conducted them had little
knowledge of the appropriate archaeological and anthropological techniques, leading to 9.60
the destruction of evidence. Abuelas immediately urged the commission to contact Eric
9.10 Stover, director of the Science and Human Rights Program at the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, who they had met during a prior visit to the USA and
who was himself a victim, having been briefly detained by the security forces in Argentina
(Arditti 1999). In turn, Stover contacted the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, which 9.65
appointed two experts to aid CONADEP: Clyde Snow, a celebrated forensic anthropologist
9.15 known for identifying the remains of the fugitive Nazi Josef Mengele in Brazil, and Marie-
Claire King, a geneticist working on the development of grand-paternity tests.
In June 1984, they visited the country along with a delegation of US experts invited by
the commission (CONADEP 1984). In Argentina, they trained local professionals in the 9.70
opening of tombs, the removal of skeletons, and the determination of the cause of death,
9.20 pregnancy, and delivery in the exhumated bodies. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology
Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense/EAAF) was then created, becoming the
first group of forensic experts devoted exclusively to human rights work (Madariaga and
Veiga 2004). 9.75
Thanks to the work of the EAAF, exhumations and DNA have become a viable way of
9.25 revealing the truth via the recovery of abducted grandchildren and the identification of
the remains of the disappeared detainees. These efforts have transformed the nature of the
disappearances (where the location of the victims was previously unknown) and have pro-
vided evidence for future legal prosecution. The work of the EAAF also helped consolidate 9.80
an authoritative record of the past. Here it is important to note that the dictatorship’s nar-
9.30 rative stated that Argentina had gone through a ‘dirty war’ in which leftists and the military
confronted one another on equal terms. However, the reality was that unarmed activists
were detained, tortured, disappeared and extrajudicially killed.
To establish these facts, victims’ organizations determined that the general public 9.85
accepted forensic science as being objective, untainted by politics, and therefore an arbiter
9.35 of truth. They, therefore, released the scientific evidence they had collected, such as DNA
identification of bodies from mass graves (with 99.9 per cent accuracy), to expose the true
nature of state terror and the systematic perpetration of crimes (Rosenblatt 2015). This
process was however not without difficulties. Even while most victims’ organizations sup- 9.90
ported the work of the EAAF, Madres understood that the exhumations had transformed
9.40 social activists into dejected bodies, opposed their continuation and counter-proposed
to ‘remember [those disappeared] as living and thriving idealists, rebels and dreamers’
(Iramain 2017: 43).
9.95
3.1.2.2 Testimony gathering and organization of the information
9.45 In August 1983, while the military was still in power, victims’ organizations had already
formed the grassroots organization Technical Commission of Data Collection (Comisión
Técnica de Recopilación de Datos) to systematize information from their databases in a
common archive. The Technical Commission was led by the CELS and included the APDH, 9.100
Familiares, Abuelas, and the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights (Movimiento
9.50 Ecuménico por los Derechos Humanos/MEDH). The MEDH, created in 1976, was nota-
bly composed of members of different Christian congregations united by the paradigm of
human rights who worked in the defence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 9.104
 10 Vegh Weis

Conversely, Madres and the Argentine Human Rights League (Liga Argentina por los
Derechos del Hombre/Liga) decided against taking part (Varsky and Balardini 2017) The
Liga had been formed long before the coup, on 20 December 1937, as Argentina’s first 10.55
human rights organization, particularly devoted to the defence of political prisoners.
10.5 In their first meeting, CONADEP members acknowledged the value of the work that
victims’ organizations had done until then and decided to request the data collected by
the Technical Commission. Moreover, the APDH alone had gathered another 5,580 tes-
timonies during the dictatorship and thousands of complaints filed before the IACHR, 10.60
the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN Human Rights Division, Amnesty
10.10 International and other INGOs. To this is added that the testimonies were organized based
on the CELS’ Global Parallel Theory (Teoría del paralelismo global, 1981), which revealed
the systematic nature of the Latin American repression based on clandestine detention cen-
tres (Conte and Mignone 2006). 10.65
Having received the data from the Technical Commission, CONADEP also decided to
10.15 follow the CELS system, organizing the information according to the clandestine detention
centre. This systemization was essential to uncovering the dictatorship’s secret nature by
exposing the location and features of its clandestine operations. Moreover, this strategy
revealed the federal structure of state terror, identified those responsible for each centre and 10.70
organized and accelerated eventual court cases per jurisdiction. Their approach to conduct-
10.20 ing trials has been utilized through the present, bringing together common cases, perpetra-
tors, and evidence to facilitate investigations.
Furthermore, this classification approach has helped reveal the specifics of particular
clandestine detention centres, including that the Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy 10.75
(Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada/ESMA) was used as a torture centre specifically devoted
10.25 to pregnant women and that a mechanic shop, Automotores Orletti, was used to hold
detainees from neighbouring countries. In addition, based on the organization of the testi-
monies provided by the above organizations, Chapter II of the CONADEP report divided
victims according to their demographic category, including abducted children and pregnant 10.80
women, teenagers, families, and disabled people. This helped to counter the military’s nar-
10.30 rative characterizing the disappeared detainees as violent and armed leftist activists.
Overall, the CONADEP not only benefitted from victims’ testimonies but also from the
information’s categorization according to demographic and clandestine detention centres.
Indeed, they went little further e in scope than the inputs that the victims’ groups were mak- 10.85
ing, such that Hebe de Bonafini, leader of Madres, argued: ‘We still do not know anything
10.35 new, anything that we did not already know based on our research; receiving the testimo-
nies gathered by the victims’ organizations is not investigating; we want the commission to
investigate’ (Gorini 2006: 157). Hebe continued:
10.90
CONADEP is only gathering [information on] what relatives and victims have denounced
10.40 since the very beginning [of the dictatorship] … what we want is to find a way to know
what happened to our people, to know who said that they had to disappear, to know who
made them disappear, to know who killed them. This is essential—knowing who killed
them (Gorini 2006: 191). 10.95

10.45
3.1.2.3 Federal scope and victims in exile
Victims’ groups also offered their offices throughout the country so that the commission
could work in the provinces, particularly in Bahia Blanca, Mar del Plata and Cordoba. 10.100
Familiares and MEDH also provided personnel. Liga and Familiares asked their members
10.50 from the different provinces to come forward and provide additional testimonies, while
Abuelas helped to coordinate the search for missing children. In contrast, Madres asked
10.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 11

their members to refrain from providing testimonies, although some mothers decided to
do it anyway. Victims’ organizations also worked to gather additional testimonies outside
the country with the support of peer organizations in Europe, the USA and other Latin 11.55
American countries. Moreover, they attracted the support of international human rights
11.5 organizations, and international press coverage, allowing them to gather donations and
receive funding to travel abroad and receive the testimonies of those in exile, thus engaging
the diaspora (Castellanos Morales 2005).
11.60
3.2  Design and Implementation of the Commission
11.10 The CONADEP invited the victims’ organizations to suggest recommendations and all of
them were included in the final part of the report (Crenzel 2008). Based on the victims’
inputs, the CONADEP recommended (a) creating a body to continue with the work of
the commission, particularly in terms of organizing the existing evidence and sending it to 11.65
criminal courts to ensure accountability; (b) encouraging the judiciary to engage in these
11.15 accountability efforts; (c) enacting the necessary regulations to ensure reparations for the
children and/or relatives of the detainee-disappeared; (d) passing regulations: 1. to estab-
lish forced disappearance as a crime against humanity; 2. to support international human
rights; 3. to establish human rights as part of the educational training of law enforcement 11.70
agencies; 4. to support the judiciary to investigate the perpetrated human rights violations;
11.20 5. to repeal all existing repressive legislation.
(a) In terms of the creation of a body to continue with the work of the commission, the
government formed an agency to organize the collected evidence, submit the forthcoming
denouncements and information to the courts, identify the body remains that were to be 11.75
found, and search for the abducted children. The body was created on 20 September 1984
11.25 (two days after the presentation of the CONADEP report), named the Sub-Secretariat of
Human and Social Rights and was placed within the Ministry of Interior (Guembe 2004;
Sikkink 2008). The first head of the body was the APDH member Eduardo Rabossi while
the following heads were also engaged with the different victims’ organizations to the point 11.80
that the current head is Horacio Pietragalla Corti, a member of Abuelas and abducted
11.30 grandchild himself.
(b) Concerning the encouragement of the judiciary to engage in accountability efforts, it
is relevant to highlight that the Military Juntas issued, in April 1983 before leaving power,
the ‘Documento final de la Junta militar sobre la guerra contra la subversión y el terrorismo’ 11.85
(Final Document of the Military Junta about the War against Subversion and Terrorism),
11.35 rejecting the accusations against them and arguing that only God could judge their actions.
The victims’ organizations responded by demanding ‘juicio y castigo a todos los culpables’
(trial and punishment for all the guilty) (Crenzel 2008).
Following this lead, and after the failure of the military tribunals to judge the Military 11.90
Junta, the government ended up submitting the cases to civil courts (Franco 2015). A civil
11.40 court hosted a massive trial, Juicio a las Juntas (Junta Trials) and, based on the testimonies
of the victims who decided to speak despite the dangers, convicted the members of the
Military Juntas and acknowledged that they had carried out a systematic extermination
plan (Nino 1997). As Sikkink clarifies: 11.95

11.45 No previous trials of the leaders of authoritarian regimes for human rights violations
during their governments had ever been held in Latin America. Globally, if we focus on
countries holding their leaders responsible for past human rights violations, the only prec-
edents to the Argentine trials of the Juntas were successor trials after World War II and 11.100
the trials of the Greek colonels in 1974 in Greece. In this sense, just as the Argentine truth
11.50 commission initiated the cascade of truth commissions, the Argentine trials of the Juntas
also initiated the modern cascade of transitional justice trials (Sikkink 2008: 14).
11.104
 12 Vegh Weis

The government’s commitment to justice did not last long. After the Easter military uprising
(Masi Rius and Pretel Eraso 2007), the victims’ organizations started to denounce rumoured
plans for impunity, which became a reality when parliament passed two laws aimed at 12.55
obstructing further justice: the Full Stop Law and the Due Obedience Law (Llonto 2019).5
12.5 From then on and during thirty years of impunity, the victims’ organizations embraced cre-
ativity to foster alternative paths to ensure some level of accountability. This included the
truth trials, the trials against those who abducted children, the honour trials and universal
jurisdiction (Vegh Weis 2017). It was only in 2003, during the government of President 12.60
Nestor Kirchner (2003–7), that parliament repealed the impunity laws and in 2005 that
12.10 the Supreme Court declared those laws unconstitutional in a case that had been initiated
by Abuelas in 1998. Criminal trials have been ongoing since then, and more than 1,000
perpetrators have been convicted.6
(c) Regarding the enactment of the necessary regulations to ensure reparations for the 12.65
children and/or relatives of the detainee-disappeared (c), the government passed Law
12.15 23.466/86. Article 1 established a pension system for those people whose parents were
forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship. Further and more comprehensive reparation
programmes would follow (Guembe 2004).
(d.1) As soon as Alfonsín took office in December 1983, 193,326 people signed a doc- 12.70
ument demanding the establishment of forced disappearance as a crime against humanity.
12.20 A total of 15,000 people led by the victims’ organizations marched toward parliament
to present it. Because no government official was willing to meet the crowd, they started
chanting: ‘Alfonsín, Alfonsín, vos sos el presidente, hace que los milicos devuelvan a nuestra
gente’ (‘Alfonsín, Alfonsín, you are the president, make the military return our people’) 12.75
(Verbitsky 1987: 100).
12.25 It was only in 2001 that the government passed Act 25,390 implementing the Rome
Statute which, in Article 7, establishes enforced disappearance as a crime against human-
ity. It was necessary to wait even longer, until 13 April 2011, for parliament to criminalize
enforced disappearance in domestic legislation. Act 26,679 introducing Article 142 ter 12.80
in the Penal Code was only passed as a result of the sentencing of the Inter-American
12.30 Court of Human Rights in the case 12,533, Iván Eladio Torres v. Argentina (Heredia and
Heredia 2022).
(d.2) Within the first bills submitted to parliament, Alfonsín included the ratification
of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International 12.85
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which establishes the jurisdiction of
12.35 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The victims’ organizations were the driving
force behind this initiative and when the law was discussed ‘the white handkerchiefs of the
Madres were hanging in the parliament’ (Verbitsky 1987: 43). Law 23,054 was ratified on
14 August 1984. 12.90
(d.3) The establishment of human rights as part of the educational training of law enforce-
12.40 ment agencies was only partly attempted due to the constraint of the military function
to defend the borders against foreign enemies and their exclusion from domestic security
issues (Sain 2022). More specific human rights training was only imposed after 2005 (Rutz
2002). Meanwhile, since the return of democracy, APDH and CELS became the organiza- 12.95
tions in charge of the vetting process when military members aimed for a promotion or a
12.45 political position (CELS 2006; 2016).
(d.4) Concerning supporting the judiciary to investigate the perpetrated human rights
violations, victims’ organizations and particularly Abuelas were behind the development
12.100
5  In December 1986, Congress passed Act 23,492 (Full Stop Act/Ley de Punto Final) which imposed a dead-
12.50 line to present new cases for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Act 23,521 (Due Obedience Act/Ley de
Obediencia Debida) gave immunity to everyone below the rank of Colonel.
6  Ministerio Público Fiscal (MPF 2022), ‘Estado actual del proceso de juzgamiento: hubo 256 sentencias y 12.104
1030 condenados en causas por crímenes de lesa humanidad’. Lesa Humanidad.
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 13

of the two main tools deployed by the courts to gather evidence on the crimes of the dicta-
torship: the creation of a genetic bank to gather DNA from the relatives of the disappeared
in order to find abducted children (created by Act 23,511 in 1987) (Abuelas de Plaza de 13.55
Mayo n.d.) and the Argentinean Team of Forensic Anthropology already mentioned above.
13.5 (d.5) Finally, in terms of the repeal of all existing repressive legislation, the government
of Alfonsín nullified the amnesty act issued by the Military Junta and declared it uncon-
stitutional on 22 December 1983. Further revision of laws enacted during the dictatorship
has been ongoing. 13.60

13.10 3.3  Accountability

3.3.1 Naming names
Members of the CONADEP and the government were reluctant to name perpetrators and,
instead, aimed at a short accountability process, only identifying high-ranking officials to 13.65
avoid further reprisals from the military (Gorini 2008). Nevertheless, pressure from the
13.15 victims made it possible to include the names of perpetrators in the sizable secret report
submitted to the President (Mignone 1991). Furthermore, as a result of this pressure, a
list of 1,351 people who collaborated with the regime, including members of the Catholic
Church hierarchy, was included in the public report (Castellanos Morales 2005). 13.70
Thanks to victims’ testimonies, the CONADEP report also included cases where civilians
13.20 and companies who abetted the dictatorship were noted. In the case of the Ledesma sugar
corporation, for example, the testimony of survivor Humberto Campos made it possible to
account for the events of 27 July 1976, when, amid a general black-out, uniformed troops
detained more than 200 workers from the sugar company and took them to the Guerrero 13.75
clandestine detention centre, where they were tortured; 70 remain disappeared (Payne et
13.25 al. 2019).

3.3.2 Prosecutions
Despite the impunity laws, the victims’ work enabled a path toward justice through the 13.80
above-mentioned mechanisms, including truth trials, universal jurisdiction, honour trials
13.30 and cases against those who abducted children—which had not been contemplated in the
impunity laws. Moreover, as a result of these efforts, Argentina not only engaged in pros-
ecutions but became a leading example of what has been called a ‘human rights cascade,’
a drastic impetus for prosecutions, accountability, and human rights enforcement in the 13.85
region and even globally (Sikkink 2008).
13.35
3.4  Engagement of civil society with the rule of law toward non-repetition
The CONADEP did not end its work with the investigations but ensured that the outcomes
became accessible to civil society to strengthen the message that human rights violations 13.90
would not be tolerated ever again. In this vein, after seven months of intense collaborative
13.40 work between victims’ networks and the commission, a 90-minute documentary film, based
on the results of the investigation, was broadcast on national television on 4 July 1984
and seen by 1.6 million people (CONADEP 1984). The film was based on the testimonies
of members of the victims’ organizations, including the President and Vice-President of 13.95
Abuelas, Estela Carlotto and Chicha Mariani, and members of Madres.
13.45 Furthermore, two and a half months after its broadcast, on 20 September, CONADEP,
accompanied by the victims’ organizations (except for Madres and SERPAJ), delivered their
50,000-page secret report to the President of Argentina. A demonstration comprised of
70,000 people accompanied the handover and, under the leadership of the victims, not only 13.100
celebrated the report but demanded further action under the motto ‘trial and punishment to
13.50 all the guilty’ (juicio y castigo a todos los culpables) (Robben 2005).
A shortened version of the report was published in November 1984 under the name
Never Again. Report of CONADEP (Nunca más. Informe de la CONADEP), titled as 13.104
 14 Vegh Weis

such presumably on the initiative of Marshall Meyer, who was inspired by the phrase’s use
during the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi Germany. Never Again included 8,960 cases of
forced disappearance and opened the door for more cases to come forward based on fur- 14.55
ther recollection of the evidence. Based on the information provided by victims, the report
14.5 included a list of 340 clandestine detention centres coordinated by high-ranking mem-
bers of the security forces. The report also presented the demographics of the disappeared
detainees: 80 per cent of the victims were between 21 and 35 years old and these were
mostly students or belonged to the unionized working class. 14.60
Even after the conclusion of CONADEP’s work in 1984, the role of the victims con-
14.10 tinued to be key to legitimizing the findings and establishing them as the authoritative
record, preventing counter-narratives which sought to deny the crimes. Indeed, when the
Never Again report was released, victims helped in its dissemination. Its distribution was so
broad that the report became a best-seller: first published in November of 1984, 190,000 14.65
copies were sold in only the following four months. The report was also translated into
14.15 German, Hebrew, English, Italian, and Portuguese (Crenzel 2013). In contrast to the secret
outcome of the earlier truth commission in Uganda, the widespread public dissemination
of CONADEP’s findings, supported by victims’ organizations, made it possible to spread
awareness of the events throughout Argentinian society. 14.70
Moreover, while praising the final report, victims did not abandon their critical role. They
14.20 continued to highlight the fact that there were no formal consultations or opportunities
to vet the commission’s members, that the final number of cases gathered was fewer than
9,000, in contrast to the number of 30,000 disappeared detainees agreed upon by the vic-
tims’ organizations, and that the inquiry was restricted to enforced disappearances and did 14.75
not include the dictatorship’s numerous other human rights violations. In addition, because
14.25 the published report did not mention the names of the perpetrators (which, as mentioned,
only appeared in the secret report submitted to the President), victims independently circu-
lated a list in the journal El Periodista de Buenos Aires (Mignone 1991).
Furthermore, victims continued to rely on different strategies to strengthen the author- 14.80
itative record of the commission and counter-discourses that supported the ‘two-sides’ or
14.30 ‘two-evils’ theory of warfare, supported by some government officials. This thesis claimed
that there were two belligerents (armed leftist organizations and the dictatorship) that were
equally responsible for the violence. This notion was propped up by the military to justify
their crimes, and later by some members of the democratic government to try to appease 14.85
military discontent. Indeed, in the television presentation of the report Never Again, the
14.35 Minister of the Interior, Antonio Tróccoli, argued that violence was initiated by ‘subversion
and terrorism’ which was ‘matched by state terror’. Additionally, in the introduction to
the published report, he once again stated his support for the two-side theory although he
admitted the sides were not equally matched: ‘the Military responded with a type of terror- 14.90
ism that was endlessly worse than the one they tried to fight’ (Crenzel 2008).
14.40 Rejecting this theory, the victims argued that the dictatorship did indeed commit human
rights violations, profiting from the infrastructure of the state and working against civil
society and that, therefore, the two sides did not share an equal balance of power (Veiga
2007). They argued that the dictatorship’s repression could not, in any way, be justified as 14.95
a response to the leftist violence that preceded it. Moreover, as was clear from the demo-
14.45 graphic data of the victims presented throughout the published CONADEP report, the
disappeared detainees were mostly students and members of the working class, revealing
that the dictatorship was not attempting to eliminate leftist guerrillas as they claimed, but
rather sought to discipline all of society (Ministerio de Educación de la Nación Argentina 14.100
2010). Furthermore, as the victims claimed, the two-evils theory was also problematic
14.50 because it presented two sides as ‘guilty’, leaving society in the role of an ‘innocent public’,
but the state’s crimes were too heinous to have been completely unknown to millions of
Argentineans. 14.104
 Exploring the World’s First Successful Truth Commission 15

4.  Reflections
Following Roht-Arriaza and Popkin’s four requirements for successful truth commissions
15.55
(Roht-Arriaza and Popkin 1995), this article has argued that, despite certain shortcomings
(mandate design, lack of vetting, incomplete naming of perpetrators), the CONADEP can
15.5
be regarded as the first successful truth commission in the world. Furthermore, the article
attempted to expose that this successful work could not have been achieved without the
victims’ commitment, which supports conceptualizing the CONADEP as a victim-driven
15.60
truth commission.
This is because ‘victims’ organizations’ were not mere auxiliaries but leaders and often
15.10
the driving force behind CONADEP’s work. In other words, the Argentinean case was not
just one of genuine victims’ participation. Instead, the scope and organization of the truth
commission, and the dissemination of its works, were driven by the victims through inde-
15.65
pendent work, pushing the transitional justice process forward. Instead of waiting to be
called to take part in the process, victims put themselves at the heart of the push for truth
15.15
and justice. They propelled the process along with other social organizations, civil society
and state institutions, despite the challenges of realpolitik.
The victims’ organizations fostered the CONADEP fact-finding mission, provided thou-
15.70
sands of already gathered testimonies in addition to facilitating additional testimony gath-
ering, shared their systemization of the cases (organized by clandestine detention centre)
15.20
that revealed the systematic and planned nature of state terror, shared their offices and
instructed their personnel to assist CONADEP across the country, joined the work of the
commission’s secretaries to facilitate labour, encouraged exhumations and the creation of a
15.75
local forensic team by facilitating contacts with forensic experts, defended the commission’s
work from right-wing political backlashes, pressured for the inclusion of the names of the
15.25
perpetrators in the final report, took a leading role in the documentary film Never Again
that examined the commission’s preliminary findings and collaborated in the broad dissem-
ination of the final report among the general population. In short, the work of CONADEP
15.80
cannot be understood without the victims’ leading role and intense efforts.
Overall, following Roht-Arriaza and Popkin’s requirements, it becomes clear that, first,
15.30
victims worked to disseminate the commission’s findings and establish them as the author-
itative record, immediately undermining military narratives related to a ‘dirty war’ and,
in the long-term, inhibiting the development of alternative accounts denying the crimes
15.85
as well as preventing massive human rights violations from reoccurring. Second, victims
pushed the commission to issue more ambitious recommendations and enforce them. Third,
15.35
victims promoted accountability and helped link the report with the subsequent trials.
Finally, the commission was not simply an institution that ‘helped victims’; instead, victims
turned it into a mechanism of self-help, allowing them to put their knowledge and data at
15.90
the disposal of a national transformational process involving civil society, consolidating
their empowering and proactive role in the transition. Overcoming a timid governmental
15.40
programme, victims engaged in capacity building and dissemination strategies to establish
broad social agreement on events of the past and the urgent need to expand popular under-
standing of the past to pursue justice and guarantees of non-repetition.
15.95
Are there possible challenges attached to the victim-driven approach? After attending
to the positive aspects of the victim-driven approach, it is also important to acknowledge
15.45
that victims should not be idealized and that their movements may also have problem-
atic aspects, including victims’ hierarchies and exclusions. For many years, the victims in
Argentina defended a ‘blameless’ image of the detainees who disappeared and avoided ref-
15.100
erences to their partisan commitment (Crenzel 2008). Of course, the political framework
was challenging, and victims had to confront the dictatorship narrative that tried to frame
15.50
the leftist groups as enemies when the reality was that they were drastically fewer and
less trained than the military. Anyway, throughout that time, the voices of survivors were
15.104
silenced as they could ‘politicize’ the image of the innocent detainee who disappeared, and
 16 Vegh Weis

it was not until a new wave of trials took place in 2005 that the survivors could more freely
reveal their political affiliations and commitment in court.
In a similar vein, the victim-driven approach is not enough to ensure that gender and 16.55
racial issues are dealt with. Women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ populations among
16.5 other subsets might be excluded or silenced for the sake of more ‘mainstream’ victims. In
Argentina, it was only during the second wave of trials that women were able to give voice
to the sexual violence suffered while residing in clandestine centres, while this was absent
in the CONADEP report. 16.60
From a different standpoint, there may be risks when victims do organize themselves,
16.10 engaging in strong activism with a public presence. Jelin (2007) argues that the primacy
of certain victims not only encompasses the risk of overshadowing others but also poses
an obstacle to universalizing the struggle by portraying the victims as the only legitimate
actors. This challenge can be addressed through a strong commitment from victims and 16.65
other activist groups and civil society to fostering a permanent dialogue that boosts the
16.15 different struggles. In this sense, having victims recognized as legitimate, ethical, and moral
actors by society and their engagement with distinctive organizations can be a positive
phenomenon because of the potential to enhance other struggles and expand the human
rights struggle committed against the crimes of the dictatorship beyond the victims’ groups 16.70
(Vecchioli 2005). Moreover, this connection between civil society and victims might even
16.20 help overturn the limitations of under-resourced and marginalized victims suffering from
poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to the media and other problems that constrain their
organization’s potential.
Other authors suggest that more victims’ involvement might end up with a ‘tyranny’ that 16.75
can foster punitive measures outside the scope of the rule of law. International human rights
16.25 law and respect for the rule of law, including perpetrators’ rights, are, therefore, a strict
limitation of the proposed victim-driven approach (Bruschtein 2008).
Finally, what is the relevance of the Argentinean case to other truth commission experi-
ences? What can we conclude and learn from CONADEP? The in-depth case study in this 16.80
article sheds light on the need to transform the question of what shall be done in terms of
16.30 truth commissions (that is, is it enough to establish them as isolated mechanisms or must
they be accompanied by judicial proceedings to improve human rights? (Olsen et al. 2010);
Should they include amnesties?), to who shall do it (Bakiner 2014). Concerning the latter,
this article points out that victims’ organizations might be able to engage civil society and 16.85
push the truth commissions forwards and fill existing gaps, despite the government’s reluc-
16.35 tance. Further research is welcomed to expand this reasoning to other case studies.

Acknowledgements 16.90
Konstanz Universität, Zukuntskolleg
16.40
Conflict of Interest
None. 16.95

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