Reports from Truth Commissions in post-dictatorship: documentation and mediation of voices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35588/ayr.v5i2.6441Keywords:
human rights reports, human rights advocacy, discourse analysis, dialogism, Chilean dictatorshipAbstract
The reports of Truth Commissions comprise multiple statements from victims, witnesses, and records from human rights advocacy organizations that engage in the discourse of human rights. This article seeks to characterize how statements regarding the repression during the civil-military dictatorship, generated by the Committee for Cooperation for Peace in Chile, Vicariate of Solidarity, and the ad hoc Working Group of the United Nations, are incorporated into the reports of the Truth Commissions in Chile (1991 and 2004). Employing a dialogical and temporal approach, 51 textual sequences associated with human rights archive documents produced by the aforementioned organizations are analyzed to delineate their mode of incorporation, purposes, and the evaluations attributed to these statements in the Truth Commissions' reports. The findings indicate that statements associated with national organizations are framed within a context of human rights legitimacy, where the ethical-religious interdiscourse and the discourse of documentation prevail. This implies that their resistance efforts are perceived as less political and are viewed as repositories of information in the post-dictatorship period. Conversely, the international body is recognized as an authoritative source.
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