Workshop “Forty years on from Operation Condor”: Final Report now available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese

On December 18, 2015, Dr Francesca Lessa organised together with the Ministry of Justice of Chile a closed-session workshop, which was held at the Miguel de Cervantes University in Santiago de Chile, with the participation of human rights activists, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and members of national ministries, for a total of invited 24 participants. Taking as starting point the Operation Condor trial in Buenos Aires, but also investigations in Chile on the same subject, the discussion focused on the legal and factual challenges associated with investigating transnational crimes.

Working in two small groups, the goal was to develop suggestions for concrete tools and strategies to implement at the national and regional levels to facilitate the investigation of Operation Condor crimes. Three key recommendations that emerged from the workshop were: the creation of teams dedicated exclusively to the investigation of human rights lawsuits; the need to establish channels ensuring a smooth flow of information (including a regional database or repository); and setting up mechanisms to generate a common framework on Plan Condor, such as, for instance, a regional truth commission or working group.

The final report is now available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.