Project 2007/031. CHILE
Hernán Cubillos Sallato Fund
The Centro de Investigación y Documentación en Historia de Chile Contemporáneo, CIDOC, of the Finis Terrae University, carried out this project whose main objective was the preservation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Hernán Cubillos Sallato Fund, made up of 5,000 documents on information relating to foreign relations and human rights in Chile during the years 1978-1994.
Throughout his professional life, Hernán Cubillos accumulated and kept copies of almost all the documentation relating to the period in which he was Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Chile, between 1978-1980. During this period, he emphasised his participation in various issues related to human rights, such as the extradition process for those responsible for the murder of Orlande Leterier, the dissolution of the DINA (National Intelligence Directorate), the arrest of Manuel Contreras, the CIA’s actions and other issues related to international pressure to respect human rights between 1973 and 1990.
The project emphasised the preventive conservation of organic material, for which the necessary conservation material was acquired.
With this, CIDOC was able, on the one hand, to ensure the preservation of its heritage and, on the other, to make information accessible to the public, avoiding the risks of loss or destruction due to misuse.
Project 2007/031. CHILE
Organisation, conservation and dissemination of the Alejandro Lipschutz Science Institute Archive
The Alejandro Lipschutz Science Institute was founded on 19 December 1983, with the aim of contributing to the defence and development of a culture and critical thinking, subjected during this period of military dictatorship to persecution, destruction and dismantling.
In its early stages, it developed a critical, alternative and pluralist work, integrating teaching, research and extension, reaching a wide audience and participation of intellectuals, students and workers, given the vacancy generated in universities.
The Archive consists of 37 linear metres of documentation distributed in three collections containing documents from 1973 to the present day. It contains documents of various types and formats about the country’s recent history, from the events that took place under the military dictatorship to the actions that the institution is currently carrying out.
A multilevel fund description was carried out, applying the rules proposed by the ISAD (G) standard and drawing up guides and catalogues. ISAAR (CPF) was also used to draw up a human rights thesaurus.
A database of the Political History Fund was created on the WINISIS platform for public use and a significant number of photographs from the different periods were digitised.
To find out more about the Alejandro Lipschutz Science Institute, visit their website: https://ical.cl/
Projects 2010/058 and 2011/026. CHILE
Digitisation of the most valuable documents in the archives of the Foundation for Documentation and Archives of the Vicarage of Solidarity (1st and 2nd phase)
The Fundación de Documentación y Archivo de la Vicaria de la Solidaridad began its work in 1993 and was set up to hold the documentation and information on the work carried out by the Vicaria de la Solidaridad and its predecessor, the Comité de Cooperación para la Paz en Chile, in defence of human rights violations committed during the military regime in Chile. This documentation contains information on victims from the period between September 1973 and March 1990.
The archive contains documentation of the legal assistance provided to all people whose rights were violated by the state, without making political or religious distinctions. Those detained under states of exception were protected, legal defence was provided to those prosecuted for political crimes before civilian or military courts, exiled Chileans and those relegated to different locations within the country were attended to, and complaints were made in favour of the victims.
The project, developed in two phases, involved digitising 40% of the files of each of the people who were assisted by the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and its predecessor the Comité de Cooperación para la Paz en Chile, corresponding to 18,800 files. The fund contains unique and irreplaceable information, compiled by social workers, lawyers, doctors and psychologists, which records the situation of repression experienced by each victim, together with other actors involved, the history of their family group, labour situation, health, etc.
Thanks to the project, part of the documentation has been digitised, ensuring its preservation over time and providing a better response and attention to the beneficiaries, especially the victims themselves and their families, the courts of justice, police personnel who collaborate in the investigation of legal cases, and lawyers, thus contributing to the search for truth, justice, reparation and reconciliation.
This documentation is an important source for the work carried out by the various truth commissions that have been operating in the country since the return to democracy in March 1990, to make progress in clarifying the human rights violations that took place during the military dictatorship and to determine reparation measures for the victims: Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación (Rettig Commission), Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (CNRR), Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (Valech I Commission) and Comisión Asesora para la Calificación de Detenidos Desaparecidos, Ejecutados Políticos y Víctimas de Prisión Política y Tortura (Valech II Commission). The four commissions mentioned gave as their final result in 2011 the official recognition by the State of Chile of 3,216 victims of forced disappearances and executions for political reasons and 38,254 victims of political imprisonment and torture.
To find out more about the Vicaría de Solidaridad Documentation and Archive Foundation, visit its website: Web
Consult the Census Guide to Archives in Spain and Ibero-America: CENSO GUÍA
You can consult the project’s technical report and the rest of the information here:
Project 2014/017. CHILE
Construction of the archive of the Group of Relatives of Political Prisoners – Chile (AFEP Chile)
The archives of the AFEP-Chile Group of Relatives of Politically Executed People was born from a document collection at the group’s headquarters in Santiago de Chile, made up of historical documents that the organisation considered to be a heritage of the history of the struggle for human rights in Chile. Since its conservation conditions were not good, there was a risk of information being lost, as had happened with a previous flood.
This archive contains documents, in various types of format, which reflect the organisation’s actions in all their aspects, both in the public sphere and internally and administratively:
- Testimonies from members of the organisation
- Records of movements, press cuttings, leaflets and visual material from national movements
- Documents relating to the life and trials of political prisoners (personal documents, photographs, personal testimonies, etc.)
Rescuing the fund and setting up the archive has firstly made it possible to ensure the safekeeping of documents that reflect the history of the AFEP as a group fighting for human rights, truth, justice and reparation in Chile. It also involved classifying the documents so that they could be consulted by the families of the executed, researchers and the general public, providing primary sources and tools for recognising the importance of the struggle for human rights.
To find out more about AFEP-Chile, visit its website: Web
Consult the Census Guide to Archives in Spain and Ibero-America: CENSO GUÍA
You can consult the project’s technical report and the rest of the information here:
Projects 2004/226, 2005E/103, 2006/189-190. CHILE
Reconstruyendo Memoria – AFDD Chile (1st, 2nd and 3rd phases)
The Group of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees (AFDD) is a non-profit organisation set up in 1975 to seek truth and justice for all cases of disappeared detainees in Chile and of Chilean citizens who, as a result of the coordinated action of the repressive bodies that operated in the region during the 1970s and 1980s, were detained and disappeared in other Latin American countries.
Since its beginnings, the AFDD has developed ongoing work based on four central objectives: Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y Memoria Histórica (Truth, Justice, Reparation and Historical Memory), obtaining a documentary fund made up of textual, photographic and audiovisual documentation (correspondence, press releases, public statements, photographs, copies of court cases, anthropomorphic records, affiches, testimonies, press archives, and others), relating both to the victims of forced disappearance and to the actions of the Group throughout all the years of its existence.
The inscription of this heritage site on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in August 2003 meant that the institution began the systematic treatment of the documentation using archival techniques that would ensure its preservation and access over the long term. In 2004, they received aid from the Iberarchivos Programme to carry out a project to organise, preserve and describe the AFDD Historical Archive in three stages.
The work was carried out voluntarily by relatives of the victims, with the participation and support of staff from the National Archives.
The first phase was aimed at the preventive conservation of the original documents, the restoration of the deteriorated documents (1,100 individual files of detainees, 640 files of internal documents of the group, 5,000 photographs of internal actions of the group and 1,000 photographs of detainees), and the classification and description of the same according to the ISAD(G) standard. The information obtained was entered into the AFDD database.
In the second phase, the objective was to apply preventive conservation treatment to approximately 16 linear metres of correspondence and internal documents from the Group. To this end, a work team was set up which took part in a Document Conservation and Description Workshop. After the training, the cleaning and conservation work began in order to continue with the description work following the ISAD (G) standard. As in the previous stage, the information was entered into the AFDD database at the same time.
In the third phase of the project, the following tasks were carried out: classification, sorting, coding and description, at the level of a simple documentary unit, of 3,290 textual documents; preventive conservation of 18 linear metres of textual documents and photographs on paper; entry into the database of 3,668 records corresponding to 35 linear metres of documents and photographs.
As a general result of the three stages carried out, the organisation, conservation and access to approximately 60 linear metres of paper documents and 6,000 positive photographs was completed.
In addition, the use of international standards was incorporated, which allowed for an improvement and increase in the accessibility of the archive without jeopardising the preservation of the heritage.
The AFDD website: https://afdd.cl/
You can also visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AFDDChile/
Consult the Guide Census of Archives in Spain and Ibero-America: CENSO GUÍA
You can consult the project’s technical report and the rest of the information here:
Projects 2003/095 and 2006/192. CHILE
“Conservation and Preservation of the Historical Archive for the Care of Victims of Human Rights Violations of the Christian Churches’ Social Assistance Foundation”
“Preventive Conservation of the Historical Legal Archive of the Christian Churches’ Social Assistance Foundation on Human Rights Violations”
The Fundación de Ayuda Social de las Iglesias Cristianas, FASIC, is an ecumenical institution committed to the daily practice of human rights and inspired by the Christian perspective of liberation and dignity of persons.
Founded on 1 April 1975 as a continuation of the National Committee for Aid to Refugees of September 1973. Its general objective is to contribute to the strengthening of democracy on the basis of the promotion and defence of Universal Human Rights.
Families of disappeared and executed political detainees, political prisoners, relegated people, cases of persecution, threats and torture have been legally assisted. The assistance that FASIC has provided has become an important source of information that has generated its historical archive, which contains:
- Copies of some of the military and civil justice cases against political prisoners that were defended by FASIC lawyers
- Copies and originals of sentences handed down by the military and civil justice system against political prisoners which show the collaboration of the justice system with repression.
- Copies of proceedings for violations of human rights during the dictatorship.
In 2003 and 2006, two projects related to the FASIC Historical Archive were approved, whose dates range from 1975 to 2003 and whose volume is approximately 190 linear metres.
The first project, in 2003, centred on the conservation and dissemination of the archive. Following the alphabetical order from the letter C onwards, data on former political prisoners, former detainees, former convicts, exiles and returnees were transcribed and all FASIC beneficiaries’ cards (beneficiaries, family members, pensioners…) were cleaned for their preservation. The information was turned into a database of cases and causes.
The second project was tackled in 2006. On this occasion, the objective was the preventive conservation of 15 linear metres of the total archive of War Council proceedings and sentences during the first years of the military dictatorship, and to advance in the process of classification and indemnification.
To find out more about the FASIC archive, visit its website: Web
Consult the Guide Census of Archives in Spain and Ibero-America: CENSO GUÍA
To see the specific activities carried out, you can consult the technical reports on the projects here:
Projects 2004/219, 2005E/106 and 2006/193. CHILE
Organisation and conservation of CODEPU’s Human Rights archives: 1980-2000 (Registered in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme)
(1st, 2nd and 3rd phases)
The Corporation for the Promotion and Defence of People’s Rights – CODEPU – is a non-governmental human rights organisation founded during the military dictatorship on 8 November 1980. For 30 years it has been helping victims and the families of victims of human rights violations and fighting impunity.
This project, which took place in three phases, aimed to organise and preserve part of CODEPU’s human rights funds. The funds corresponding to the Mental Health teams, both the Family Therapy Programme and the Denunciation, Investigation and Treatment of the Tortured and their Family Group, DITT, were submitted for processing: cards and leaflets; and press reports.
In the first phase, a total of 18 linear metres of documentation was reorganised and reinstalled, arranged in 2,000 acid-free folders.
In the second phase, a total of 14 linear metres of documentation, arranged on 1,800 acid-free carpets, were submitted for processing.
In the third phase, a total of 9 linear metres were treated. At all times, as on previous occasions, they relied on direct and permanent consultancy with the National Archive of Chile, which also provided training for the work team.
Throughout the phases of the project, some documents of special relevance were identified, such as testimonies for legal proceedings and other primary sources of information (letters from relatives of former political prisoners, documents from outlawed political parties, clandestine political propaganda, etc.).
To find out more about CODEPU you can visit its website: Web
You can consult the technical reports on the projects and the rest of the information here:
Project 2007/026. CHILE
Images of the Invisible Country
La Corporación Casa de la Memoria de los Organismos de Derechos Humanos is a private, non-profit organisation whose aim is to collect, preserve, organise, deposit and disseminate all kinds of documents, historical records and objects related to human rights and linked to their defence and/or transfer.
It is made up of four institutions with a long history of defending and promoting human rights in Chile, whose archives were inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2003:
- Corporación de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo, CODEPU, founded in 1980.
- Fundación de las Iglesias Cristianas, FASIC, founded in 1975.
- Fundación de Protección a la Infancia Dañada por los Estados de Emergencia, PIDEE, founded in 1974.
- Productora Audiovisual Teleanálisis, founded in 1984
The general aim of the project was to disseminate the funds in order to contribute to the promotion and defence of human rights in the national and international community. To this end, preventive conservation tasks were carried out according to the different media, the funds were organised and the archival documents were described based on ISAD-G. Finally, the material was digitised for dissemination on the web and to generate back-up copies.
You can consult the technical reports on the projects and the rest of the information here: