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Abstract
On 25 November 1975, representatives of five South American intelligence services held a secret meeting in the city of Santiago Chile. At the end of the gathering, the participating delegations agreed to launch Operation Cóndor under the pretext of coordinating counterinsurgency activities, sharing information to combat leftist guerrillas and stoping an alleged advance of Marxism in the region. Cóndor, however, went much further than mere exchanges of information between neighbours. It was a plan to transnationalize State Terrorism beyond South America. This dissertation identifies the reasons why the South American military regimes chose this strategic path at a time when most revolutionary movements in the region were defeated and in the process of leaving the armed struggle and resuming the political path. One of Cóndor s most intriguing features was the level of cooperation achieved by these governments considering the distrust, animosity and historical rivalries between these countries armed forces. The thesis explores these differences and goes further than previous lines of inquire, which have focused predominantly on the conflict between the Latin American leftist guerrillas and the armed forces, to study the contribution made by other actors such as civilian anticommunist figures and organizations, and the activities conducted by political active exiles and their supporters in numerous countries. This broader approach confirms that the South American dictatorships launched the Cóndor Plan to systematically eliminate any kind of opposition, especially key figures and groups involved in the denunciation of the regimes human rights violations.