The Condor trials: transnational repression and human rights in south America

Francesca Lessa's outstanding new book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the wave of transnational repression—commonly known as ‘Operation Condor’—unleashed by south America's military regimes in the 1970s. The Condor trials is the product of many years of meticulous research and draws on: decades of prior investigation; recently available archival records from Southern Cone repositories and the United States; judicial documents from multiple proceedings; and over 100 interviews. All this allows for an Olympian view of the Condor system that was only perceived in fragments by earlier observers, often focused on narrow issues, such as the 1976 high-profile assassination of Chilean politician Orlando Letelier. More than other authors, Lessa is concerned with the more uplifting achievement of judicial accountability for the perpetrators and justice for the victims. Indeed, despite the abundance of new evidence in the latest US release of documents, she limits her judgement on the controversial topic of US knowledge of and complicity in Condor, lest it detract from the centrality of south American judicial developments.