The NGO Coalition Against Impunity: A Forgotten Chapter in the Struggle Against Impunity

As Latin American countries moved from military dictatorship to civilian government in the 1980s, a burning issue was how to deal with the massive repression and grave human rights violations of the recent past. Should there be an effort to hold perpetrators accountable, or simply “turn the page?” This article documents and analyzes the history of the NGO Coalition Against Impunity and its role in advocating for the United Nations (U.N.) to recognize impunity—or, the negation of accountability—as a serious human rights issue. The combined efforts of dedicated human rights leaders and organizations in Latin America, other NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and the Coalition spurred the U.N. and other bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to take up the issue of impunity in their documents and missions. The work of the Coalition is presented as an example of the incremental democratization of the United Nations system

La dictadura y la música popular en Chile: los primeros años de plomo

This study examines the impact of the repressive regime of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) upon the artists and the cultural life of Chile, particularly the musicians who were part of the Chilean New Song movement, in the first years of the dictatorship (1973-1977), using the analytical tool of the microhistory. It considers, as well, in a comparative manner, the cultural expression known as Canto Nuevo, which emerged after the coup. This work considers daily life as expressed in the microhistory to be a reflection of the ideological and structural changes made by the dictatorship in an effort to erase the recent history of the Popular Unity (UP) and the dreams of the popular classes of Chile