AMERICAN CONFERENCE AGAINST AMNESTY

(FOR CRIMES OF GENOCIDE)

Convening a Conference Against Amnesty (Impunidad)

This message is from Beatriz Aurora, an extraordinary artist who currently lives in
Mexico (you may well have seen reproductions of her work in support of the Zapatistas),
and a victim of the Pinochet Regime. She is working to organize a conference to be held
in Mexico City on the 19,20,21 and 22 of July, 2008.

For more than five decades Latin America has suffered an authentic GENOCIDE , a
product of military coups, military dictatorships, dirty wars, and wars of low intensity
under the guise of so-called National Security, led by the United States. Hundreds of
thousands of illegal violations of freedom, torture, disappeared citizens, and deaths
document this genocide, from Mexico to Chile.

In reality, the common denominator in our countries is the amnesty guaranteed by the
system . The criminals of acts against humanity are granted impunity through procedures
and laws designed for that purpose, through obstruction of access to information, and
through innumerable other devices and resources. This translates into the open protection
of genocide and the exculpation of those responsible. It effectively guarantees the current
and future implementation of genocide.

The tireless fight that victims, their families, and human rights organizations carry on for
justice for the disappeared and murdered, and in bringing the truth to light, has not ceased
one minute for these fifty years. However, thousands of trials now lie dormant in
tribunals and supreme courts in each county, while the number of incarcerated criminals
can be counted with the fingers of one hand.

Minor efforts by some governments have proved insignificant. Commissions of the truth
and programs of reparations have not changed anything. To the contrary, they have
provided for masking real efforts to achieve justice.

Thousands of murderers and torturers and their superiors have been reincorporated into
society , retaining their privileges and resources while hiding their past. Through their
positions of power they maintain and re-establish their former practices of human rights
abuses. This is now fortified under the Doctrine of the War Against Terror, newly
imposed by the United States since September 11th, 2001. It is a wider version of the
doctrine responsible for genocide in our continent in 1970's.

Recently, " anti-terrorist" laws have been passed in Mexico and other countries. These
laws can be utilized to legally justify torture, illegal detention without limits, and
"disappearance" of any who question or oppose those in power.

The only major accomplishments against genocide on the continent, provoked by the
governments in power, have been achieved by the hundreds of victims, their families,
human rights organizations, women's groups, sons and daughters of the disappeared,
good-will lawyers, and investigators and individuals who struggle to achieve justice.

Conscious of this, we victims, families, and organizations consider it fundamental to

propose the organization for the FIRST CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE AGAINST
AMNESTY, to be held in Mexico City on the 19,20,21 and 22 of July, 2008.

WE EXPECT THE CONFERENCE TO CONTRIBUTE THE FOLLOWING:

1. - Interchange experiences of struggle to bring the truth to light. To find justice, by

identifying, denouncing and condemning those guilty of illegal detentions, tortures,
murder and disappearances of people in our countries, and to devise, based on the needs
of victims, a definite clear and strong plan of action against amnesty for those guilty of
these crimes.

2. - Simultaneously, to facilitate a conference of sons and daughters of the victims, from

Canada to Chile.

3. - To interchange information and to create a continental mechanism of documentation

and archives on international crimes and genocide in particular, Included in those
archives would be information obtained from testimonials of archives and witnesses from
different regions. To create an organization that would collect and diffuse this
information so it is available to all.

To demand that all governments open the archives of their armed forces, the government
and tribunals. We would have as a model the archives of the Condor Operation
discovered by Martin Almada in Paraguay. Likewise, to disclose the archives of the
"DINA" in Chile, the archives of the Guatemalan Police, and those of responsibility
Clavel recently freed in Argentina.

4. - To investigate the role of the antiterrorist laws and doctrines of national security in
the massive violations of human rights, and to give those who struggle for universal
justice a role within this reality.

To investigate the responsibility and accountability of different governments, and the

consequences of their actions, beginning with the US government.

5. -To facilitate a conference of lawyers and judges who are committed to truth and
justice.

Due to the fact that there are already many documented cases in the US courts against
central american torturers and assassins (where they have sought refuge), that have
reached sentences and fines of millions of dollars in compensation to victims of torture,
to study the role human rights organizations can play within the USA to advance those
efforts.
6. -To study the role of the press and society as a whole as accomplices in some cases and
denouncers in others, of amnesty cases, as well as to facilitate the work if investigators
and journalists committed to the clarifying of the truth.

7. - To consolidate the need for Human Rights Organizations to assume the sole and
permanent role of protectors and maintainers of human rights in society, at the same time
assuring the financial support needed to achieve those goals This, independently from the
roles and responsibilities of government.

8. - To establish a clear link between crimes of the past and present, that are a product of
the amnesty given to its perpetrators.

9. - To create a continental coordinated effort against amnesty, composed of

organizations and individuals so that those crimes against humanity never happen again.

TO ACHIEVE THIS CONFERENCE WE PROPOSE:

1. - The writing of a detailed document explaining the need for such a conference.

2. - To collect signatures from victims , organizations, and individuals to support this

document.

3. - To raise money to cover expenses of those who could otherwise no be able to attend,
as well as money to rent adequate space for instance a hotel with conference room in
Mexico City.

4. - The program will consist of ideas and input given by its participants. The day would
end around 17:00, thus giving enough time to attend other public events such as debates,
lectures, etc, starting around 19:00 in different sites throughout the city, (UNAM,
Tlatelolco, etc) thus giving the public the opportunity to participate.

5. - To create as soon as possible a comittee that would promote the conference, by

encouraging the formation of groups in each country that would organize and promote
this noble and necessary task. If possible, to have regional and national conferences
before the final continental conference.

6. -To create a website where each country could submit information from its participants
as well as information on the actions taken to strengthen and make possible this
conference.

7. - To organize a large cultural event for the closing ,inviting protest singers like Daniel
Viglietti, Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanes, Oscar Chavez , Mercedes Sosa, Quilapayun,
Paco Ibanez, Mejia Godoy, and many more authors and groups that have supported the
victims and brought hope with music and word.
 _________________________

We hope that with this first convocation sent to groups of people and organizations we
can send this project in its way.

For this, we need your opinion, your input so we can contact all people and organizations
in the different countries of the American Continent who deserve and need to participate.

no pardon
no forgetting

Un Afectuoso Abrazo,

Beatriz Aurora Castedo

Victim of the Pinochet Regime