De desapariciones y búsquedas

inhumaciones irregulares hacia mediados de los años 70 en Córdoba - Argentina

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on one of the most widely used methods of disappearance/elimination of corpses during the last civil-military dictatorship in Argentina, that of irregular burial in public cemeteries. What characteristics differentiated this method from “death flights” and “burials in military premises”? What records were produced in the implementation of this method of disappearance of bodies? What were the complaints and the search processes for these bodies like? In order to address these issues, the article investigates, from a historical-anthropological perspective, the particularities of a paradigmatic case: the discovery of one of the largest mass graves in Latin America, which occurred in the San Vicente Cemetery in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. The assumption guiding the analysis is that irregular burial involved the intervention of bureaucratic-administrative bodies linked to the regular handling of corpses– hospitals, morgues and public cemeteries – which led to the existence of documentary traces that currently account for their use and extent.