Universities and State terrorism: two case studies in Argentina and Brazil

Abstract

This article discusses two cases as a preliminary study on repressive measures and repressive coordination emerging in universities in the Southern Cone prior to what would later be the “Condor Operation”. One is the case of the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil. The other is the case of Universidad Nacional del Sur, in Bahia Blanca, between 1975 and 1976. In line with a transnational perspective, we propose to convene the two cases in Brazil and Argentina in order to compare the role of institutional authoritarianism in both countries and their civilian extensions, showing that repression structures acted similarly in the chasing of their opponents as they extended their agenda to repression in the universities both in the pre-dictatorship regime in the case of Argentina and in the case of the Brazilian dictatorship. This allows us not only to investigate the involvement of universities (or their members) in genocide and State terrorism on the continent, but also to dig into the coordinated repression that later consolidated as the “Condor Operation” as a transnational network articulating repressive activities in universities.