The contribution of science and technology to human rights

Desde la creación de un banco de datos genéticos para encontrar a niños nacidos en cautiverio durante la última dictadura cívico-militar hasta la identificación de restos óseos de para desaparecidos, la ciencia y la tecnología han sidoan de la ciencia y la tecnología han sidoan human rights. In order to enhance this contribution, INTI President Robin Janeiro and Minister of Human Rights Horacio Petragala Corti signed a cooperation agreement between the two institutions.

Through this agreement, the two entities will work to enhance mutual cooperation in those areas that fall within their competence. In the case of INTI, the Secretariat will provide assistance in the lines of work related to its recently established Institutional Memory Archive with the aim of recovering data and documents (rules, laws, files), testimonies and all information that allow the reconstruction of workers’ history during the last civil-military dictatorship.

“The agreement will also allow us to enhance the contribution of our technological capabilities to cases that remain open and contribute to the justice process,” says Janeiro. A precedent in this sense is the work done by specialists from the INTI Surface Operations Area analyzing paint schemes applied to the walls of the ESMA space – the former secret center of detention, torture and extermination, where there are more than five thousand men and women – who have separated and left visible inscriptions, which could reveal For important data for people who were captured on the site.

In turn, the construction sector collaborated with the expertise of the Argentine forensic anthropology team to characterize the metal barrels that were found with the bodies of the disappeared on property in the city of San Fernando in Buenos Aires, as part of the 1976. Abduction of a Cuban diplomat. Specifically and linking the dirt deposits attached to the barrels.

Along these lines, Alejandra Naftal, Executive Director of ESMA Memory, indicated that the agreement signed today is of utmost importance in framing the joint work and expects that there will be progress this year in many projects between the two institutions. In the end, Minister Petragala Corti concluded that “for the Secretariat, it is very important for INTI to provide its technical and professional assistance, training and expertise to declare the site a World Heritage Site”.

Also present at the event was Miki Gurusetto, International Collaboration Coordinator of the Sitio de Memoria ESMA Museum. Mauricio Cohen Salameh, General Coordinator of the Nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage List; Marcelo Castillo, President of the National Archives of Memory (ANM); Nicola Rabetti, Chief of Staff of the Secretariat for Human Rights; Maria Fernanda Pace, Director of Institutional Relations and Communications at INTI.