The magazine Chile-América as an archive of the complaint:

the political violence of the Pinochet dictatorship through testimonies and images

Abstract

Chile-América was a Chilean exile magazine published in Rome, Italy, between 1974 and 1983, during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973-1990). It was created, edited and directed by Julio Silva Solar, José Antonio Viera-Gallo, Bernardo Leighton and Esteban Tomic, Chileans identified with socialist or progressive Christian political fields. The magazine, along with the political debate developed in its pages, contributed decisively to the reporting of events in Chile, emphasizing the circulation of denunciations that were produced against crimes committed by the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship. Inserted in transnational networks, the magazine worked alongside human rights organizations and diverse political formations and leaders, both in exile and in Chile. The purpose of this article is, then, to analyze part of the content intended for denunciations related to the violation of human rights in Chile, emphasizing the combination of textual and imagery composition. In this sense, we are interested in the publication and dissemination, in Chile-America, of drawings created by political prisoners or artists who sought, with visual language, to compose the repertoire of information and denunciations about the authoritarianism prevailing in Chile in that context. It is our intention, with this work, to emphasize the role of Chile-América magazine in the formation of a kind of alternative archive, composed of a collection that sought, at the same time, to inform the reading public and to organize/produce documentation of great historical value in the that touches on the memory of the political violence of the dictatorship and the resistance of the democratic opposition field.