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Things That Matter

5 important questions on Things That Matter

What happends in chapter 2

The trail begins at the federal court and introduces 'what is at stake' for the people who are the primary focus of this ethnography - the victims and the indicted military officers.

When Néstor Kirchner assumed power in 2003, a political shift toward “human rights” as national policy was implemented

Truth and justice became major items on the political agenda. Formal arrangements to make prosecutions of human rights violations possible. Symbolic interventions to punish the armed forces were also implemented

The Kirchner government made important
reforms in the judicial system that enabled the prosecutions

it officially ratified the United Nations Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity
it asked Congress to give the treaty provisions precedence over national law.

Explain the testimony of Guadalupe Pereyra

She was three years old when her parents were kidnapped and disappeared. Her father wrote words from illegal detention to explain why he was not home. She spoke mostly about her experience of not knowing where her parents were.

The witness protection program

was about facilitating and accompanying the witnesses and their relatives and friends during the reparative process of the legal testimony. The handbook explained that traumatic experiences often impede precise verbalization of the crimes.