| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday, October 5, 2016 | 4:00PM - 6:00PM | External Event, Victoria College 115 |
This talk will be in Spanish. Limited Headsets Available for Simultaneous Interpretation.
Eduardo Contreras Mella is a Chilean journalist and Human Rights lawyer. After the coup d’etat that deposed Salvador Allende in 1973, he lived in exile for 15 years working in Mexico and Cuba. When he returned to Chile, alongside with Gladys Marín, he presented the first demand against Augusto Pinochet. Their initial efforts ultimately achieved Pinochet’s impeachment and trial for crimes against humanity.
Contreras will discuss the trajectory of his work as human rights lawyer in the context of the 1973 Chilean military coup and dictatorship, and its aftermath. He will focus on the unique challenges of human rights litigation in transnational contexts, and on the roles of civil society and the private sector in human rights conflicts.
One of the most important figures in the post-transitional justice process in Chile, Eduardo Contreras was responsible for many human rights trials to investigate abused under the Pinochet regime. He was the first to file, in conjunction with the Association of Relatives of Politically Executed Persons (AFEP), a lawsuit to establish the cause of the death of socialist president Salvador Allende during the military’s bombing of the La Moneda presidential palace in the Sep. 11, 1973 coup. Contreras also demanded clarification of the death of poet Pablo Neruda, which occurred on Sep. 23,1973 – just 12 days after his close friend Allende was overthrown. Since 2014, Contreras is the ambassador for Chile in Uruguay.
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