Assessing the Impact of Perpetrator Narratives on the Quest for Justice and Truth: A discussion of the book, The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior
Author
Catherine Buerger, PhD Candidate, Anthropology, University of Connecticut
“Designed for a mid-upper level undergraduate course. Lesson can be modified to fit the level of prior exposure to the topic of human rights and transitional justice.
The Flight is narrative account of journalist Horacio Verbitsky’s personal interviews with Francisco Scilingo, a former Argentine naval officer during the Dirty War. In the book, Scilingo confesses to participating in torture and the infamous “aerial transports,” in which sedated political prisoners would be thrown out of airplanes into the Atlantic Ocean. When released in Spanish (as El Vuelo), the book became a bestseller in Argentina. In the English edition, chapters 15-16 recount the reaction of Scilingo and the Argentine people to the publishing of El Vuelo.”