Repression System Research Articles

ОПЕРАТИВНО-ТАКТИЧНІ ПРИЙОМИ ПОВСТАНЦІВ ВО-4 «ГОВЕРЛЯ» (1944 - 1949)

In the article, on the basis of new documents and materials, the most important questions of insurgent’s activity, namely their operative-tactical devices are clarified. The new strategy and tactics are proved to concern practically all spheres of the insurgent’s life. The article provides sufficient grounds for the confirmation that the bases, methods, and principles of their strategy and tactics were developed by the insurgents themselves on the basis of their own experience and were corrected and finished off in accordance with the struggle conditions. It is found out, that under the conditions, when the Soviet repressive system used a whole complex of special secret-service tricks, the successfully developed by the insurgents and constantly corrected strategy and tactics allowed them to struggle against the establishment of the Soviet administration on the West Ukrainian lands throughout almost ten years.

НЕВІДОМІ ДОКУМЕНТИ ДО ІСТОРІЇ ВИБОРІВ У ВЕРХОВНУ РАДУ СРСР (10 ЛЮТОГО 1946 р.)

In the publications the unknown documents are represented, which characterize the oppositions of the Ukrainian liberation movement and the Soviet repressive system during the elections into the SC of the USSR in 1946. Eventually, six unknown documents are presented: in the first two the arrived military units were given the orders to get fixed to the concrete underground combat departments, the third, fourth, and fifth distribute the arrived military units among the concrete administrative and territorial areas, and the sixth document shows the propaganda and fighting activity of Ukrainian nationalists. The specified documents present percentage figures (although, probably, overestimated) of the participation of the population in the elections. More to that, these figures differ from the party «calculations» (with the result of 99.9 %).

Jungle Express is a versatile repressor system for tight transcriptional control

Tightly regulated promoters are essential for numerous biological applications, where strong inducibility, portability, and scalability are desirable. Current systems are often incompatible with large-scale fermentations due to high inducer costs and strict media requirements. Here, we describe the bottom-up engineering of ‘Jungle Express’, an expression system that enables efficient gene regulation in diverse proteobacteria. This system is guided by EilR, a multidrug-binding repressor with high affinity to its optimized operator and cationic dyes that act as powerful inducers at negligible costs. In E. coli, the engineered promoters exhibit minimal basal transcription and are inducible over four orders of magnitude by 1 µM crystal violet, reaching expression levels exceeding those of the strongest current bacterial systems. Further, we provide molecular insights into specific interactions of EilR with its operator and with two inducers. The versatility of Jungle Express opens the way for tightly controlled and efficient gene expression that is not restricted to host organism, substrate, or scale.

CRISPRi allows optimal temporal control of N-acetylglucosamine bioproduction by a dynamic coordination of glucose and xylose metabolism in Bacillus subtilis

Glucose and xylose are the two most abundant sugars in renewable lignocellulose sources; however, typically they cannot be simultaneously utilized due to carbon catabolite repression. N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) is a typical nutraceutical and has many applications in the field of healthcare. Here, we have developed a gene repressor system based on xylose-induced CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) in Bacillus subtilis, aimed at downregulating the expression of three genes (zwf, pfkA, glmM) that control the major competing reactions of GlcNAc synthesis (pentose phosphate pathway (HMP), glycolysis, and peptidoglycan synthesis pathway (PSP)), with the potential to relieve glucose repression and allow the co-utilization of both glucose and xylose. Simultaneous repression of these three genes by CRISPRi improved GlcNAc titer by 13.2% to 17.4 ± 0.47 g/L, with the GlcNAc yield on glucose and xylose showing an 84.1% improvement, reaching 0.42 ± 0.036 g/g. In order to further engineer the synergetic utilization of glucose and xylose, a combinatorial approach was developed based on 27 arrays containing sgRNAs with different repression capacities targeting the three genes. We further optimized the temporal control of the system and found that when 15 g/L xylose was added 6 h after inoculation, the most efficient strain, BNX122, synthesized 20.5 ± 0.85 g/L GlcNAc with a yield of 0.46 ± 0.010 g/g glucose and xylose in shake flask culture. Finally, the GlcNAc titer and productivity in a 3-L fed-batch bioreactor reached 103.1 ± 2.11 g/L and 1.17 ± 0.024 g/L/h, which were 5.0-fold and 2.7-fold of that in shake flask culture, respectively. Taken together, these findings suggest that a CRISPRi-enabled regulation method provides a simple, efficient, and universal way to promote the synergetic utilization of multiple carbon sources by microbial cell factories.

CRISPR/dCas9-Mediated Multiplex Gene Repression in Streptomyces.

Streptomycetes are Gram-positive bacteria with the capacity to produce copious bioactive secondary metabolites, which are the main source of medically and industrially relevant drugs. However, genetic manipulation of Streptomyces strains is much more difficult than other model microorganisms like Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Recently, CRISPR/Cas9 or dCas9-mediated genetic manipulation tools have been developed and facilitated Streptomyces genome editing. However, till now, CRISPR/dCas9-based interference system (CRISPRi) is only designed to repress single gene expression. Herein, the authors developed a novel CRISPRi system for multiplex gene repression in the model strain Streptomyces coelicolor. In this system, the integrative plasmid pSET152 is used as the backbone for the expression of the dCas9/sgRNA complex and both dCas9 and sgRNAs are designed to be under the control of constitutive promoters. Using the integrative CRISPRi system, the authors achieved efficient repression of multiple genes simultaneously; the mRNA levels of four targets are reduced to 2-32% of the control. Furthermore, it is successfully employed for functional gene screening, and an orphan response regulator (RR) (encoded by SCO2013) containing an RNA-binding ANTAR domain is identified being involved in bacterial growth. Collectively, this integrative CRISPRi system is very effective for multiplex gene repression in S. coelicolor, which could be extended to other Streptomyces strains for functional gene screening as well as for metabolic engineering.

Los principios de humanidad de las penas, ne bis in idem, proporcionalidad y exclusiva protección de bienes jurídicos contenidos en la Constitución Política De Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos: algunos retos y perspectivas

El Sistema penal propio de un Estado Constitucional de Derecho se encuentra construido sobre la base del respeto a los Derechos Humanos de todas las personas. Por ello, el ejercicio de la potestad punitiva estatal está sujeto a límites que no pueden soslayarse y que se encuentran contenidos en la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos y en instrumentos internacionales signados por México, mismos que son de observancia obligatorio. Del catálogo de principios que se constituyen como la barrera insuperable en la actuación estatal, destacan por su actualidad los de humanidad de las penas, proporcionalidad, ne bis in idem y exclusiva protección de bienes jurídicos, pues el momento histórico de violencia exacerbada por el que está pasando México, ha ocasionado la intensificación del aparato represivo, llegándose incluso a violentar tales principios a través de diversas directrices político criminales.

Strategies for Fulfillment of Reproductive Rights on Adolescent Women in Central Java

Reproductive health is a condition where a person is considered healthy, not only from the medical perspective but also mentally and socially as a whole person. However, women’s reproductive health issue in Indonesia is one complex matter. Controversially, reproductive rights, especially for women, is rarely to be discussed, restricted by a lot of repressive system whether its social or cultural system. Therefore, the government must take responsibilities to facilitate its achievement.Reproductive health is fundamentally protected by the Law, starting from 1945 Constitution, Law No. 7/1984 on the Ratification of CEDAW, Law No. 39/1999 on Human Rights, and Law No. 11/2005 on the Ratification of ICCPR, and Law No. 61/2014 on Reproductive Health. The research is designed to analyze problems in the implementation of reproductive health policy as a fulfillment strategy of reproductive rights. By using Socio-Legal Research Method, this research focused its subject on adolescent women in Central Java. Therefore, it can be concluded in this paper that the policy did not work well enough for facilitating reproductive health program in Central Java, in which the group that suffered the most is women in adolescent ages, making them susceptible from reproductive ailments.

‘Order’ and ‘civility’: Middle-class imaginaries of citizenship before the Syrian uprising

Are calls for civility necessarily elitist, serving to reproduce existing hierarchies of social and political power? Or, can they work to clear a space in which citizenship can be reimagined and new political demands can emerge? This article explores the contradictory politics of civility in pre-conflict Aleppo. Notions of incivility and disorder allowed Aleppo’s commercial middle classes to reimagine what citizenship might mean by expressing discontent with lethargic and repressive systems of government. However, the same language they mobilised to criticise the state also associated civility and order with a specifically bourgeois habitus, which was deployed to preserve existing domains of urban privilege and to entrench the social precedence of urban propertied elites over the dislocated rural poor. Calls for civility may be simultaneously elitist and emancipatory, envisaging new forms of citizenship and public life, while drawing their energy from sources that are implicated in other forms of hierarchy and exclusion. The article considers the implications of this analysis in relation to the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in 2011.

Garantía sustancial de edad mínima de responsabilidad penal juvenil

En Argentina, la aún vigente Ley N° 22.278 (1980), permite la disposición penal de los niños exentos de responsabilidad penal, propia de la doctrina del patronato, contraria al postulado del art. 40 inc. 3.a de la Convención sobre los Derechos del Niños (1989). Pero lo más preocupante es que en los debates legislativos de reforma penal juvenil, se advierte la ausencia de voluntad para establecer una normativa clara sobre qué tipo de intervención estatal corresponde a los niños no punibles, que en la práctica deriva en la justicia penal adolescente. Es por ello que el presente trabajo desarrolla la garantía sustancial de edad mínima de responsabilidad penal, como postulado de construcción del derecho penal juvenil, que limita la intervención del sistema represivo del estado, optando por la prevención del delito por medio de la protección integral de sus derechos.TEORÍA Y PRAXIS año 16, No.32, Enero-Mayo de 2018, pp.3-12

Accumulation Crisis and Global Police State

Global police state refers to three interrelated developments. First are the ever more omnipresent systems of mass social control, repression, and warfare promoted by the ruling groups to contain the real and the potential rebellion of the global working class and surplus humanity. Second is how the global economy is itself based more and more on the development and deployment of these systems of warfare, social control, and repression simply as a means of making profit and continuing to accumulate capital in the face of stagnation – what I term militarized accumulation, or accumulation by repression – and that now goes well beyond military Keynesianism. And third is the increasing move towards political systems that can be characterized as 21st century fascism, or even in a broader sense, as totalitarian. Digitalization makes possible the creation of a global police state. The mounting crisis appears to cement the emerging digital economy with the global police state. There is a triangulation of far-right, authoritarian, and neo-fascist forces in civil society, reactionary political power in the state, and transnational corporate capital, especially speculative finance capital, the military–industrial–security complex, and the extractive industries – all three interwoven with high-tech or digital capital.

A Robust CRISPR Interference Gene Repression System in Pseudomonas.

Pseudomonas spp. are widely used model organisms in different areas of research. Despite the relevance of Pseudomonas in many applications, the use of protein depletion tools in this host remains limited. Here, we developed the CRISPR interference system for gene repression in Pseudomonas spp. using a nuclease-null Streptococcus pasteurianus Cas9 variant (dead Cas9, or dCas9). We demonstrate a robust and titratable gene depletion system with up to 100-fold repression in β-galactosidase activity in P. aeruginosa and 300-fold repression in pyoverdine production in Pseudomonas putida This inducible system enables the study of essential genes, as shown by ftsZ depletions in P. aeruginosa, P. putida, and Pseudomonas fluorescens that led to phenotypic changes consistent with depletion of the targeted gene. Additionally, we performed the first in vivo characterization of protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) site preferences of S. pasteurianus dCas9 and identified NNGCGA as a functional PAM site that resulted in repression efficiencies comparable to the consensus NNGTGA sequence. This discovery significantly expands the potential genomic targets of S. pasteurianus dCas9, especially in GC-rich organisms.IMPORTANCEPseudomonas spp. are prevalent in a variety of environments, such as the soil, on the surface of plants, and in the human body. Although Pseudomonas spp. are widely used as model organisms in different areas of research, existing tools to deplete a protein of interest in these organisms remain limited. We have developed a robust and inducible gene repression tool in P. aeruginosa, P. putida, and P. fluorescens using the Streptococcus pasteurianus dCas9. This method of protein depletion is superior to existing methods, such as promoter replacements and addition of degradation tags, because it does not involve genomic modifications of the target protein, is titratable, and is capable of repressing multiple genes simultaneously. This gene repression system now enables easy depletion of specific proteins in Pseudomonas, accelerating the study and engineering of this widely used model organism.

Populist Authoritarianism: Chinese Political Culture and Regime Sustainability

Wenfang Tang perceives a core paradox in contemporary China: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state is profoundly authoritarian, and yet public opinion surveys suggest the population generally supports it. The public also expresses a surprisingly high degree of political trust for a country with such a strongly repressive political system. Tang contends that the political culture reflected in surveys is a critical factor that explains the CCP state’s durability despite widespread expectations in the decade after the Tiananmen uprising (1989) that communist authoritarianism would collapse as a consequence of economic and communications development. Analyzing a large number of surveys from the early 1990s through the mid-2010s, Tang probes these paradoxes, aiming to arrive at a comprehensive explanation of how the “populist authoritarian” political culture emerged and exerts its effects. Tang is more successful in demonstrating the operations of the culture—its expression in politics—than he is in tracing its origins. Although some readers will take issue with the argument that individual beliefs aggregated by researchers from surveys and public opinion polls can reflect a cultural whole capable of semiautonomously influencing politics, most will find Tang’s rich and sophisticated discussion of survey results across a range of issue areas highly illuminating. Tang analyzes surveys related to regime support, government and life satisfaction, nationalism, interpersonal trust, contentious politics, and more. He reports on an experimental study conducted with a colleague on the subject of political trust. Specialists on Chinese and comparative politics will find Tang’s discussion an excellent go-to place to learn a core body of work in survey research on China and will be stimulated to think about it critically in a comparative context.

Zinc Acquisition Mechanisms Differ between Environmental and Virulent Francisella Species.

ABSTRACTZinc is an essential nutrient for bacterial growth. Because host cells can restrict pathogen access to zinc as an antimicrobial defense mechanism, intracellular pathogens such as Francisella must sense their environment and acquire zinc in response. In many bacteria, the conserved transcription factor Zur is a key regulator of zinc acquisition. To identify mechanisms of zinc uptake in Francisella novicida U112, transcriptome sequencing of wild-type and putative zur mutant bacteria was performed. Only three genes were confirmed as directly regulated by Zur and zinc limitation by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. One of these genes, FTN_0879, is predicted to encode a protein with similarity to the zupT family of zinc transporters, which are not typically regulated by Zur. While a putative znuACB operon encoding a high-affinity zinc transporter was identified in U112, expression of this operon was not controlled by Zur or zinc concentration. Disruption of zupT but not znuA in U112 impaired growth under zinc limitation, suggesting that ZupT is the primary mechanism of zinc acquisition under these conditions. In the virulent Francisella tularensis subsp. tularensis Schu S4 strain, zupT is a pseudogene, and attempts to delete znuA were unsuccessful, suggesting that it is essential in this strain. A reverse TetR repression system was used to knock down the expression of znuA in Schu S4, revealing that znuA is required for growth under zinc limitation and contributes to intracellular growth within macrophages. Overall, this work identifies genes necessary for adaptation to zinc limitation and highlights nutritional differences between environmental and virulent Francisella strains.IMPORTANCE Francisella tularensis is a tier 1 select agent with a high potential for lethality and no approved vaccine. A better understanding of Francisella virulence factors is required for the development of therapeutics. While acquisition of zinc has been shown to be required for the virulence of numerous intracellular pathogens, zinc uptake has not been characterized in Francisella. This work characterizes the Zur regulon in F. novicida and identifies two transporters that contribute to bacterial growth under zinc limitation. In addition, these data identify differences in mechanisms of zinc uptake and tolerance to zinc limitation between F. tularensis and F. novicida, highlighting the role of znuA in the growth of Schu S4 under zinc limitation.

SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF VERBAL METAPHOR OF FOOD (THE SEMANTIC GROUP «FOOD CONSUMPTION WITH THE AID OF TEETH»)

The article features an analysis of semantics, pragmatics and text-based functioning of figurative vocabulary and expressions, which are metaphorically motivated by such verbs as bite, gnaw, nibble and chew. These verbs name various activities, processes and phenomena because of their analogy to food consumption with the aid of teeth. The analysis allowed the author to describe a number of cognitive metaphorical models which, in their turn, reflect the image projection from the source-domain “Food Consumption” into the conceptual spheres of physiological, mental, psychological and social phenomena. The given system of images expresses metaphorically the concept of various processes and notions related to deformation, destruction and disappearance of material objects; destructive effects on the human body and psyche; social and moral pressure (e. g. competitive struggle, repressive political system), loss of physical resources and values. The pragmatic potential of the image-bearing vocabulary and expressions is predominantly related to negative evaluative connotation since they reveal disapproving, condemning, contemptuous emotional attitude and high level of expressivity.

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel and psychosexuality - a reminder

ABSTRACTJanine Chasseguet-Smirgel, who would have turned 90 this year, had a passion for truth that placed her work at the very heart of psychoanalysis. Never leaving the field of Freudian analysis she explored the inevitable difficulties, due to our premature birth, to become moral subjects. Psychoanalysis was to her, as it was to Freud, a psychology of conflict. She was suspicious of seemingly optimistic views which saw conflict as created between the potentially free subject and one repressive external system or another. Freedom is always limited in psychoanalysis. In an attempt to follow the line of thought in her vast production the article touches upon her critique of Freud’s so called phallic monism, the significance of both parents’place in the psyche, the question of “Falsehood”, perversion as a dimension of the human psyche, and her concerned view on the situation of Western thought today. The author suggests that we might benefit from her radical Freudian stance in a time when the view on truth is undergoing many unfathomable transformations. Perhaps Chasseguet-Smirgels thought can also be an important reminder about the foundations of our work; not just sexuality, not just mental acts but their specific relationship to each other

Political and legal peculiarities of organization of judicial power and repressive system in the White Crimea in 1920

The article examines the peculiarities of the functioning of the judicial system in the White South of Russia during the 1920s. This period is characterized by a significant departure from the previously proclaimed principles of the ideology of the “White movement”, which were replaced by the so-called “left-wing policy with the right hands”. The author comes to conclusion that due to the reduction of the territory occupied by the White armies (the borders of the Crimea and North Tavria (Tauride Governorate)), it became possible to more closely monitor the work of the local judicial system. The White leadership proclaimed its policy of combating all violations of law, the absence of legitimate methods of government, the rule of the so-called “machine gun right”, in which it was the decisions of the military which became the major ones, they prevailed over all civilian legislative acts and institutions. General Wrangel and the Government of the South of Russia, led by Alexander Vasilievich Krivoshein, the former tsarist minister, managed to achieve some changes for the better. There increased the role of the Governing Senate and the importance of prosecutor’s supervision; the activities of the magistrate courts began to recover. The work of counterintelligence agencies was put under prosecutor’s supervision. Court martial got legal limitations, the Red Army soldiers were pardoned. However, it was not possible to completely overcome the dominance of military justice over civil one and to achieve significant changes in the political and legal system in the conditions of the ongoing Civil War. This became one of the reasons for the weakness of the White rear and the failures of the South Russian White movement.

‘유토피아’를 향한 러시아 인텔리겐치아의 이상과 한계: 스토파드의 삼부작 The Coast of Utopia를 중심으로

The aim of this paper is to study the political ideals and limitations of Russian intelligentsia in the 19th century, centering on Tom Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia. The Russian intelligentsia was armed with Western enlightenment ideals and aimed at liberating peasants from serfdom and tyranny and transforming Russia from a structural point of view. Being a thinker who inspired Stoppard to write this trilogy, Alexander Herzen is at the center of The Coast of Utopia.BR Chapter 2 analyzes the situation of the 19th century Russia, described in the first play Voyage. It also includes a grasp of the Russian manor system and the serfdom system under the Tsarist regime. The serfdom system in the 19th century Russia is an important basis for explaining the structural problems of the Russian society, such as the underdevelopment of capitalist production system, the backwardness in modern industrial development, and the absence of the citizen class. Chapter 3 focuses on the exchange of thoughts among Herzen and other intelligentsia, who had left their own countries and lived in Europe. In particular, I would like to discuss how the failure of the French Revolution of 1848 influenced Herzen’s ideological journey. Chapter 4 deals with Herzen’s life in exile in the UK, his Free Russia publishing activities, and the disagreement with the ’60s Russian political theorists.BR Herzen perceived the communistic elements, such as the principle of collective production and distribution, the centralization of power, and the negation of private property system, as monolithic, repressive and barbaric elements. Herzen, as well as Stankevich and Turgenev, all of whom are noble intelligentsia, was unable to sympathize with the radical ideas of communism. However, the Russian intelligentsia in 1840-50s became a good foundation for the birth of a new generation of the 1860s and further laid the foundation of the Russian communist revolution in the early 20th century.BR Through the trilogy, Stoppard tries to shape a new perspective on the 19th century Russian intelligentsia, especially on Herzen. The Russian intelligentsia he depicted is a “noble” human race that chose to liberate peasants and reform the repressive Tsarist system rather than live comfortably in their own identity and property. Furthermore, Stoppard grants a keen perception to Herzen who grasped the limits of the monolithic and repressive communist revolution.BR

Wspomnienia Ryszarda Dowguna – nastoletniego chłopca z Lidy – z łagru w Uchcie w Radzieckiej Republice Komi

Tekst prezentuje wspomnienia Ryszarda Dowguna (nastoletniego chłopca z Lidy) z jego pobytu w łagrze w Uchcie. Relacja powstała w odpowiedzi na konkurs ogłoszony w 1989 r. przez Ośrodek Badań Naukowych im. Wojciecha Kętrzyńskiego w Olsztynie i Olsztyński Oddział Polskiego Towarzystwa Historycznego zatytułowany „Dać świadectwo prawdzie”. Ryszard Dowgun w swojej relacji przypomina okoliczności aresztowania, wywózki na Sybir, a przede wszystkim tragiczne przeżycia związane z pobytem w więzieniach, następnie zaś w obozie. Opowiada o ciężkiej pracy, głodzie, „rytmie” dnia w łagrze i powrocie do Polski. Dzięki relacji Dowguna możemy poznać szczegółowo sowiecki system represji realizowany przez radzieckie więziennictwo oraz pracę więźniów różnych narodowości w istniejących od początku władzy bolszewickiej obozach pracy przymusowej.

VE-Cadherin-Mediated Epigenetic Regulation of Endothelial Gene Expression.

The mechanistic foundation of vascular maturation is still largely unknown. Several human pathologies are characterized by deregulated angiogenesis and unstable blood vessels. Solid tumors, for instance, get their nourishment from newly formed structurally abnormal vessels which present wide and irregular interendothelial junctions. Expression and clustering of the main endothelial-specific adherens junction protein, VEC (vascular endothelial cadherin), upregulate genes with key roles in endothelial differentiation and stability. We aim at understanding the molecular mechanisms through which VEC triggers the expression of a set of genes involved in endothelial differentiation and vascular stabilization. We compared a VEC-null cell line with the same line reconstituted with VEC wild-type cDNA. VEC expression and clustering upregulated endothelial-specific genes with key roles in vascular stabilization including claudin-5, vascular endothelial-protein tyrosine phosphatase (VE-PTP), and von Willebrand factor (vWf). Mechanistically, VEC exerts this effect by inhibiting polycomb protein activity on the specific gene promoters. This is achieved by preventing nuclear translocation of FoxO1 (Forkhead box protein O1) and β-catenin, which contribute to PRC2 (polycomb repressive complex-2) binding to promoter regions of claudin-5, VE-PTP, and vWf. VEC/β-catenin complex also sequesters a core subunit of PRC2 (Ezh2 [enhancer of zeste homolog 2]) at the cell membrane, preventing its nuclear translocation. Inhibition of Ezh2/VEC association increases Ezh2 recruitment to claudin-5, VE-PTP, and vWf promoters, causing gene downregulation. RNA sequencing comparison of VEC-null and VEC-positive cells suggested a more general role of VEC in activating endothelial genes and triggering a vascular stability-related gene expression program. In pathological angiogenesis of human ovarian carcinomas, reduced VEC expression paralleled decreased levels of claudin-5 and VE-PTP. These data extend the knowledge of polycomb-mediated regulation of gene expression to endothelial cell differentiation and vessel maturation. The identified mechanism opens novel therapeutic opportunities to modulate endothelial gene expression and induce vascular normalization through pharmacological inhibition of the polycomb-mediated repression system.

Accerchiare e soffocare il nemico. Il Plan Condor e le dittature del Cono Sud dell'America Latina

This contribution stems from a victimological consultancy carried out in favour of the relatives of desaparecidos of Italian nationality, in the legal proceedings at the Superior Court of Justice in Rome, whose verdict was reached on 27 January 2017. Thus, totally unprecedented forms of social cruelty have come to light, among which the deliberate use of sexual torture, kidnapping of children as spoils of war and death flights, with the ensuing phenomenon of desaparecidos (i.e. the disappeared). The analysis of testimonials and of the comparison with the legal sources placed in the case-files, has made it possible to collect a number of elements highlighting some peculiar characteristics of violence employed by Operation Condor. All this has made it possible to clarify the complex repressive system meant to entrap not only the dissidents but also the entire social body in the Southern Cone in Latin America, by means of a control system ruled by the political and military top ranks of the nations involved, under the vigilant direction of the Cia and of the US government.