Chilean Refugees and the World University Service (HN)

General Pinochet's aerial bombardment of the Presidential Palace, La Moneda, in the centre of Santiago de Chile on 11 September 1973 was an iconic moment in contemporary Latin American history. It resonated around the globe, signalling a brutal end to Salvador Allende's proposed democratic road to socialism. Pinochet's regime was one of a series of violent dictatorships in the region. In 1976 a coup in neighbouring Argentina led to a military dictatorship where many fleeing Chileans again found themselves persecuted. The images of Pinochet's bombing of the Moneda Palace shook left-wing hopes to the core not only in the Americas but also in Europe. Between the mid 1970s and the mid 1980s, a significant amount of effort and financial support was dedicated by UK organizations to the rescue of Chileans from political persecution in Pinochet's Chile. The World University Service (WUS) was central to this process. Its actions, in conjunction with a number of related organizations, can now be seen as the beginning of co-ordinated refugee policy in the UK.

This project aims to establish a network to investigate the role of the World University Service (WUS) in assisting Chileans fleeing political persecution, to analyse a representative sample of WUS exile experiences, and to evaluate the lessons of the program for refugee and exile policy today. Working with the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, or Museum of Memory and Human Rights (MMDH), in Santiago de Chile, we shall record and analyse the experiential memories of these exiles, now in their sixties, seventies and even eighties, before it is too late to do so.

Our goals are:
1. to assist the MMDH in expanding their collection of exile memories by enhancing a currently understudied Chile-UK dimension;
2. to assist the MMDH in promoting peace and tolerance via greater social awareness of exile testimony and experiences;
3. to establish a network able to design and deliver a larger, oral history project on Chilean exiles in the UK;
4. to draw out potential policy reflections relevant to the present moment.

Most refugee initiatives are evaluated within the relatively short time frame of five years. In the case of Chileans fleeing the Pinochet coup, however, a unique opportunity presents itself to examine their experiences of up to four decades of exile, as well as the experiences of those exiles who returned home. We thus have a chance to examine and reflect on long-term strategies for countries that have lost or are losing citizens to exile. Our project demonstrates how they might publicly recognize such experiences, incorporate them into a more cohesive society, and acknowledge them in national memory narratives.

The impact of our work will include our contribution to exile memory in Chile, and refugee action and support in the UK. In Chile, we aim to assist in the building of an oral archive of exile experiences in order to contribute to a plural, tolerant memory of recent history. In the UK, our goal is to raise awareness not only of this instance of social solidarity and cultural support, but to provide the opportunity for practitioners, the public sector, and communities to consider the social contribution of refugees and exiles in historical and contemporary perspective.

Our impact activities are targeted at the successful achievement of these goals via:

- A PROJECT WEBSITE to disseminate the contribution of the World University Service through audio testimonies by former organizers and exiles. Our outputs will include an easily accessible bilingual store of exile experiences (audio podcasts will be given a wider reach thanks to transcriptions and English/Spanish translations as required). These testimonies will be open equally to the general public and to researchers. They will also be deposited with the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Chile and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, ensuring their long-term conservation and their accessibility to both Chilean and UK society. We will also publish a volume of selected testimonies along with historical and analytical essays on the topic, which will appeal mostly to scholars. These activities will achieve both short and longer term impacts.

- Promotional work including a SHORT VIDEO, a possible RADIO BROADCAST, and MUSEUM DISPLAYS to accompany our workshops. In addition the publication of a scholarly volume and the up-to-date archiving of testimony, we will promote our project via a short video and possible radio program showcasing Chilean exiles reflecting on their experiences. We are currently working with the Ideas Lab, which has been invited by BBC Radio 4 to submit a proposal for a program examining the work of the World University Service and the Council for At-Risk Academics. Should this be successful, the historical importance of our research will reach a national audience and create substantial media impact from our work.

- Cultural activities to broaden the appeal of our topic and stress the contribution of exiles to cultural life, whether in the host country or their country of origin. These will include the SCREENING OF A PREVIOUSLY LOST FILM on Chilean exiles in France, a CONCERT by a Chilean singer and former exile now based in the UK, and a PUBLIC TALK about exile by an award-winning Chilean novelist.

- POLICY REFLECTIONS and public sector consultation. In terms of practitioner beneficiaries, our project provides a significant historical perspective on exile and refugee practice over a period of 40 years. This makes it of relevance both for the emergence of co-ordinated refugee work in the UK, but also for the manner in which central issues of exile and refugee experience may have evolved over time. We will reach this audience through our contacts with important refugee organizations (the Refugee Council and Council for At-Risk Academics in the UK; thanks to the MMDH's links, the Fundación de Protección de la Infancia Dañada por los Estados de Emergencia in Chile), and through the circulation of our policy reflections at the end of the project. Our aim is not to indicate lessons as we might view them, but to garner the insights of contemporary practitioners on our research, disseminate these, and facilitate further contributions from organizations that respond to our paper. Given our ultimate goal of extending this network into a larger project, our consultation will bring significant potential to establish a longer-term collaboration that bridges academic research and refugee practice.