Former Santa Lucia Sugar Mill

Introduction

To strengthen the province's tourism offering, the Tucumán Tourism Board is working with the Human Rights Secretariat to design a historical circuit that encourages the identification and visitation of sites and spaces where crimes against humanity were committed or planned, both during Operation Independence and the last civil-military dictatorship (1975-1983) and at other times in our history.

These actions, which involved the incorporation of signage and digital support to provide relevant information, are part of the public policies of Memory, Truth, and Justice that symbolize the commitment of the democratic State to publicize and condemn crimes against humanity, promote the prosecution of those responsible and recognize victims, survivors and their families.

These interventions in public space combine support and reparation for victims of illegal repression and the promotion of community participation in the construction of memory so that such harmful events do not happen again.

Former Santa Lucía Sugar Mill

On February 7, 1975, during Operation Independence, the Argentine Army's "Aconquija" task force established its base of operations at the former Santa Lucía sugar mill, which had closed during the Onganía dictatorship in 1966.

This place was part of the repressive circuit made up of other military bases that also functioned as clandestine detention centers at the Lules, La Fronterita, Nueva Baviera and Caspinchango sugar mills.

The former sugar mill's operation as a CCD extended from 1975 to 1982. During those years, hundreds of detained and disappeared people passed through this place, mostly residents and their families, who had worked there and lived in the sugar colonies linked to it.

The clandestine detention center operated in the chalet, the administrator's house. At the back of the building was a room that led to a basement where detainees were held and tortured. Several of them remain missing to this day.

In August 2018, the Provincial Human Rights Secretariat, together with the Ombudsman's Office and the Federal Network of Memory Sites, declared the former sugar mill a Memory Site and marked it with a sign indicating that acts linked to state terrorism had been committed there.