Truth and Reconciliation

Truth & Reconciliation

Argentina’s Truth and Reconciliation

The restoration of democracy in Argentina during the presidency of Raul Alfonsín (1983-1989) was a favorable moment to seek for truth and reconciliation during the Dirty War and Malvinas War. Even though the wounds of the days of horror, genocide, and fear were still open, the nation decided to start a period of reflexion and collective memory.

Poster: National Day of Memory, Truth, and Justice (March, 2016)

Every year, on March 24, Argentinians observe The Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice (Día de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia). This commemoration was established after the Argentine National Congress sanctioned the Law 25633 on August 1, 2002. This public holiday commemorates the victims of the Dirty War and marks the anniversary of the coup d'état of 1976.

Nunca Más (Never Again) CONADEP

The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP) was created by President Alfonsín on December 15, 1983 “to investigate the fate of the people who disappeared during those ill-omened years of our nation’s life” - military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983- (1984, p.1).

Source: Gobierno de la República Argentina. (2018). Retrieved from Argentina.gob.ar.

Unfortunately, the natural course for justice was interrupted by three major military uprisings during Alfonsin’s presidency that compelled him to sign two highly controversial amnesty laws: the Ley de Obediencia Debida (Due Obedience Law) and Ley de Punto Final (Full Stop Law). James Brennan, a specialist in modern Latin American history, explains that the Full Stop or Punto Final Law established a statute of limitations on indictments, and Dutiful Obedience or Obediencia Debida Law exempted those simply following orders from prosecution, justice stayed within carefully prescribed limits (2018, p.77).

The process of memory and reconciliation was interrupted when President Menem (1989–1999) issued a pardon for the junta members already tried and serving prison sentences (1989-1990). According to Brennan, “the Menem pardons, the product of some one hundred executive decrees during the ten years of Menem’s presidency, led to a decade in which the human rights issue as state policy was virtually moribund” (2018, p.78).

A new period of truth and reconciliation started during the presidency of Néstor Kirchner in 2003. Human Rights organizations opened up the discussion and debate of the crimes committed during the Dirty War. President Kirchner dismantled the amnesty laws and pardons of the Alfonsín and Menem years to preserve and share the truth about the state-sponsored terrorism. In 2004, Congress finally annulled the laws of Punto Final (1986) and Obediencia Debida (1987).

Among the several organizations that promote memory and reconciliation in Argentina, it is important to note the organization known as HIJOS (Hijos e Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio). It was first established in La Plata in 1995, but it soon opened chapters in the rest of the country. Although it was initially composed of the children of the victims of the state terrorism, it ended up including former political prisoners and exiles and even common citizens to recover the memory of the Dirty war years and demand new indictments.

Source: Sign reads: We Choose Memory - Pagina 12. Argentina. (2015, August 15). Retrieved from laicismo.org

Madres de Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo)

Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) is an association of mothers whose children disappeared during the military dictatorship (1976-1983). This group of women originally decided to organize marches and congregate in Plaza de Mayo in 1977 to demand information and justice for their missing sons and daughters. They became visible by wearing white headscarves as a symbol of their struggle, peace. Ever since, every Thursday afternoon, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo walk around the central square (across from the government palace in Buenos Aires). According to their main portal, madres.org, they are no longer a Human Rights organization, but rather a “political organization, now with a national and popular Liberation project”.

According to the prestigious sociologists, Lester Kurtz, “movement momentum grew in the early 1980s with economic collapse, increased attention to the atrocities by the international community and the United Nations, and finally the junta’s defeat in a 74-day war with the British after Argentine troops unsuccessfully attempted to take over the Falkland Islands held by the British off the East Coast of Argentina” (2010, p.5).

Painting: National Day of Memory, Truth, and Justice. InformaciónImágenes.net. (2016, March).

One Mother said "We can put a triangular shawl on our heads", "A triangular shawl... what color?" The colour had to be the same. "White", "Why don't we wear our children's nappies?" (we had all kept them as some memory to hang onto) Well, on the first day in the march to Luján we used the white shawl or shall I say nappy. When we arrived we realised that we had to be remembered by all the crowds that had gathered. The people will remember the white shawled women who were shouting, asking, praying for their disappeared loved ones. All the people staying in Luján at that time took note that there were disappeared people in the country and that the Mothers were demanding answers. (Madres - History)

Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (The Association of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo)

Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo is an Argentinian human rights organization made up of grandmothers committed to finding their lost grandchildren during the Dirty War (1976-1983). Lead by its president Estela de Carlotto, Abuelas believe that “many babies were kidnapped with their parents, some after their parents were killed, and others were born in clandestine detention centers where their mothers were taken after having been sequestered at different states of their pregnancies” (abuelas.org.ar).

Photography: Las Abuelas Marchando. Laprimerapiedra.com.ar

The main goal of this organization is “to assist young adults who doubt their identities by investigating all existing documents and referring them for blood analysis. Blood analyses are conducted by the National Bank of Genetic Data, which has the power to perform such analyses without legal intervention” (1).

Carloto’s exhaustive 36-year search finally ended three years ago. Surprisingly, her grandson is from my hometown, Olavarria. Since he had doubts about his identity, he volunteer for a DNA test at the Abuelas de Plaza Mayo Association. Even though the Abuelas have already located 127 grandsons, hundreds of children who either disappeared or were born in captivity (in clandestine detention centers) are still missing.

Estela Carlotto hugs her grandson Ignacio Montoya Carlotto, son of her daughter Laura, who ‘disappeared’ in 1977. Photograph: Leo La Valle/Getty

Museo de la Memoria (The Memory Museum)

It was created in Rosario in 1998 with the purpose of promoting access to extensive knowledge and research on the national human rights violations as well as the socio-political memory of Argentina. Apart from its exhibits and private library, the museum offers a Legal Advice service for the survivors of state terrorism, their relatives, or legal professionals who may request it. The general public can also gain access to information regarding human rights violations during the last civil-military dictatorship.

Photograph: Museo de la Memoria, Rosario - Argentina

Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA (ESMA Memory Site Museum)

The former Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) operated as a Clandestine Detention center during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). The ESMA served as a Torture and Extermination Center. The former Officers Club, originally intended for recreation and rest of the officers, was the operational core for illegal repression. According to the data collected from the museum, “Approximately 5,000 people detainees-disappeared went through this place. Most of them were dropped alive into the sea on the so called "death flights" (ESMA Website). ESMA Memory Site Museum is part of UNESCO´s World Heritage tentative list. The site houses a museographic exhibition based on the testimonies given by survivors at CONADEP (1984), Trial of the Juntas (1985), and declassified documents provided by State agencies for current ESMA trial.

Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA-photo by Camilo Del Cerro

The National Security Archive

On August 20, 2002, The National Security Archive and its partner NGO, the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) declassified more than 4,600 previously secret U.S. documents on human rights violations under the 1976-83 military dictatorship in Argentina (Osorio, 2002, p.1). According to Carlos Osorio, “the documents provide clues to the fate of 'disappeared' citizens in Argentina by an unchecked security apparatus, and tell the story of a massive and indiscriminate counterinsurgency campaign carried out by the military dictatorship targeting real or imagined subversives including thousands of labor leaders, workers, clergymen, human rights advocates, scientists, doctors, and political party leaders"(Osorio, 2002, p.1).

Unresolved Memory for Malvinas War

The Malvinas War was the last attempt of the Argentine military regime to stay in power. Most Argentinians associate the decision to go to war against The U.K. with many of the Junta’s irresponsible measures that attempted against human rights.

Recognition of the Malvinas victims and veterans remained silent until the early 1990s. After years of claims to the different democratic governments, Malvinas veterans received their first retirement pensions in 1994 and later in 2003. Thirty six years after the Malvinas War (Falklands War), there is still a pending issue with the family of the 649 soldiers that died in combat and those who participated in the war. Veterans and their families still demand a fair trial for those military members responsible or accomplices of crimes against human rights

If it was not for the hundreds of veteran organizations, the memory of the courageous soldiers who defended the Malvinas Islands would not be in the collective conscience of Argentinians.

Photograph: Federación de Veteranos de Guerra de La Republica Argentina Facebook Page

The Malvinas Museum and the South Atlantic Islands

The different exhibits, educational guided visits, workshops, and other cultural activities, provide the visitor with a wealth of information about the Malvinas Islands and the South Atlantic region. Visitors will be able to enjoy three different levels that link the geographical aspect of the islands with their natural habitat, and historical events that took place since the first explorers up to the present time.

Photographs: Museo de Malvinas e Islas del Atlántico Sur - Facebook photos

My Reflection on Argentina's Truth Reconciliation

In November, 2017, I was pleasantly surprised by the headline in The New York Times newspaper announcing that “29 former military officials were sentenced to life in prison in a case that documented the dictatorship’s widespread practice of killing civilians by throwing them from aircraft” (Politi, 2017). According to the journalist’s report, “Argentina has done more than any of its neighbors to punish people for crimes committed during the era of military rule” (Politi, 2017).

Acknowledging the victims of terrorism and genocide in Argentina and uncovering the truth is and should always be our primary obligation. Also, searching for “los desaparecidos” (the disappeared) as well as the victims of Malvinas War is the responsibility of the whole nation. It is important to confront our fears and make peace with the past to protect our rights and guarantees and those of future generations.

Great catastrophes are always instructive. The tragedy which began with the military dictatorship in March 1976, the most terrible our nation has ever suffered, will undoubtedly serve to help us understand that it is only democracy which can save people from horror on this scale, only democracy which can keep and safeguard the sacred, essential rights of man. Only with democracy will we be certain that NEVER AGAIN will events such as these, which have made Argentina so sadly infamous throughout the world, be repeated in our nation.

(Sabato, 1984)

Sources:

Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. (2018). History of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. abuelas.org.ar. Retrieved from https://abuelas.org.ar/idiomas/english/history.htm.

Brennan, J., & Ferreyra, M. (2018). Five Trials: Public Reckonings of a Violent Past. In Argentina's Missing Bones: Revisiting the History of the Dirty War (pp. 77-88). Oakland, California: University of California Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt21668wg.10

Fundación Veteranos de Guerra de Malvinas. (2018). Retrieved from http://fundacionmalvinas.org.ar/wp/

Kurtz, Lester R. The Mothers of the Disappeared: Challenging the Junta in Argentina (1977-1983). (2010). International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Retrieved from https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The-Mothers-of-the-Disappeared-Argentina-7.pdf.

Madres de Plaza de Mayo. (2018). Mission and Hostory. Retrieved from http://madres.org/

Osorio, C., (Policy analyst), (Ed.). (2002). National security archive electronic briefing book (Vol. No. 73 /). Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive.

Politi, D., & Londoňo, E. (2017). 29 Argentines Sentenced to Life in Prison in ‘Death Flights’ trial. New York Times (online), (Nov 29, 2017).

Sabato, E. (1984). Excerpts from Report on Disappearances under The Military. (transcript). The New York Times, 134, 10.

The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP). (1984). Report of CONADEP. Desaparecidos.org. Retrieved from http://www.desaparecidos.org/nuncamas/web/english/library/nevagain/nevagain_002.htm.

The Malvinas Museum and the South Atlantic Islands. (2018). Retrieved from https://museomalvinas.cultura.gob.ar/info/el-museo/