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 | REFUSING TO FORGETOctober 16, 1997NEWSHOUR TRANSCRIPT |
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A little over two decades have passed since a military junta overthrew Argentina's democratically elected government. During the junta's six year reign, nearly 30,000 people "disappeared" in what is often referred to as Argentina's "Dirty War". After a background report, Elizabeth Farnsworth leads a discussion on a nation trying to heal its wounds.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
October 16, 1997
A discussion of Argentina's "Dirty War."
October 13, 1997
A discussion of President Clinton's trip to Latin America.
February 26, 1997
A report on Chile's democratic status and economic revival.
December 30, 1996:
After 36 years of civil war, the Guatemalan government and rebels sign a peace agreement.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Latin America.
OUTSIDE LINKS
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a group of women with "disappeared" children and grandchildren in Argentina. (In Spanish)
Argentina Human Rights Information
President of Argentina
Consulate of Argentina in Chicago (in English) and the Embassy in Washington (in Spanish)
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The President and First Lady arrived in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, yesterday. Mr. Clinton has made a celebration of democracy a key focus of his South American trip, but Argentina's democracy is still confronting difficulties related to the past. Mrs. Clinton acknowledged those problems in a private meeting today with women whose relatives disappeared during the military dictatorship 20 years ago. Now some background on how Argentina is dealing with its past.
30,000 people "disappeared"
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: These women--known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo--have become famous in Argentina because they refuse to forget. Almost two decades have passed since their loved ones disappeared in what is often termed Argentina's "Dirty War." To have "disappeared" in those years--as an estimated 30,000 people did--is almost certainly to have been killed. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo want an accounting of what happened to their relatives and punishment of those responsible. The organization has been demonstrating in downtown Buenos Aires every week since just after a 1976 coup brought a military junta to power. Tex Harris was a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires in those years.
F. ALLEN "TEX" HARRIS, Former Embassy Official: For the most part the state terrorist system worked with a kind of numbing brutal efficiency. People were disappeared by what was called the Left Hand. They were tortured for information. They were identified for extermination, and they disappeared.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The "exterminations" continued until 1982, when Britain defeated Argentina's generals in the Falklands War, and military rule ended. Three years later, Argentina's elected President, Raul Alfonsin, ordered trials of the nine admirals and generals who ruled the country during the years of military dictatorship. Five of the nine were convicted and given sentences ranging from several years to life imprisonment.
But in 1989, Alfonsin's successor, Carlos Menem, the current president, pardoned some leftist guerrillas and the convicted generals and forbade any future trials, saying this was the only way to heal the wounds of the past. Adolfo Perez Esquivel was among those upset by Menem's action. Esquivel had been Imprisoned and tortured in the 70's, and won a Nobel peace prize in 1980 for his non-violent resistance to the military government.
ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL: (speaking through interpreter) President Menem freed criminals who had been tried and who had not yet been sentenced, which is unconstitutional and violates treaties and international law. So what are the consequences--now--of this impunity? All the criminals are free and some of them hold public office.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In 1995 this book was published and it added weight to the arguments of those who opposed the pardons. In the book ex naval officer Adolfo Scilingo admits that on orders from his superiors he and other officers dumped "The disappeared"--still alive--from airplanes into the South Atlantic.
ADOLFO SCILINGO: (speaking through interpreter) I participated in two flights. It may be easier than killing someone face to face, but I wiped out 30 sleeping, naked, defenseless people without even knowing what they did and, in fact, now knowing that the great majority never did anything. The use of airplanes--the transfer of the people onto the planes--all the logistics of these flights--I believe only a monster could have designed such a sophisticated killing machine.
Present day problems
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the two years since Scilingo's confession the movement against impunity has intensified but so has violence against government critics. This demonstration last March commemorated the murder two months earlier of photojournalist Jose Luis Cabezas.
He had been investigating police corruption in Buenos Aires Province for "Noticias" magazine when he was abducted from a party and killed. Then last month four men showing police identification abducted the ex-navy officer Adolfo Scilingo and carved three initials into his face. They were the initials of journalists to whom Scilingo had told his story. Those who oppose president's Menem's pardons argue the lack of accountability for past crimes is partly to blame for these more recent acts of intimidation. Alicia Portnoy was taken prisoner during the 1970's but survived.
ALICIA PORTNOY: If you don't do justice in those cases, this is going to sound very trite, it's been said so much that it sounds trite, but if you don't do justice, this can happen again.
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