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Phil Ponce talks with the Argentine Ambassador, Diego Ramiro Guelar, in a follow-up interview about a nation trying coming to terms with its past.

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PHIL PONCE: On October 16th, while President Clinton was visiting Argentina, the NewsHour aired a segment about the South American nation, how the government of President Carlos Menem was dealing with Argentina's troubled past and the disappearance and deaths of thousands of Argentinians during military rule in the 1970's. Argentina's top diplomats in the United States were in their home country for the Clinton visit and the program did not provide the views of the Menem government. Joining us now is Argentina's ambassador to Washington, Diego Ramiro Guelar. Mr. Ambassador welcome, and thank you for coming here to discuss some of the points that were raised in that earlier program.

About eight years ago President Menem pardoned the military leaders who were accused of having been involved in what came to be known as the dirty war against civilians. Why did he pardon them?

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR, Ambassador, Argentina: Well, as your program noted, President Menem stayed in prison during the five years--that means he was a victim of repression. I personally have to live six years of my life underground during the last two military regimes from 1970 to 1973, and from 1976 through 1979, a great part of my best friends of my youth were murdered during the military regime. That means that I don't feel by any means that President Menem or myself are accomplice of the murders in Argentina, but we need to finish more than 200 years of almost a permanent civil war in our history. We live during the last 200 years in a permanent state of civil war and reconciliation was a major issue and finally it is now accomplished in Argentina.

PHIL PONCE: In 1989 though, specifically, what were the things that President Menem was facing when he decided to issue this controversial pardon?

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: Well, he won the election in 1989, we had 5,000 percent of inflation, just $60 million in our central bank as reserves. We have the risk of a new coup de tat, of the painted heads that tried to seize power one year after, and that was the last attempt. And if you see what happened in just eight years, that we have just 1 percent, or less than 1 percent inflation, 8 percent of growth of our GNP, more than $20 billion reserves, we went from $10 billion export to $30 billion export, is a major change. We have--we are in front of a new country.

PHIL PONCE: What do you say to critics who say that notwithstanding the fact that the president may have been facing hyperinflation and political instability that, in retrospect, it was a mistake because there was not closure, there was not a final resolution of some of the things that happened during that chapter in your country's history.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: That chapter is a terrible chapter of our history, a dramatic chapter. I'm sure that it's closed as chapter in terms of the struggle in-between Argentinians. Of course, memory has to be always alive, and we are not trying to forget what happened. It would be a terrible mistake to forget our past.

PHIL PONCE: And yet, your government's critics will say that aside from not forgetting, that there's still a direct impact between what happened in the 70's and the pardon and the continuing concern and unresolution of those issues.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: But if we see what is happening in Argentina, we just have an election yesterday, a very important election. The opposition won; they obtained 50 percent in mid-term election.

PHIL PONCE: The opposition alliance beat your party.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: Exactly.

PHIL PONCE: The Peronistas.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: The Peronist Party--that is my party--with 50 percent of the votes. We had--the Peronist Party--40 percent of the votes. That is not so bad after five elections that we won in a row, after eight years in government to obtain in a mid-term election 40 percent of the vote is not so bad--because that shows how strong is democracy in Argentina. Our citizens have very clear options in great parties, and there is completely and full, free press in Argentina nowadays. I really feel proud as a citizen of the results of these elections.

PHIL PONCE: You mentioned free press, and yet the critics of the government would say that your government has created a hostile environment for the press. There have been a couple of well publicized attacks relating to the press in the past couple of years where people were hurt or in one case killed.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: Well, you know, that's a curious critic because when President Menem won the election in 1989, it was in the hands of the government, practically all media--70 percent of the networks--all the television channels--the major news agencies--the major radios were in the hands of the state. Because of the strong commitment that President Menem have related to--he decided to privatize everything. Nowadays we have all television channels in the hands of different private groups. We have hundreds of cable TV in all over 24 federal states. We are a political system similar to the United States. We don't have radios. We don't have agencies. There--it exists not only through press but free competition among different media groups, and that was a free decision of President Menem. For that reason I am very sure and very proud also of this strong commitment towards free press.

PHIL PONCE: On the issue of reform some--again, your critics would say that the government has a long way to go as far as judicial reform and reform of the police, especially in the provinces.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: Well, there is, you know, in democracy you have to work every day to ameliorate the system. That's a work that is never finished. You are working every day here in the United States in dealing with judiciary problems, with police problems, with corruption problems. That's something that you never finish, and we have to have a strong commitment, a daily based-fight against those issues. Through the years we didn't have the possibility of free press, no congress, no possibility to identify these corruption issues. Now, what is happening in Argentina, of course, is that this fight against corruption is in public opinion, there's a very strong reaction that was against corruption from citizens in Argentina, and those are the things that are threatening our system every day.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Ambassador, I thank you for being here.

DIEGO RAMIRO GUELAR: Thank you very much.

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