RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Gov’t Supports ICC – But Without Retroactivity

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 26 1998 (IPS) - The Argentine government backs the creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to try crimes against humanity. But it continues to refuse to collaborate with courts in other countries prosecuting former Argentine dictators for human rights violations.

“This country is full of contradictions. The ruling party says it was the victim of the 1976-83 dictatorship, but praises those who victimised it,” Estela Carloto, the president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a rights group that tracks down children abducted by the regime, told IPS.

If the ICC had existed prior to Argentina’s last dictatorship, it would have been able to prosecute the former commanders. But the creation of such a court is only now being debated in Rome, and the former military chiefs were already sentenced and then pardoned by the government, and thus cannot be tried again.

But the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a local rights group headed by Hebe de Bonafini, disagrees.

And they loudly expressed their disagreement by bursting into the plenary session of representatives of 156 governments participating in the ICC treaty negotiations ongoing in Rome till July 17, waving placards and shouting insults at Argentina’s official delegates.

Carloto – who criticised the action by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – was invited by a Swiss organisation to the deliberations in Rome.

While there, she applauded the arrest of former dictator Jorge Videla in Argentina on charges of appropriation of children during the dictatorship. The judge is to decide within the next few days whether Videla will be released or tried.

“The idea was to urge the government delegates to include in their deliberations cases of child victims of violence in the world, and the need to try those responsible,” said Carloto, who nonetheless agreed with the Argentine government that events in the recent past should not fall under ICC jurisdiction.

Repression of guerrilla groups and alleged subversives by the Argentine dictatorship led to the “disappearance” of at least 10,000 people – a figure that rights groups put at 30,000 – as well as around 500 children abducted or born in captivity, whose identity was later changed.

In Rome, Justice Minister Raul Granillo Ocampo expressed Argentina’s support for an ICC, and even proposed extending its jurisdiction to drug-related crimes, an initiative that failed, however, to drum up the necessary support.

But the government remains unwilling to collaborate with courts in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden and Finland which are prosecuting former military officers active during Argentina’s dictatorship. The Carlos Menem administration bases its refusal on the Argentine principle of the territorial reach of criminal prosecution.

The former commanders were sentenced to life in prison for human rights violations in Argentina, but pardoned by President Menem in 1990. Their subordinates were let off the hook by two amnesty laws before they were even taken to court.

In the past few years, however, legal proceedings against Argentine officers in connection with the disappearance of foreign nationals in Argentina have been springing up in Europe.

In Spain, Judge Baltasar Garzon started out by prosecuting officers for the disappearance of Spanish citizens. But the trial has now been extended to other victims, based on principles of international law which allow crimes against humanity to be tried anywhere.

The Argentine government has refused to provide information on the officers being tried. And Menem has criticised Garzon, who he describes as a “starlet judge” led by “maneuvres of the extreme left” to commit “judicial harassment” against Argentina’s armed forces.

A French court convicted Alfredo Astiz, a former captain discharged by the navy this year, and issued an international arrest warrant for him for the abduction and murders of two French nuns during the de facto regime. But he was absolved by the amnesty laws in Argentina, where he lives at liberty.

The Argentine and French governments teetered on the brink of a diplomatic row when Menem’s Justice Party backed Astiz’ promotion, and the chief of the navy praised him as one of the institution’s best officers.

The Italian state is a plaintiff, meanwhile, in a case in that country against seven former Argentine officers charged in the disappearance of Argentine-Italian citizens, including Carloto’s daughter, who had a baby in prison.