ARGENTINA: No Consensus on Chilean-Style Human Rights Panel

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 12 2000 (IPS) - The Argentine government praised a military initiative aimed at cooperating in the search for the truth about the “disappeared” in a dialogue similar to talks held by a human rights panel in Chile.

But in his response to an army proposal to the Catholic Church to set up a panel comprised of representatives of the armed forces and human rights groups, with backing from the Church, justice minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra stressed Tuesday that legal proceedings already underway against military officers must be allowed to continue.

The aim of the undertaking would be to uncover “the complete truth” about what happened under the 1976-83 dictatorship, under which at least 10,000 people went missing at the hands of the security forces.

The military proposal is based on the model employed by Chile, where a panel was set up last August to hammer out a formula to clarify the fate of the 1,200 victims of disappearance of the 1973-90 de facto regime of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet.

But the Argentine initiative does not have the backing of human rights organisations or the lawyers of the families of the victims.

Whether a human rights panel is set up “depends on the parties involved,” said President Fernando de la Rúa. “In Chile, the proposal is coming up with results,” but “between us, it isn’t easy.”

Human rights leaders believe that the proposal seeks to put an end to the citations for those who allegedly took part in the repression to provide data that would help reconstruct the truth about what happened.

The legal proceedings underway have led to the arrest of members of the military on charges of refusal to cooperate.

The amnesty laws that let the military off the hook in the 1980s keep those responsible for the events in question safe from trial. However, the courts can order the arrest, for an indefinite period of time, of anyone who refuses to testify when summoned.

“I think it is positive that (the army) feels the spirit of cooperating in the search for the truth,” said minister Gil Lavedra. “But we will have to discuss which is the best route to take — a subpoena to testify or some other alternative. At any rate, the legal proceedings already underway will have to run their course.”

Gil Lavedra’s response was seen by analysts and activists as ambiguous, because on one hand he recognised that the lawsuits must continue, while on the other he appeared sceptical regarding the results.

But he did not rule out the possibility of setting up a Chilean- style human rights panel, justice ministry sources told the Buenos Aires daily ‘Clarín’.

The proposal by the army chief, General Ricardo Brinzoni, to set up a panel comprised of human rights activists and lawyers, government officials, senior military officers and members of the clergy was set forth when military officers who refused to testify in the so-called “truth trials” began to be arrested.

As a sign of support, Brinzoni sent his secretary to visit the detainees several times, drawing fire from human rights groups.

According to an agreement signed by the human rights panel in Chile last month, the identity of anyone who provides information shedding light on the fate of the disappeared will be held in the strictest confidence.

The proposal by the Argentine armed forces would entail similar safeguards against reprisals. The information needed to find out the truth cannot be found in the archives, but depends exclusively on testimony from repressors and survivors.

Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio has already declared that the Catholic Church is willing to back initiatives for dialogue aimed at “national reconciliation.”

Bergoglio advocates the reconstruction of the “complete memory” of what happened during the dictatorship — a reference to the need to go all the way back to the emergence of leftist guerrilla groups, which served as a pretext for the 1976 coup d’etat and the repression.

Trials held in the mid-1980s, in which the members of the military juntas were convicted and sentenced to life in prison, revealed to the public harrowing details of the abduction, torture, and disappearances.

Due to a pardon issued by then-president Carlos Menem (1989- 99), the officers were released after spending just six years in prison. But in the past two years they have begun to be prosecuted on charges for which they were not previously tried, such as stealing the babies of political prisoners.

Many of the officers responsible for the crackdown on real or suspected opponents have been accused in connection with the illegal adoption of the young children of the disappeared, abducted along with their parents or born into captivity.

A number of serving and retired officers are now facing fresh trials on charges of changing the identities of the babies and forging documents.

Many of the kidnapped minors continue to live under the false identities given them by the agents of the dictatorship, because they were adopted by the repressors themselves or families who were unaware of their origins, according to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group that has already identified more than 50 of the missing children of the disappeared.

Brinzoni’s suggestion to follow the Chilean model to close the chapter on repression has been loudly rejected by human rights groups and other sectors of society, not only because of the enormous number of disappeared, but also due to the suspicion that the initiative is aimed at closing all human rights cases in the courts once and for all.

The military representatives sitting on the human rights panel in Chile admitted that disappearances and torture were committed under Pinochet, and the armed forces committed themselves to cooperating in clarifying what happened.

A law enacted in record time by the Chilean parliament in late June ensures that the identity of those who supply information will be held in reserve, and provides for penal sanctions for anyone who violates the “professional secret.”

In Buenos Aires, the president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Estela Carlotto, said Brinzoni’s proposal, which activists contend is designed to save the skins of the military, is “absolutely disgraceful.”

“This denigrates us,” said Carlotto, who asked De la Rúa to bring Brinzoni to task for backing the detainees who refuse to collaborate with the courts.

Carlotto plans to meet late this month with Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle, who is interested in discovering the whereabouts of four Uruguayan minors allegedly abducted in Argentina during the dictatorship.

“Batlle has taken a positive stance,” said Carlotto. In mid- March, 15 days after he swore in, the Uruguayan president located the granddaughter of Argentine poet Juan Gelman, born into captivity in Montevideo during Uruguay’s 1973-85 dictatorship.

Gelman began searching for his granddaughter when his son was killed by the de facto regime in Argentina. His daughter-in-law, secretly taken to Uruguay, was apparently killed after she gave birth.

In Chile, the accord signed last month by human rights lawyers and representatives of the armed forces was backed by President Ricardo Lagos and by Congress, which passed the law on the “professional secret” allowing the agreement to be implemented.

It was rejected, however, by the Group of Families of the Detained-Disappeared and other human rights groups, as well as leftist parties not represented in parliament, who argue that it sacrifices justice on the altar of truth, both of which are necessary, they say.

In Argentina, meanwhile, the military’s proposal has also been rejected by human rights groups across the board.