RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Legislators Seek to Annul Amnesty Laws

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 7 1998 (IPS) - Opposition lawmakers in Argentina backed by human rights groups are seeking to annul two laws that exonerated more than 1,000 members of the security forces accused of committing human rights abuses during the last dictatorship.

Legislators of the centre-left Solidarity Front (Frepaso), which comprises the new opposition Alliance along with the centrist Radical Civic Union (UCR), submitted a draft law seeking to repeal the laws of “due obedience” and “final stop”.

The two amnesty laws were enacted in 1988 under the government of Raul Alfonsin (1983-89) of the UCR, freeing from trial all members of the military and police who obeyed orders to repress alleged subversives during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

Deputy Diana Conti, one of the bill’s authors, told IPS that the initiative would first face many hurdles in Congress, and, if approved, in getting the courts to follow through later.

But she said she was confident that a majority of Argentinians supported the initiative, already endorsed by local human rights groups.

The bill “generates great expectations for us,” because it proposes annulling the laws, which would be the same as if they had never been approved,” Estela Carloto, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, told IPS.

If the bill makes it through Congress, those allegedly responsible for human rights violations could once again be tried, she said.

Carloto, whose organisation searches for grandchildren who were ‘disappeared’ during Argentina’s last de facto regime, said the amnesty laws did not keep two members of the military from being imprisoned for illegal appropriation, after it was discovered that they had illegally adopted two children born in captivity.

But the laws did allow the officers responsible for kidnapping and ‘disappearing’ the parents of those children to remain at liberty, even though in some cases their participation was proven, she added.

Many survivors of the dictatorship’s clandestine prisons have run into their torturers on the street. Although they feel panic, there is nothing they can do about their fear if Argentinian law protects their repressors, said Carloto.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the two factions of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have come out in favour of the bill, as has the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, the Permanent Human Rights Assembly and the Association of Relations of Detained and Disappeared victims.

“We are not ingenuous, believing there will be no obstacles in Congress and the armed forces,” said Carloto, who pointed out that before the two laws in question were passed, troops rose up on two occasions demanding that the trials be dismissed.

Alfonsin, still one of the key leaders of the UCR, judged it necessary at the time to put an end to the trials – after the six top heads of the dictatorship had been convicted – a decision that got more than 1,100 military and police troops off the hook.

Among those who benefited from the two laws was former navy captain Alfredo Astiz, found guilty of the murders of the daughter of a Swedish diplomat and two French nuns.

A French court sentenced the former captain to life in prison in his absence for the deaths of the two nuns, which means Astiz cannot leave Argentina without being captured by Interpol.

Nor can he live in peace at home, having been hit and insulted on several occasions. He has even been shunned by his peers, when several guests left a recent wedding party of a former comrade in arms upon Astiz’ arrival.

Under pressure from the French Embassy, Astiz was forced to retire from the navy in 1996, shortly before President Carlos Menem made an official visit to Paris.

Deputy Conti said that if approved, the draft law could also contribute to trials of Argentinian military officers in Spain and Italy, because the accused could no longer take recourse to the amnesty laws to argue that their cases were closed.

Dozens of members of Argentina’s security forces have been cited to testify in a lawsuit filed in Spain by the relations of ‘disappeared’ Spanish victims. But the only officer who has testified was former captain Adolfo Scilingo, who confessed in 1995 to having tossed live prisoners into the sea during the dictatorship.

Another trial is in process in Italy for the abduction of Italian nationals and Italian-Argentinians by members of Argentina’s security forces.

Conti’s draft law has triggered uneasiness within the opposition Alliance, formed six months ago, because it was the UCR which was in power when the laws of “due obedience” and “final stop” were enacted.

Members of the UCR said Wednesday that they were surprised by the initiative submitted by their Frepaso allies. Several said there was absolutely no possibility of retroactively punishing those who had already benefited by the laws.

They underlined that the attempt to annul the two laws in question was launched by a group of individual lawmakers rather than any particular party, and due to the magnitude and character of the crimes involved, demanded that legislators vote on their own account after the draft law was studied in the parliamentary commissions.

Deputy Juan Pablo Cafiero, another of the draft law’s authors, said it was time, nearly 10 years after the two amnesty laws were approved, to discuss whether they had met their goal of bringing peace to Argentina.