Case Study: Argentina

ed while 279 were on trial.
MIDAN MASR
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
CASE STUDY: ARGENTINA
THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP (1976-1983)
The Argentine military junta’s rule (1976 - 1983) was marked by tens of thousands of abductions, arbitrary arrests, cases
of torture, and other serious violations of human rights.
The military gained power in March 1976 when General Jorge Rafael Videla and other military officials overthrew the
democratic government of President Isabel Martinez de Peron.
The practice of “disappearances” was the most notorious feature of repression by the military dictatorship, with an
estimate of 30,000 people abducted by security forces during the seven-year rule. Victims of forced disappearances were
sent to hundreds of secret detention centres where they were interrogated under cruel and inhuman methods before
being systematically murdered.
Before civilian rule was restored in 1983, the military issued a decree that granted itself immunity from prosecution and
ordered the destruction of all documents relating to crimes committed by the military junta.
INITIATIVES FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
CONADEP was a truth and historical clarification commission whose sole aim was to
investigate the crimes committed during the military dictatorship.
In 1984, CONADEP released a report entitled Nunca Mas (“Never Again”), which listed
the numbers of victims and detention centres where civilians were tortured and murdered
under the authority of the armed and security forces.
- CONADEP’s thorough documentation of the human rights violations committed
during the military dictatorship – compiling over 50,000 pages of findings - allowed
it to preside over hearings of thousands of abduction, disappearance, torture, and
execution cases.
- The CONADEP prepared files for 7,380 cases that comprised thousands of
testimonies from relatives of the disappeared, people released from secret
detention centres, and members of the security forces who had taken part in the
criminal acts.
FULL STOP AND DUE OBEDIENCE LAWS
- As a result of its investigations, CONADEP was able to present evidence before
the courts that included 1,086 dossiers proving the existence of the main secret
detention centers, and providing a list of the disappeared victims’ names and a list
of members of the Armed Forces and Security Forces mentioned by victims as
responsible for the crimes.
NOTE
In December 1983, President Raul Alfonsin was elected in the first democratic elections
after military rule. Two of his first initiatives were:
- immediately overturning the decree that granted amnesty to military officers
- establishing the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).
Till today, CONADEP’s work continues to be used
as evidence in the current trials against members
of the Armed Forces and Security Forces.
In 1985, only 18 months after the military government left power, nine former members of
the military juntas that ruled the country were successfully prosecuted, including former
presidents Jorge Rafael Videla and Roberto Eduardo Viola. More than 800 witnesses
were presented in the case, covering approximately 700 individual cases taken from
CONADEP’s case files.
Growing insistence from the military pressured the government to adopt the Punto Final
(“Full Stop”) law in December 1986 and the Obediencia Debida (“Due Obedience”) law in June
1987, which constituted a break in the transitional justice phase initiated in 1983.
The Full Stop law stipulated that prosecutors had a deadline of sixty days,
following the implementation of the law, to bring a case against members of the
military accused of crimes committed before December 1983. Cases presented
after the deadline would be inadmissible before a court.
In 1987, the Argentine Supreme Court declared that the Due Obedience Law was in
accordance with the 1853 Constitution of Argentina.
The Full Stop and Due Obedience laws did not provide amnesty for cases of theft of
children, falsification of their [children’s] identity papers, and the rape of children.
Hundreds of new cases were opened against military officers during the sixty-day
period outlined by the Full Stop law. This prompted a wave of uprisings in 1987 by
young officers protesting the prosecutions of members of the Armed Forces.
In 1991, Argentine President Carlos Menem issued pardons to imprisoned members
of the military in the name of pacification, including to former president Videla who
had been convicted in 1985.
In an attempt to placate the young officers, the government adopted the Due
Obedience law that provided amnesty to all officers, non-commissioned officers
and enlisted men from the military, security, police or penitentiary forces –
excluding those who commanded large areas of the country – on the presumption
that they had acted with the belief that the orders they received were legal.
− Article 1 of the Due Obedience law states, “It shall by right be considered that
[these] persons acted under coercion and subordination to superior authorities,
and obeyed orders without having the faculty, or possibility of inspection,
opposition, or resistance to these orders in their opportunity and legitimacy.”
The presidential pardons and the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws had serious
ramifications on Argentina’s attempt to establish transitional justice:
− No new cases could be filed against any officer suspected of crimes committed
during the military dictatorship except for the crimes excluded under the two laws;
− Officers who could not benefit from the Due Obedience law and had been tried
and convicted were issued presidential pardons;
− An estimated 1,180 persons accused of human rights violations during the
military dictatorship benefited from these measures.
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