“We must condemn the military“Carlos Nino told him. This had never happened anywhere in the world. But Jaime Malamud Goti thought it was a great idea and without hesitation they got to work. They were in Freiburg, they were both doctors of law and had important academic careers in Argentine and foreign universities. It was the year 1982 and our country was in the middle of the Malvinas War.
Despite the blindness of their countrymen, they knew that defeat was imminent and that the military would have no choice but to call new elections and resign. They believed that democracy could not be restored without clarifying what had happened to the disappeared and without bringing the soldiers responsible for the illegal repression before constitutional judges. After returning to Buenos Aires, they tested the proposal among their colleagues and interviewed the main candidates.
“The only one who was enthusiastic from the start was Alfonsín. Luder and Cafiero were more reserved, they thought it was politically impracticable, they kicked us out almost from the start.”“recalls Malamud Goti, who, together with Carlos Nino, designed and implemented the legal framework of President Alfonsín’s human rights policy, which is now being studied worldwide.
December 9th marks the 40th anniversary of the historic verdict that condemned the commanders of the last military dictatorship, the most brutal of all. Over time, the trial of the juntas acquired an almost mythical quality, as if at that moment all Argentines demanded justice and the truth.
But those who were protagonists of this trial remember that Alfonsín was very alone and that he made courageous decisions to break the pact of impunity that the military had concluded with the main power groups and Peronism before his departure. A month before the 1983 elections, the dictatorship passed a national pacification law granting amnesty to soldiers and guerrillas. Human rights organizations and many leaders rejected them.
But the Justicialist candidate Italo Luder explained during the election campaign why it could not be repealed. He received 40% of the vote. Three days after taking office, Alfonsín issued three decrees ordering the prosecution of the guerrilla leaders and the military junta and establishing CONADEP to investigate what had happened to the disappeared. The Peronist MPs and Senators refused to integrate it.
Ricardo Gil Lavedra, one of the judges of the National Penitentiary Appeal Court of the federal capital who sentenced the commanders, clearly describes the climate of the time: “Nobody thought there would be a trial. The one who announced it was Alfonsín during the election campaign. The military wanted awards, not trials; and the perpetrators of these crimes were still commanders of the troops. The hearings began, saying that one must look forward and not endanger democracy“.
The judiciary also did not believe that the trial could be carried out. Many feared retaliation in the event of a military coup. Luis Moreno Ocampo, who accompanied prosecutor Strassera in the prosecution and years later was appointed the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, confessed to me in a recent interview: “I was basically Julio’s last option. He had called all the federal prosecutors and none of them would help him. I thought if there was a coup, they might kill me, so we have to go.”
The former prosecutor had a routine when he went to court. “I looked under the car to see if there was a bomb. I opened the door, started the engine, closed the door and left.”“Hipolito Solari Yrigoyen, on whom a bomb was planted, explained that the explosion had less impact when the door was opened.“You’ve gotten used to the risk.”
The greatest shocks were felt in the Ministry of Defense. “Three ministers died within two years: Raúl Borras, Roque Carranza and Germán López.says Horacio Jaunarena, who accompanied her as secretary and later took over as fourth defense minister. “I remember Carranza telling me: I’m going to die, Horacio. One day he went to Casa Rosada to resign. He came back resigned and told me: I saw Alfonsín with so many problems that I didn’t dare. He died shortly afterwards.”
The verdict in the trial of the juntas caused an earthquake among the uniformed men because it ordered the extension of the trials to the entire country. Jaunarena faced three armed insurrections that wrested the government’s full stop and due obedience laws to prevent a coup.
Called “impunity laws,” they have not reversed convictions in the juntas’ trial or on other grounds. By the time Alfonsín left government, 400 people had been convicted, imprisoned or prosecuted for the violence of the 1970s. Among them Videla, Massera, Viola, Firmenich, López Rega, Lambruschini, Agosti, Camps, Etchecolatz, Suarez Mason, Menéndez, Galtieri, Anaya, Lami Dozo (the last three for the Malvinas War), Aldo Rico and Seineldín.
The one who pardoned them, released them and granted them impunity was President Carlos Menem at the beginning of his administration. “When Menem’s pardon was issued for the former commanders, I stayed in bed. For two days I asked myself: So much effort, so much sacrifice? Alfonsín paid a very high price for the laws of due obedience and complete stop. Strangely enough, not Peronism with its even worse pardons“, Gil Lavedra reflects.
In his memoirs The Brotherhood of Astronauts, The former chambermaid tells an anecdote that reveals the degree of institutional and political fragility experienced. Three years after the historic verdict was announced, the six chamberlains left their offices disappointed by the interruption of the trials. However, they feared that ATC’s recordings of the hearings would be “lost” and stored in unprotected courthouses. ““We found ourselves in an unpredictable Argentina and no one could assure us what would happen in the future.”writes Gil Lavedra. Through a friend, they managed to finance copies of 530 hours of The Trial on VHS videotapes and traveled to Oslo with the material hidden in their suitcases. There they received a hero’s welcome from the Norwegian Parliament, which deposited the cassettes in an anti-nuclear safe where they keep the 1814 Constitution.
“It was an unforgettable recognition, not only for us, but especially for our country.”“, remembers the radical lawyer.
The unilateral reopening of cases against the military during Kirchnerism politicized and tarnished a process whose ultimate goal was to make clear that in Argentina no one is above the law. “It is not exactly a sign of justice that there are soldiers who have been sentenced for 40 years without being convicted“Defends Horacio Jaunarena. Jaime Malamud Goti also doubts that the trials served to teach us the value of law and justice.”Here we continue to be emotionally preoccupied with the theme of revenge and fail to see it.nganza, for or againstIn his book “Terror and Justice in Argentina” he expresses a warning that, in my opinion, is very relevant today, when extreme ideologization blinds a large part of society:
“Argentine-style terror is a central political phenomenon of our culture. It was among us before the monster awoke in the 70s (I would say since the Conquest), and it still exists in our practices and beliefs today: it manifests itself in our sovereign indifference to the rights of others and the rejection that our differences from others provoke in us.”.
Graciela Fernández Meijide, mother of a missing teenage son, who had the difficult responsibility of organizing the thousands of testimonies from survivors, relatives, visits to secret centers and data on the disappeared collected by CONADEP, explains with her usual democratic restraint: “If you can’t advocate for your worst enemy to receive appropriate justice, as you would demand from yourself, you are not talking about human rights.”
A lesson that is still difficult for us to learn.
