Barney Pityana
I have just returned from a trip to Argentina where my most abiding impression was the enthusiasm for democracy and excitement about human rights. I returned to South Africa and another dose of cynicism about human rights within influential circles.
The Argentinians have been at it for much longer than South Africa but they have also experienced a dreadful dictatorship, one they are determined never to suffer under again.
There has been popular authoritarian rule under the legendary Juan Peron and later his wife Eva Maria Duarte Peron, popularised as Evita in a famous musical. But the dictatorship under the generals, the last of whom was Videla, is remembered with anger and distaste by Argentinians. From 1976 to 1983 some 32 000 young Argentinians disappeared and many are still considered missing today.
The estado de sitio rule decreed that the president could imprison people without an order of court. As a result thousands in the resistance movement were arbitrarily imprisoned, jailed without trial and unlawfully held in concentration camps.
During that period, the maniacal egos of a few military generals, who led Argentina into war with Margaret Thatcher’s Britain over the Falklands, nearly destroyed the country.
Elections will be held in October, the third since the military junta collapsed. Even as they recount this tale today, Argentinians are shocked that their country could have descended to such levels of inhumanity and evil.
Not surprising, then, that what ordinary Argentinians wanted to know most about South Africa was how the process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had gone. There was a belief that South Africa handled the situation a lot more imaginatively and in a more principled manner than Argentina.
In Argentina, a commission was established to investigate the disappearances. That commission was inconclusive. Five former generals were prosecuted for crimes committed under the military regime. Former president Raul Alfonsin believed that dealing with those who conceived of the atrocities and gave orders would satisfy the national quest for revenge. They were convicted and sent to jail. Instead several coup attempts were mounted during both Alfonsin’s time and at the beginning of Dr Carlos Menem’s tenure as president.
Menem then decreed that the generals be pardoned. They were released from jail. He instituted a law on due obedience by which those who alleged that they were following orders had a valid defence against prosecution, and later the full-stop law which decreed that Argentinians should forget about the past, start with a clean slate and face the future.
There is residual dissatisfaction with this approach to reconciliation. The fate of thousands of missing persons is still unknown. Stories have emerged of young activists being killed and dumped at sea to be mauled by crocodiles. The mothers of the Plaza del Mayo continue to protest every Thursday, demanding the prosecution of those criminally liable for the deaths of their children.
There is the phenomenon of the adoption of the children of the activists. They were removed from their mothers as babies and adopted by the army officers who tortured and murdered their parents. Now there is a move to return the children to their rightful families. The revelations are causing trauma and pain to all affected. The children of former army officers are wondering who their legitimate parents are. Some have come out to say they did not want to know and did not wish to go to another family they never knew.
Like South Africa, Argentina has to contend with a rising crime wave. Unlike South Africa, however, there is no blaming human rights or the Constitution for the crime that afflicts many innocent people. The Commissioner General of the Federal Police, Dr Pablo Baltazar Garcia, spoke with pride on the human rights culture that has been developed among the police. He has been federal commissioner for five years. With him was the deputy commissioner of the city of Buenos Aires police. They both reported on the strategies adopted to combat crime. Of special relevance to them was the fact that it was vital that a culture be developed that is different from that of the previous authoritarian and oppressive regime. They sought to make police truly responsive to the needs of the people. To do so, he shared with us a human rights manual produced by the police academy and the strategic plans adopted by the police.
Asked whether the police felt that human rights were hampering their work or that they needed to be freed to use lethal weapons in the course of their duties, Garcia said the police needed no more rights than were available to the civilian population. If force were necessary, they would have to use the ordinary common law defence in their plea. He reported that a number of police had been convicted for their role in deaths in police custody.
I had the privilege of participating in a programme broadcast weekly on national television by the Office of the Defender of the People. The defender is a national human rights institution which combines the roles of our public protector, the Human Rights Commission and the Gender Commission.
The TV programme, The Defender and the People, raises awareness about human rights and deals with specific complaints received. The programme is produced and directed by Dr Miguel Angel Romero of the Office of the Defender of the People.
Although the economy of Argentina has been affected by the upheavals in the global economy especially the emerging markets, Argentina has managed to enjoy a stable economy for many years now. Like many countries in the global market, although inflation is very low, almost zero, unemployment is a grave concern. With it has come growing disparities in wealth and an increase in poverty. For that reason there was great interest in South Africa’s social and economic rights and the reporting mechanism provided by the Constitution.
But, even though – as Menem outlined to me – Argentina shares a common history of oppression and dictatorship with South Africa, the enthusiasm for human rights is remarkable. I returned to South Africa where, by contrast, there is very little of the attitude that says that we have to make this work for the good of our society and for future generations.
Dr Barney Pityana is chair of the South African Human Rights Commission. His visit to Buenos Aires was sponsored by Inadi (the National Institute against Discrimination, Racism and Xenophobia)