/ 27 August 2003

Uncovering the truth

It was called the Athletic Club but what went on in its basement in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires has no place in a sporting manual. About 1 500 young men and women considered opponents of the military government in Argentina between 1976 and 1983 were tortured and murdered there.

The building was bulldozed many years ago to make way for a flyover, but now the city council is excavating the ruins, not only to create a memorial to those who died but to try to find out what exactly happened to them. A sign at the site reads: ”Ni olvido, ni perdon” — neither forget, nor forgive.

Two weeks ago the lower house of Congress voted to overturn the laws of immunity that protect those responsible for the torture and disappearance of thousands — estimates vary between 9 000 and 30 000 — of leftwingers in what is known as the Dirty War.

Former service personnel and a smaller number who are still serving may find themselves on trial facing sentences of life imprisonment. Opinions differ on how many may be charged, the estimates varying from a few hundred to 2 400.

The decision to end their immunity has been hailed by human rights groups and relatives of the Disappeared — the name given to those killed by the Argentine military junta during the Dirty War — as a triumph, and condemned by former service people and their supporters as an unconstitutional political exercise that will only reopen old wounds.

President Nestor Kirchner, who took office in May, has played an important part in calling the service people to account. He was a member of the left-wing nationalist Peronist Youth when he was a student, and a number of his friends disappeared.

He is also responding to events from outside. In Spain Judge Baltasar Garzon has sought the extradition of those accused of torture and murder to stand trial in Spain, on the basis that some of the victims were Spanish citizens.

Forty-five of those named have been detained in Argentina under international law. Among them is the notorious Alfredo Astiz, nicknamed the Blond Angel of the Naval Mechanics School (Esma), who has been convicted in absentia by a Paris court in connection with the disappearance of two French nuns.

With Kirchner supporting the end of immunity, Congress repealed the laws known as Punto Final (Full Stop), which was effectively an amnesty, and Obediencia Debida (Due Obedience), which excluded from charges those who were following orders.

The debate that led to the vote was highly charged. Ricardo Bussi, the son of General Antonio Bussi, one of those wanted by Spain, was booed by fellow deputies when he said: ”No one is going to bring back the dead for Estela de Carlotto.”

She was the leader of the Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo, whose daughter disappeared and who has been looking for her grandchild since.

De Carlotto says that what is happening in Argentina is historic. ”We are on the road to change. It won’t be fast but it has started. I am optimistic and confident. We don’t want revenge but we want justice.”

Few people have done more to bring to light what happened during that period than Horacio Verbitsky of the Centre for Legal and Social Studies. A former member of the Monteneros left-wing guerrilla group, he is now an author and journalist.

In 1994 he was approached by Adolfo Scilingo, an officer at Esma who had taken part in 30 murders, throwing victims from naval planes into the sea. His confession reopened the long public debate on the Dirty War and Scilingo is now in Spain awaiting trial.

Verbitsky said: ”We worked to get this result, but it is a different thing to say that we imagined that it would ever really happen. It is a long cultural battle, because even today the top brass of the dictatorship are convinced that the only method to wage what they termed a war was kidnapping, torture and clandestine executions.

”They adopted the French terminology, they were not combating terrorism but subversion. Subversion, as [ex-dictator] Jorge Videla said, can mean not only the one that plants a bomb, but also the intellectual, the teacher, the labour union organiser.”

Verbitsky does not expect a violent reaction by the supporters of those who may be charged. ”The possibility of a military coup today is inconceivable unless Kirchner were very, very blunt,” he said. ”They are not happy but I believe they understand that they have no option but to fight the legal battle on a legal field … It is a boring road to normality — I hope.”

But the road may not be that boring. Last week a judge ordered the arrest of three former Montoneros leaders — Mario Firmenich, Fernando Vaca Narvaja and Roberto Perdia — for alleged complicity in the death of 15 former comrades. They say the charges are politically motivated to placate those angered by the end of immunity. When he appeared in court last week, Narvaja said: ”Resistance is not the same as dictatorship.”

Not everyone approves of ending immunity. Emilio Nani, a former lieutenant colonel and a candidate for mayor of Buenos Aires, believes that the president has acted against the forces as a diversion because he has no political programme to address Argentina’s real problems — ”hunger, unemployment and health care”.

There are many more twists and turns to come before anyone stands trial, but the dust from the Dirty War is no longer hidden.

As Juan Manuel Urtubey said in the debate last week: ”We have swept so much dust under the carpet that there is a mountain there now.” — Â