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   Vol. 69/No. 31           August 15, 2005  
 
 
Argentine court ends amnesties from ‘dirty war’
 
BY PAUL PEDERSON  
On June 14 Argentina’s high court struck down two amnesty laws that for nearly two decades have protected most of those involved in the brutal repression by the military regime that ruled the country from 1976 to 83. The ruling opens the door to the prosecution of hundreds of those who oversaw the “dirty war,” in which some 30,000 trade unionists, students, socialists, and others were murdered by the regime’s death squads.

Following the collapse of the dictatorship in 1983, amidst a string of general strikes and popular demonstrations, hundreds of military officers and police faced trial for their crimes.

The bourgeois regime that replaced the military government sought to put a stop to the trials, which implicated a substantial portion of the military brass. The Full Stop law, signed in 1986 by then-president Raul Alfonsín, set a 60-day deadline for filing charges against military figures and others.

When the first measure failed to stem the tide of charges, Alfonsín signed the Due Obedience law, which granted automatic immunity to all members of the military except top commanders. In 1990, Alfonsín’s successor, Carlos Menem, took a further step to shield the death squad leaders from prosecution. He issued a presidential pardon that protected more than 400 of the top military officers involved. Current president Nestor Kirchner has refused to issue an annulment of Menem’s pardons.

In 2003, the Argentine Congress voted that the amnesty laws were unconstitutional, leaving the Supreme Court as the final obstacle to their revocation. Protests demanding justice for those killed during military rule began soon after the 1976 coup and have continued ever since.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an organization that has been at the center of the struggle for justice for the “disappeared.” Led by women whose sons and other family members were victims of the terror, the group began daily protests during the first year of the military regime. They still march in the Plaza every Thursday.

“We are happy that these laws have been revoked,” Hebe de Bonafini, the group’s president, told the Militant in a July 21 phone interview. “It is a victory. But at the same time, there are a lot of legal obstacles ahead. Many judges have an interest in not exposing those responsible. And those who were pardoned by Menem are still protected.”

De Bonafini’s son, a young student radical, was “disappeared” by the dictatorship. She was among the initial founders of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. It will take “years, and years, and years” to bring those responsible to justice, she said.  
 
 
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