ESFERAS

The Persistence of Truth in the Face of National Denial

Autor: Anabella Ginebra

The military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 carried out heinous crimes against human rights, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and the detention of an estimated 30,000 people without charge or trial. The practice of enforced disappearance, however, was the defining feature of Argentine political repression. During these años de plomo or “years of lead” the military junta abducted thousands from their homes or places of employment and even took them to secret camps where they were brutally tortured and killed. Their bodies were often discarded covertly. Family members and descendants of those who vanished in the nation intervened and spearheaded direct-action protests called “escraches” or exposures. They started congregating outside the residences and places of employment of the alleged offenders and unpunished perpetrators in the middle of the 1990s in an effort to bring them to justice. After years of persistent advocacy from activist organizations, the amnesty laws shielding offenders were
overturned, allowing high-ranking government officials and military officers to finally be tried for their crimes against humanity.

This accumulation of public action in a freshly democratized Argentina encapsulated larger international attitudes towards nations seeking historical accountability. The transitional justice movement that emerged after the Cold War revived fervor for international judicial cooperation to address recent inhumane horrors of recent memory. The United Nations recognized that the horrific genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s stemmed from the Cold War’s international order of complacency and the silence of citizens. In response the UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1993 and for Rwanda in 1995 to address past atrocities. Building on this effort, nations around the globe convened in 1998 to
create the International Criminal Court (ICC), with the mission of prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, and international war crimes. Ratified in 2002 by 85 states, the ICC marked a pivotal step towards fostering global accountability.

As the ICC affirmed the obligations of states to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the United Nations (UN) also emphasized the need to keep the memory of these crimes alive in the public sphere. UN Special Rapporteur Louis Joinet of the UN Commission on Human Rights, instigated the reasons and effects of impunity for those who committed human rights violations in 1997. Drawing from his research, he established a series of guidelines, which included a revised list of rights that nations seeking to fight impunity had to maintain. These were revised in 2005 by Diane Orentlicher, the UN’s Independent Expert. These “Joinet/Orentlicher” tenets were centered around “the right to know” and its corresponding “duty to preserve memory.” The “right to know” established that “Every person has the inalienable right to know the truth about past events concerning the perpetration of heinous crimes and about the circumstances and reasons that led, through massive or systematic violations, to the perpetration
of those crimes;1 While the “duty to preserve memory, ” on the other hand, maintained that it was “…the State’s duty to preserve archives and other evidence concerning violations of human rights and humanitarian law and to facilitate knowledge of those violations.”2

In conjunction with this step forward toward the progress of individual accountability on the global stage, the sentiment was growing in Argentina that its society needed a collective effort to truly reckon with the nation’s past. “Memory-based social movements were emerging that treated the past and the present as continuous and inextricable, identifying museums as important vehicles for establishing historical accountability,”3 and so in the year 2000 Memoria Abierta (Open Memory) was conceived. An alliance of human rights organizations, many of which were created during the last military dictatorship or in a period of democratic transition, Memoria Abierta sought to fulfill its founding objective to safeguard the documentary heritage
and archives that the organizations had been producing for memory, truth, and justice, in order to generate further reflection on democracy.

The role of Memoria Abierta shifts according to the degree of involvement of the state, with some administrations showing greater consideration towards the human rights agenda and its further incorporation into their policy rollout. Here a question arises: how can human rights organizations remain persistent amid continuous national changes? For over a decade, Argentina’s center-left government gave greater attention to human rights, enacting a steady stream of policies that reinforced their commitment. For instance, the reopening of the justice process concerning cases tied to the 1970s dictatorship was prioritized by President Néstor Kirchner beginning in 2006. In these cases, the Executive Branch has a significant role as advocate and legal figure in Argentina, allowing victims to have a formal participation in criminal proceedings. In addition to the state’s representation in trials through the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Secretariat of Human Rights also acts as a public defender of victims’ rights, reinforcing the state’s
mission to protect human rights. Among those rights, “the right to access legal documents or legal information in general completes the right of access to justice.”4 This initiative to expand the statute of limitations allowed for trials to be reactivated throughout the country, especially
in provinces where trials had never been carried out in the first place. Furthermore, the criminal investigations are far more federalized, bringing trials closer to the people and allowing for local-level discussions and collective memory reconstructions.

Moreover, in 2011, under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration, legislation was passed to establish and protect memory sites. This was a monumental action in the legal sphere as it was the first law passed to protect memory sites in Latin America and the Caribbean. Many of the spaces that functioned during the dictatorship as clandestine detention centers were recovered and converted into spaces of memory. In an era where it’s easy to be indifferent to one’s surroundings, Memoria Abierta promotes ongoing reflection of physical spaces and their historical implications. In fact, since 2012 the headquarters of Memoria Abierta have been situated in the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (formerly ESMA), which was initially one of the most symbolic sites of clandestine detention and torture. The building which houses Memoria Abierta, “30,000 Compañeros Presentes”(30,000 Companions Present) also holds the offices for the Familiares de Desaparecidos y Detenidos por Razones Políticas (Family of the Detained and Disappeared for Political Reasons). This itself is very emblematic of the organization’s mission, and is a concrete testament to the convergence and meditation of the past, present and future.

Additionally, the Ministry of Education launched a national program that developed publications and educational content for schools throughout the country. National law required the incorporation of these topics into the curriculum, both at the primary and secondary level so that “already in kindergarten, students talk about what happened in Argentina, during the period of the dictatorship.”5 Of course, “these shifts back and forth in government policy have made it necessary for civil society to assume a role of vigilance, to file complaints continually, and
to search for and systematically piece together information,”6 which is why the work of Memoria Abierta hinges on public engagement. Operating on the pillar of accessibility, the organization continually stresses the necessity for all their documentation gathered in their archive to be
digitized for public consumption and consideration, extending education of Argentine history beyond the walls of the traditional classroom.

Progressive initiatives completed throughout this decade of center-left rule were assisted by a shift in attitude surrounding historical accountability. “For a long time human rights organizations had been in a much more marginal place, of resistance […] fighting more in solitude […] and suddenly they were in a very central place on the political scene thanks to a government that put them a little in that place as an example for the entire society.”7 Not only are they preserving the memory of the 30,000 and counting that were disappeared, tortured, and killed during the dictatorship; they are also documenting the responsibility the state and individuals had in carrying out these crimes against humanity, following several decades of
amnesty and of national denial.

Upon embarking on this project, I initially conceptualized more tangible and economically attainable research in order to track the direct impacts that a transitioning government might have on human rights organizations, for instance, how they may be more financially burdened to carry out their operations. However, after my conversation with the director and the coordinator of Memoria Abierta, Veronica Torras and María Alejandra Pavicich, respectively, I uncovered the more indirect and intangible consequences of political shifts and the reverberating effects a specific administration’s ideological stance may generate. With the recent presidential election of Javier Milei and his far right ideology, there is a growth in negationist, revisionist discourses and vindication of the authoritarian past, which threaten democracy and the advances made in the area of memory, truth, and justice with a strong intimidation toward the human rights community. This is a clear break from the minimum consensus that had structured public
debate from the transition processes to democracies or peace agreements. Notably, on last year’s National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, which takes place annually on March 24 to commemorate the victims of the military junta, signified this rising wave to refute national history, as spearheaded by the Milei administration and its release of a video “straight out of the denialist playbook, presenting a false, alternative portrayal of the military dictatorship’s crimes.”8 The video calls for the termination of the pursuit of justice for military perpetrators and promotes a conflicting memory that places the spotlight on those slain by armed left-wing organizations in the 1960s and 1970s. The “two demons” cliché is revived in the video. According to this highly disputed argument, systematic terrorism committed by the State is the same as violence carried out by the revolutionary left and thus explains away the disappearances by blaming them on hostilities between two rival factions. The Milei administration has structured the human rights movement as “a subject to be delayed or attacked and has tried to take away its legitimacy as a way to also attack the memory of State terrorism…and those responsible.”9 However, among this institutional attempt to pursue delegitimization, there is forceful effort on the part of Memoria
Abierta not to let this opposition detract from their process. As has been executed in the past, “the strategy of Memoria Abierta must be to identify the issues that are absent in the debates or that are obstructed by the inertia of silence.”10 Political transitions do not so much affect the organization’s functioning, as they have maintained financial autonomy since its conception. Still, their agenda has been altered, which explains why the organization is all the more invigorated to protect, as much as possible, projects, memory sites, personal archives, and social civil organizations that may be vulnerable to antagonistic public policy. Additionally, there is a stronger effort to centralize the national agenda and even enhance the work with their regional community to safeguard against greater institutional threats.

The work of Memoria Abierta is largely affected by a divisive social climate “that worries us all, because it involves hate speech that not only attacks the human rights movement, but also the women’s movement, sexual diversities, and practically the entire minority.”11 However, throughout large political shifts, civil society organizations once again have a place of strong resistance and a strengthened social value because the state no longer prioritizes combating these issues. Political policies that prioritize the mission of human rights organizations contribute to the public conscience and the exercise of reflection. With their vast collection of institutional and personal testimonies, Memoria Abierta is not solely achieving public documentation of all those who had been and continue to be affected by the military junta, “serv[ing] as testaments to horror [and] also foster[ing] the transmission of memory.”12 It also establishes historical accountability amidst a rising effort to conceal the past, like what is transpiring under the current Milei administration.

Professor Josefina Ludmer stated: “in all dictatorships there are always spaces of resistance in the face of oppression.”13 The mere existence of Memoria Abierta as a living organization demonstrates resistance and persistence alongside its sustained mission of preserving a national
memory and dialogue. It is the ultimate hope that Memoria Abierta’s “archives transcend us and become part, not just of our private patrimony, but of the patrimony of memory”14 and that the continued effort to honor those who have vanished will long endure any contentious political
efforts that threaten to ignore the truth of the past.

Footnotes

  1. Orentlicher, Diane. “Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Report of the Independent Expert to Update the Set of Principles to Combat Impunity,” United Nations, February 8, 2005.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ševčenko, Liz. “Snapshots from Memory Movements at the Turn of the Millennium, Album 1: Heritage and Human Rights in New York, Nottinghamshire, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town.” Public History for a Post-Truth Era, 2023, 35.
  4. Osuna Alarcon, Maria R. “Preservation and Accessibility of the Audiovisual Document of the Trial of the Argentine Military Junta.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2022, 143.
  5. Torras, Veronica. Personal interview. 31 July 2024.
  6. Guembe, Maria Laura. “Challenges on the Road to Memory.” The Public Historian, vol. 30, no. 1, 2008, 54.
  7. Torras, Veronica. Personal interview. 31 July 2024.
  8. Levey, Cara. “Argentina: Javier Milei’s Government Poses an Urgent Threat to Human Rights.” The Conversation, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies, 12 June 2024.
  9. Pavicich, María Alejandra. Personal interview. 31 July 2024.
  10. Guembe, Maria Laura. “Challenges on the Road to Memory.” The Public Historian, vol. 30, no. 1, 2008, 69.
  11. Pavicich, María Alejandra.
  12. Memoria Abierta. Memories of Buenos Aires : Signs of State Terrorism in Argentina. 1991, xxii.
  13. Memoria Abierta. Testimonio de Josefina Ludmer. Buenos Aires. 2012.
  14. Guembe, Maria Laura, 71.

Bibliography

Guembe, Maria Laura. “Challenges on the Road to Memory.” The Public Historian, vol. 30, no. 1, 2008, 63–71. JSTOR. Web.

Levey, Cara. “Argentina: Javier Milei’s Government Poses an Urgent Threat to Human Rights.” The Conversation, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies, 12 June 2024. Web.

Memoria Abierta. Memories of Buenos Aires : Signs of State Terrorism in Argentina, edited by Max Page, University of Massachusetts Press, 1991. ProQuest Ebook Central. Web.

Memoria Abierta. Testimonio de Josefina Ludmer. Buenos Aires. 2012.

Osuna Alarcon, Maria R. “Preservation and Accessibility of the Audiovisual Document of the Trial of the Argentine Military Junta.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2022, 138–50. Web.

Orentlicher, Diane. “Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Report of the Independent Expert to Update the Set of Principles to Combat Impunity,” United Nations, February 8, 2005. Web.

Ševčenko, Liz. “Snapshots from Memory Movements at the Turn of the Millennium, Album 1: Heritage and Human Rights in New York, Nottinghamshire, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town.” Public History for a Post-Truth Era, 1st ed., vol. 1, Routledge, 2023, 27–47. Web.

Torras, Verónica. Personal interview. 31 July 2024.

Pavicich, María Alejandra. Personal interview. 31 July 2024.