Argentina: Milei Seeks to Rewrite the History of the 1970s
HAVANA TIMES – Argentine President Javier Milei has prioritized shrinking the State and ending its role of balancing the economic and power differences in society. However, these aren’t his only objectives: he also proposes rewriting the history of the illegal repression in Argentina during the 70s, a history that seemed to enjoy general agreement.
As part of what he’s called the “cultural battle” against progressivism, the far-right president maintains that the memory of those years should be “complete,” meaning focusing on the crimes committed by the leftist guerrillas and playing down the crimes against humanity committed by the nation’s armed forces – crimes that have been proven in the courts and have led to hundreds of guilty verdicts.
His intentions haven’t been confined only to rhetoric. Through defunding and dismissing personnel, he’s launched what appears to be an attempt to dismantle the Human Rights Secretariat and the sites for preserving the memory of the victims of the last military dictatorship [1979 – 1983], that in many cases supply evidence for trials that are still ongoing.
“In the official story, there’s now one sole demon in the Argentine violence of the 70s – the guerrilla organizations,” Marcelo Larraquy, a historian and journalist who was one of the most respected investigators of that era, told IPS.
“There’s a very clear and intentional omission of the [Argentine] Armed Forces, the principal terrorist organization of the decade of the seventies, who took over the Argentine territory and deployed a criminal system involving over 800 clandestine detention centers, where they tortured and killed thousands of people,” he added.
The broad criminal plan of the Armed Forces greatly exceeded the actions of the leftist guerrilla forces, who in previous years had committed hundreds of crimes. The guerrilla actions had even taken place during the three years of constitutional government that preceded the last dictatorship, but at the time of the Coup d’etat of March 24,1976, the irregular armed organizations had already been practically defeated.
A great many leftist activists – union members, students, lawyers, journalists, even entire families with no ties to the armed struggle – were victims of the sinister method of disappearance that the military practiced in a massive way. Plainclothes agents abducted people who were then taken to clandestine sites where they were tortured and killed, while nothing more was ever known of them again.
According to the Investigation Commission formed in 1983 following the return of democracy to the country, 8,961 people were disappeared and killed, although human rights organizations have estimated the true toll at 30,000 – different estimates due precisely to the clandestine methods of the repression.
“Milei offers no explanation as to why the Armed Forces acted as terrorists and denied the detained the possibility of being presented before the Courts. The dictatorship’s justice was to throw the kidnapped victims into the sea,” Marcelo Larraquy pointed out.
“If they really want a complete remembrance, the first thing that would have to be told is what happened to the disappeared,” he concluded.
Cultural battle
Milei’s so-called cultural battle is inscribed within the tendency of other ultra-right governments of the world. In addition to attacking causes such as feminism, the defense of immigrants or environmental conservation and the climate crisis, many of these governments also propose rewriting the past to line up better with their ideology.
In 1985, Argentina held a historic trial, in which the dictatorship’s highest military hierarchy were sentenced to life in prison or long sentences. Among those sentenced was former president Jorge Videla, who would die in prison in 2013.
Although later trials of lesser-ranked officials, police and civilian collaborators were interrupted for long periods due to amnesty laws passed under pressure from the military, these were later repealed, and the trials were resumed in 2006.
Since that time, there’ve been 326 sentences and 1187 people found guilty of crimes against humanity, according to the special office of the Attorney General. Up until last year, 642 people remained in prison, 508 of them allowed to remain under house arrest due to their advanced age.
A large number of trials are still in progress: 281 cases are at the pre-trial stage, and 70 are currently waiting for a public trial in the country’s different provinces.
The active prosecution of the dictatorship’s crimes was praised as a model by many international organizations. It’s always been believed that the trials enjoyed the backing of most of society.
Nonetheless, since he began his electoral campaign, Milei has downplayed the dictatorship’s crimes as simple “excesses.” Further, the running mate he chose is Victoria Villarruel, a lawyer and the daughter of a military official. Her only previous public activity had been that of promoting the court prosecution of the crimes committed by the guerrilla.
It’s true the victims of the guerrilla actions never received any recognition, but Vice President Villarruel didn’t stop there. She went on to give aggressive speeches exalting the Armed Forces for having beaten those who fought “to wave a red rag, foreign to the customs and traditions of what our homeland Argentina is and ever will be.”
Possibly the most provocative step taken by the Milei government was on March 24 – the still-sensitive anniversary of the [1976] Coup d’etat – when they released a video nearly 20 minutes long which spoke almost exclusively of the crimes of the guerrilla and claimed that Argentina’s schools and universities have been “centers for indoctrination” that erased [these crimes] from history.
“This government has put up for discussion things we thought could no longer be argued,” sociologist and History PhD Dora Barrancos affirmed to IPS. Barrancos was forced to flee to Brazil during the last dictatorship, in order to safeguard her life.
Like her, thousands of Argentines had to leave the country during those years, due to the proliferation of abductions carried out by the dictatorship’s task forces, targeting dissidents.
Barrancos is convinced that the minimization of the dictatorship’s crimes isn’t shared by the majority of Argentinians. “Although Milei had already demonstrated his denialism during the campaign, many people believed that he wasn’t going to do everything he promised. Only a very small part of those who voted for Milei share his views about the dictatorship.”
Hollowing out past policies and organizations
One of the most grisly tactics of the repression was the systematic abduction of babies born to those who disappeared. The mothers were later murdered and their infants given to other families, generally those in the military, and assigned a new identity.
The organization Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers, made up of the mothers of the disappeared, have managed to recover 139 grandchildren, although they continue working since they estimate there are another unidentified 200 grandchildren.
The country’s National Commission for the Right to Identity receives inquiries from people who have doubts about their identity and wonder if they could be children of the disappeared. The organization’s Investigation Unit, established in 2004, was closed last year by government decree, under the argument that their work overlapped with that of the Justice Department.
“It’s just the opposite. The Investigation Unit supported the work of the Justice Department, and this decision makes it even more difficult to find the grandchildren that are still missing,” said Guillermo Molfino Amarilla, who was himself born in a clandestine detention center and is a recovered grandchild.
This has been just one of Milei’s actions to dismantle the policies and organizations tied to the investigation, the memory, and the search for justice for the illegal repression.
The principal site of the military’s actions was the former Esma – officially the Armed Forces Mechanics’ School – a complex of buildings in the north of Buenos Aires, where the most notorious clandestine center for detention, torture and assassination operated.
The site of the former Esma was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO, due to its historic significance. Today, the Human Rights Secretariat is there, along with a Museum of Remembrance and different offices that are currently being stripped of most of their resources and personnel.
“There was an enormous wave of firings in December, and those of us who remained have only been able to receive 60% of our March salaries. They’re betting we won’t be able to hang on, and will resign,” one of those working in the former Esma told IPS, after asking to remain anonymous.
“The panorama is discouraging. The National Archive for Remembrance, which provides evidence for the trials, is functioning with only half of its staff, and the number of guided visits has dropped greatly,” they added.
In this Esma site the “Haroldo Conti” Cultural Center also functioned, named in honor of a writer who disappeared. The center was used for different artistic activities but was closed in December by direct order of the government.
The same policy of hollowing out is being used at the other sites for remembrance. In El Olimpo, a former Buenos Aires bus terminal that the dictatorship also used as a detention center, there were 22 workers before Milei came to power. Today only 8 are left, according to one of the employees there.
“Those of us who are left aren’t going away. We’re not going to hand the government a win so easily,” affirmed the employee, who also asked not to be identified by name.
All in all, the cultural battle appears to have many more chapters yet to come.