By Jonas Konefal 25′
This article traces the development of Argentine human right initiatives as the country transitioned from dictatorship to democracy, with a consideration of the relationship between domestic and international human rights law. When domestic political contexts did not allow justice, Argentine politicians and lawyers were innovative in their utilization of international norms and legal frameworks to pursue accountability for the dictatorship’s human rights violations, with important effects.
The Early Dictatorship (1976-1980)
On March 24, 1976, amid an unstable government and revolutionary violence, the Argentine military orchestrated a coup. The new junta announced a “National Reorganization Process” which sought to return the country to its purported western, Christian roots and eliminate elements of sedition. Under de facto President Jorge Rafael Videla, the junta escalated repression of perceived enemies of the state to a degree unprecedented in Argentine history, attacking students, intellectuals, and political activists with the same ferocity they meted out to small groups of armed revolutionaries. Right-wing violence was state policy, carried out by the armed forces. The regime coordinated a system of clandestine detention centers, where victims were tortured to extract names and information, yielding more targets to pursue. If torture did not kill the victims, the military would often use some other means to end their lives. Most famously, they sedated captives, took them on board a plane over the Río de la Plata, and dropped them thousands of feet down to the water in acts known as “death flights.” Civilian families loyal to the military government secretly adopted the children of women who gave birth in captivity and falsified their identities, often raising them without ever telling them of their parentage.1
- Kathryn Sikkink, “From Pariah State to Global Protagonist: Argentina and the Struggle for International Human Rights,” Latin American Politics and Society 50, no. 1 (2008): 4. ↩︎