The Military: What is to Be Done?
Mignone, Emilio
FOR 68 YEARS IN THE LATE NINETEENTH and early twentieth centuries-while much of Latin America was immersed in a seemingly endless series of civil conflicts and coups-Argentina...
...The concept of civilian rule, and the Alfonsin government in particular, enjoys a broad consensus...
...During the second Radical administration of Marcelo T. de Alvear (1922-1928), the Army and Navy increased their power and political presence...
...Whether or not the system of obligatory military service is maintained, the harsh treatment still typical in training camps must cease...
...HE FOURTH AND LAST OF THE REGIME'S ruling generals, the Army's Reynaldo Bignone, passed the presidential sash to the victorious candidate of the Radical Civic Union, Raul Alfonsin, on December 10, 1983...
...The country's staggering debt and dire economic picture mandates a pragmatic trade policy...
...By the same token, Alfonsin is unlikely to forsake his East Bloc trading partners...
...The Left advocated stricter measures and the Right greater leniency...
...They collected information, some of it more hallucination than reality, and much of which could only be interpreted according to the most subjective criteria...
...Paradoxically, the armed forces remain powerful, though isolated from civil society, discredited, under seige by the news media, their former leaders convicted of massive crimes...
...In reality they were part and parcel of the orders higher-ranking officers gave their subordinates...
...These new institutions included free country clubs or "circulos" used for recreation, business functions and weddings of officers and their children...
...W HAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE ARGENtine armed forces...
...Within the armed forces, calls were heard for a military dictatorship...
...testimony and reports from the courtroom, was for several months the country's most widely circulated publication...
...It was a dictatorship of an institution over society...
...Acting with unprecedented speed, the federal courts initiated legal proceedings against more than 400 men, many still on active duty...
...Because of this mistaken strategy of courting the military, 2,000 legal cases brought by victims and their families were at a standstill for three and one-half years...
...President Jose Sarney declared Brazilian airspace and nautical passages off limits to British planes or ships headed for the Malvinas...
...Roberto Viola, received 17 years...
...3 " T HE PROFESSIONALIZATION AND RESorganization of the army," according to sociologist Dante Cant6n, "was the decisive element that gave the military the capacity to intervene in politics...
...Conditions now favor the consolidation of a pluralist, participatory and socially responsive democracy...
...Although the group was not empowered to subpoena witnesses or produce indictments, its findings, as well as the testimonies of numerous individuals who had been imprisoned and tortured, were published in the report Nunca Mds (Never Again), producing an enormous impact domestically and abroad...
...Even those who tortured and killed prisoners are exonerated because they did so on orders...
...month later...
...The drama then intensified...
...Justo was followed by President Roberto M. Ortiz, also elected in fraudulent balloting...
...The military and security forces detained active or potential dissidents, holding them in secret prisons, where most were savagely tortured and then murdered...
...A position for a director of the joint high command has been established...
...President Arturo Frondizi was inaugurated in 1958 and thrown out in 1962...
...4. Ibid., p.22...
...Defeated and humiliated, the military's institutional structure was still largely intact...
...U NTIL THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th century, the Argentine army was run by officers drawn from the professional classes and trained on the battlefields during wars against Brazil (1825-1828) and Paraguay (1864-1870), the English and French interventions (1833-1847) and the provincial revolts and domestic conflicts of the 1850s and 1860s...
...they were "tempted, induced or even forced by grave circumstances that legitimated their intervention...
...With those that filled the side streets, it was estimated that one million citizens in the capital alone had come out in support of Alfonsin...
...Prior to the October 1983 elections, the armed forces declared an amnesty for their offenses during the "struggle against subversion...
...While in Europe, Alfonsin signed a major bilateral agreement with the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, granting the two countries rights for commercial fishing in the 150mile zone off Argentina's vast South Atlantic coastline...
...Passed by both houses of Congress in June, the obediencia deJos6 Dante Caridi: a new chief of staff bida law exempts officers from lieutenant colonel on down from being tried...
...Margaret Thatcher's unabashed neo-colonialism caused Americans across the continent to line up behind the dictatorship, despite its apalling human rights record...
...Navy Capt...
...Support also came from Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica, as well as from Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece and West Germany...
...Many burned books they feared might be considered "subversive" by the regime's inquisitors and death squads...
...And the far-off Malvinas remain as contentious an issue in democratic Argentina as they were during the twilight of the dictatorship...
...When the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to the new regime, it set a precedent which was to have tragic consequences in following decades...
...He pushed a resolution through the United Nations in November 1984 calling on Britain to resume negotiations, and in October 1986 brought the issue to the European Economic Community...
...THE PROCESS OF NATIONAL RE"I organization," according to 1976 junta leader Jorge Rafael Videla, "has important objectives, but no limited timetable for achieving them...
...Entering as adolescents, they were subject to rigid discipline...
...This exemption includes the entire active-duty officer corps, since today's generals were only lieutenant colonels at the time of what they called the "process of national reorganization...
...3. Cant6n, p.22...
...The military regime installed in 1966 lasted six years, while that which seized power in 1976 lasted nearly eight...
...If politically involved, it was as individuals rather than as a JULY/AUGUST 1987 15The Ties That Bind coherent, organized body...
...Luciano Benjamin Menendez: Commander of the 3rd Army Corps...
...8 More than 250,000 copies were sold in Argentina, and editions were published in English, French, Italian, German and Portuguese...
...When police killed five striking Buenos Aires metal workers, other unions declared a general strike...
...On January 9, workers struck en masse, triggering battle between right-wing forces and workers...
...U JULY/AUGUST 198719 U JULY/AUGUST 1987 19RThe Ties Th At Bind The Ties That Bind where the armed forces were dissolved...
...Facing this question decisively and rapidly is essential for the consolidation of Argentina's fragile democracy...
...Collective security"--first enunciated by Gen...
...This shortlived experience with constitutional rule ended on March 24, 1976, when the generals stepped in yet again...
...In reality, allowing the military to judge itself constituted a political overture to the armed forces that might, theoretically, have allowed the officer corps to cleanse itself and regain credibility...
...He governs a country where the armed forces remain institutionally intact and-in accordance with promises that brought him an overwhelming electoral triumph-attempts to use the judicial system to prosecute the military for its crimes during the 1976-1983 "dirty war...
...sentenced to 25 years in prison...
...Discontent among the officer corps continued to smolder, however...
...As expected, Chief-of-Staff Jos6 Dante Caridi hinted strongly in this year's May 29 address that the Army sought a general amnesty for officers charged with human rights violations...
...The officers, who called their demonstration "Operation Dignity," declared that Rico was "a person who has always upheld the high ideals and elevated thoughts of the Argentine soldier...
...7 In late 1986, the Supreme Court upheld the sentences given to the ex-junta leaders...
...High-ranking officers began to found military lodges-patterned on those of other secret societies-that were intended to promote military participation in politics...
...Nevertheless, most Argentine human rights organizations, as well as many citizens, believe that Alfonsin has not been sufficiently energetic in pursuing the perpetrators...
...It is involved in friendly negotiations with the Peronist opposition, which in moments of crisis backs it without reservations...
...As a result of the military tribunals' failure to act, in 1985 the Buenos Aires federal criminal appeals court took charge of cases against the first three military juntas...
...Often people were afraid to speak to friends who might be under suspicion by the military...
...Besides fishing, the Soviets have agreed to buy 4.5 million metric tons of grain yearly through 1990...
...Norberto Cozzani and police doctor Jorge Antonio Bergez, who witnesses said administered lethal injections of "a reddish poisonous liquid" to political detainees...
...Armando Lambruschini and Air Force Brig...
...Nearly one thousand witnesses testified in a fivemonth trial that stirred the Argentine public and was followed closely throughout the world...
...Argentina's now chronic political instability worsened...
...officers placed in administrative posts were rotated according to procedures established in the different branches of the armed forces...
...Huge crowds calling for the conviction of the junta leaders demonstrated at the beginning and conclusion of the trial...
...5. Leopoldo Lugones, Antologia de la prosa (Buenos Aires: Centuri6n, 1958), p.461...
...But the conflict simmered on, becoming a major foreign policy concern for the civilian government of President Raul Alfonsin...
...The chiefs of the three branches of the armed forces are no longer considered commanders-in-chief, but simply members of the high command...
...Polo was charged with sedition and relieved of his command...
...Juan Carlos Ongania...
...On six occasions-1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976-they have seized the reins of government...
...On Easter Sunday, at the height of the crisis, Alfonsin left the Casa de Gobierno and went to Campo de Mayo, where he spoke with the rebellious officers and accepted their surrender...
...Few in the rest of the world knew where these barren South Atlantic Islands lay until 1982, when the generals attempted to re-assert Argentine sovereignty over what had been a British colony since 1833.That conflict galvanized Latin American solidarity like few other issues...
...The armed forces' numerous privileges-special stores and clinics, free trips to the interior of the country, the exemption from paying highway tolls-must be abolished...
...On December 13, 1983, three days after taking power, Alfonsin announced two key human rights measures...
...And as CONADEP divulged its findings, the magnitude of the crimes committed by the armed forces and the corresponding collapse in their public image, brought calls to prosecute a larger number of officers than anticipated during the electoral campaign...
...coups became more frequent and military rule more longevous...
...A new law passed by Congress compels members of the high command to swear to defend the constitution-even at risk of death-a step beyond their traditional oath to defend the nation...
...Onganfa, Levingston and Lanusse were essentially individuals placed in power by the high command, ruling governments run by civilian functionaries...
...According to the British Foreign Office, 215 foreign trawlers and factory ships were granted permission to fish around the Malvinas during this year's February-June squid season...
...The enemy is their own people...
...When the armed forces seized power, becoming the dominant force in political decision-making and in society itself, this paranoia fostered witch hunts and repression...
...In the midst of the military uprisings and the crisis of April-May 1987, President Alfonsin-responding to a proposal from the Peronist opposition-called for the creation of a parliamentary commission charged with studying and carrying out a reform of the military...
...After 1976, however, for the first time in Argentine history, the military governed directly, taking charge of virtually all government functions...
...It was directed instead by one general, Jos6 F61lix Uriburu, a member of a traditional oligarchic family and a former pupil of the imperial German Army, of which he continued to be an ardent admirer even after Germany's defeat in World War I. Arguing that both the faltering economy and President Yrigoyen's senility required the armed forces to act, Uriburu found strong backing for his bid for power among conservative, oligarchic sectors of Argentine society...
...This lack of battlefield experience meant that conditions had to be artificially created in order to maintain martial spirit, pride and esprit de corps...
...Extensive media coverage made many Argentines accept the accuracy of horrifying reports of human rights abuses, which some had considered exaggerations...
...The Prussian-based culture of the old military aristocracy should be eliminated in favor of a new doctrine that would consider soldiers to be citizens in uniform, with similar rights and duties...
...Alfonsin's situation is completely unlike those of revolutionary Cuba and Nicaragua, which replaced their armed forces, or the postwar constitutional administrations of Germany and Japan, REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 18Remembering days of glory: a reunion of Malvinas veterans THE MALVINAS: FISHING FOR CONTROL BY JOE GOLDMAN A RGENTINES CALL THEM LAS ISLAS Malvinas and the British use the name Falklands...
...The British beat the Argentines badly, as the armed forces showed their skills to be better honed to repression than the battlefield...
...Fidel Castro volunteered 100 jets...
...Obligatory service in the armed forces produced a reserve of militarily trained citizens...
...For the military, influenced by the conservative oligarchy and increasingly obsessed with Prussian notions of security, the labor movement represented a dangerous "internal enemy...
...2 Gradually, each branch of the military set up intelligence services-often in competition-to counter these phantasmic enemies...
...Far from expressing any remorse for their actions during the 1976-1983 repression, Argentine military leaders persist in defending the legitimacy of their methods: inhuman treatment, torture, murder, rape, robbery and deception...
...Emilio Massera to life imprisonment...
...With the exception of a few "fundamentalist" dreamers, they have renounced the goal of seizing political power...
...When the police organized a retaliatory ambush, five bystanders were killed...
...Will the armed forces' demands cease, or does their success in limiting prosecutions through the establishment of obediencia debida represent just one stage in what are larger aspirations...
...The decision to permit the military to try its own officers-and grant the civilian judicial system only a subsidiary role in this process-is perhaps the most obvious shortcoming of Alfonsin's program...
...The Minister of Defense, Horacio Jaunarena, is now a civilian and, for the first time, has a modicum of power...
...A few years later, Alvear established what would be a long-lasting custom in Argentine politics by becoming the first president to deliver a July 9 address to dining officers and their wives...
...2. Eduardo Tiscomia, El destino circular de la Argentina: 1810-1984 (Buenos Aires: self-published, 1983), pp.142-143...
...They continue to constitute a real danger for Argentina's political health and for the full flowering of human rights...
...In 1982, already internationally known as a kidnapper, torturer and murderer, he was captured by the English during the Malvinas conflict after surrendering the South Georgia Islands...
...President Alfonsin also blocked the formation of a parliamentary investigatory commission, arguing that such investigations had historically been ineffective in Argentina...
...Alfonsin has nonetheless refused to declare an amnesty...
...Alfonsin's key error in dealing with the armed forces was his failure to effect a thorough reform of the military and dismantle the intelligence services, which remain intact and functioning as a means to control the population...
...And this year, after the April uprisings of the C6rdoba and Campo de Mayo garrisons, the May 17 and May 29 speeches were viewed as critical barometers of Navy and Army attitudes about the trials of their officers for crimes committed during the 19761983 military dictatorship...
...he preferred to be called the "Hyena...
...Most Argentines today have spent the better part of their lives under military rule...
...Peruvian President Alan Garcia offered troops...
...Given the current anarchy in the armed forcesespecially in the Army-it is possible that there will be further disturbances...
...The first allowed prosecution of the nine members of the three juntas most responsible for the "dirty war...
...Reform of the armed forces must focus on the system of military education...
...Professors and textbooks must be carefully chosen...
...Luis Polo, had expressed supPaint-streaked commandoes seized the Campo de Mayo REPORT ON THE AMERICAS port for Barreiro...
...When the Malvinas/Falklands adventure launched by the regime's third military president, Gen...
...The adolescents who enter military colleges undergo a true brainwashing, which continues throughout their careers...
...had civilian collaborators but was placed in power by the armed forces and ruled at their whim...
...Particularly following the Prussians' 1870 victory over France, Karl von Clausewitz and other exponents of Prussian martial doctrine acquired a considerable international following...
...The following day, Caridi manifested no regrets when he declared in another speech that the Army "harbors within its heart all those members, sons of our beloved Argentina, who died in the confrontation against international Marxist subversion and that in defeating this force, the Army avoided the destruction of the Republic and its institutions...
...Gen...
...The intelligence services continue to tap telephones and to accumulate information about those they perceive as potential opponents...
...In 1923-1924, the poet Leopoldo Lugones, who had abandoned anarchism to mouth the most extreme exaltations of the military, declared in verse that "the hour of the sword" had arrived when the armed forces "had to govern the Fatherland...
...OR MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS," "F writes Argentine historian Eduardo Tiscornia, "from the 1864-1870 war against Paraguay until the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands defeat, the Argentine armed forces did not take part in a single military conflict...
...Astiz later achieved notoriety when, using the pseudonym Gustavo Nifio, he infiltrated the growing movement of families of the disappeared, even attending processions of victims' mothers in the Plaza de Mayo...
...This JULY/AUGUST 1987 23RThe Ties Th At Bind The Ties That Bind raises a number of key questions...
...The dictatorship's political and economic failures, as well as increasing public awareness of its criminality, led to a growing loss of legitimacy, particularly after 1981...
...Based on the concept of "total war" by a "nation in arms" developed in the aftermath of early 19th century defeats at the hands of Napoleon, the Prussian model inspired a top-to-bottom reorganization of the Argentine military...
...And moral vindication is manifestly impossible, since no government action could bring major changes in the attitudes of society as a whole toward the armed forces...
...Alfonsin called on the public to come to the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, where representatives of diverse sectors of society-unions, business organizations, university professors, students, human rights advocates-marched in front of the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada...
...This insistence on maintaining power until the military had created a new political system is one feature which distinguished the 1976-1983 dictatorship from its predecessors...
...Since 1930, the armed forces have been a constant presence in Argentine politics...
...In a few hours, the entire C6rdoba garrison, including regimental commander Lt...
...Lower ranking soldiers were recruited almost exclusively from among society's poorest...
...While claiming sovereignty over a 200-mile area, London said it would not patrol the extra 50 miles...
...The constitutional system has the unanimous support of the citizenry...
...No sector of society is knocking at barracks doors, as in earlier times, hoping for military intervention in the political process that would defend its interests...
...Foreign governments, political leaders and people throughout the world contributed to an unprecedented wave of international solidarity with the Alfonsin government...
...This situation changed when conscription began in 1901 and four years later a new military academy was modelled on the Prussian Kriegs akademie...
...Ernesto Barreiro refused to comply with a request to appear before a civil court in C6rdoba...
...Nevertheless, the armed forces are a grave problem for Argentine democracy, and could prove a fatal flaw...
...When Army Chief-of-Staff H6ctor Rios Erefiid ordered troops to surround the school, they refused out of sympathy with the rebels...
...The military's star was indeed rising...
...As the April and May 1987 military revolts indicate, the fact that political power is in civilian hands has not meant that real and effective control exists over the armed forces...
...On December 15, 1983, five days after assuming office, Alfonsin established the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP...
...Never before had officers responsible for crimes committed by a defeated military dictatorship been tried and sentenced...
...Similarly, the large number of industries controlled by the military must be returned to civilian administration...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS The isolation of the armed forces intensified over the course of the 20th century...
...Alfredo Astiz for the January 1977 murder of a young Swedish Argentine, Dagmar Hagelin...
...Ram6n Camps, the former police chief of Buenos Aires province and one of the bloodiest architects of the repression, was sentenced to 23 years...
...Pablo Oswaldo Riccheri, who succeeded Camps as the capital's police chief, received 14 years and several police officials lesser sentences, including Commissioner Miguel Etchecolatz, Cpl...
...The head of the second junta, Army Brig...
...ND THE NEW PRESIDENT TOOK FURTHER steps toward justice...
...later he was promoted to Rear-Admiral...
...It has just arrived at a new accord with international banks for refinancing the foreign debt...
...These could prove difficult to control, since the chain of command has been ruptured at various points...
...4 It was, however, under the first administration of the Naval Officers Club, Buenos Aires 16populist Radical Civic Union's Hip61ito Yrigoyen (1916-1922) that the armed forces first acted upon their Manichean vision of Argentine society...
...These organizations established links with union, university and community organizations, held meetings and seminars, produced films and slide shows, and carried out a large-scale campaign to make the Argentine public, and to some extent the rest of the world as well, fully conscious of the seriousness and magnitude of the dictatorship's crimes...
...By 1862 all provinces had ratified the 1853 federal constitution, which-with minor changes-is still in effect...
...But the military's defiance did not sit well with the rest of the country...
...Orlando Agosti received lesser sentences.* The four remaining junta members were acquitted...
...In practice, only a few retired officers can now be charged for their crimes during the "dirty war...
...Ruben Jacinto Chamorro: Director of the Navy Mechanics School, a major torture center...
...For the first time in 53 years, nobody disputes the government's legitimacy...
...In exchange, the Soviets and Bulgarians pay a high annual tariff...
...And this in turn implied the creation of abstract, evasive and dangerous enemies that, while said to exist in Argentine society itself, were influenced by foreigners...
...The only commander-in-chief, according to the constitution, is the president of the republic...
...In the second half of 1986, some federal courts, particularly in Buenos Aires, began to consider some of these suits...
...Alfonsin, aware of growing uneasiness among the armed forces, tried to limit the extent of any future trials...
...The regime's leaders denied what was going on and employed all means at the state's disposal to cover it up...
...Alfonsin, a moderate, centrist politician, is no revolutionary, and therefore unlikely to take a drastic stance that could lead to eliminating the armed forces...
...After 1905, officers had to be graduates of the official military or naval colleges...
...With some frequency, ultra-right publications, such as the magazine Cabildo, publish reports that appear to be based on data that could only be obtained through such official, clandestine means...
...Carlos Guillermo C. Suarez Mason: Commander of the Ist Army Corps...
...The honesty of the Alfonsin Administration is widely recognized...
...A huge, spontaneous outpouring of support for Alfonsin's constitutional government expressed Argentines' anger at the Holy Week revolts...
...Profound reforms must be carried out, which require the participation of the officer corps...
...In staging the 1976 military coup, he argued, the armed forces had been motivated by "noble purposes and legitimate objectives...
...This ideology has been elevated above the constitution, laws and even the most elementary ethical principles...
...Luciano Benjamin Men6ndez, Carlos Sudrez Mas6n and Ram6n Camps and Adm...
...There have been no outbreaks of guerrilla violence...
...Cadets and officers should study in universities, even though they would now be scorned by classmates...
...5 ON JULY 9, 1922, HIGH-RANKING OFFICERS held the first of what became their annual independence day banquets...
...By early May, 16 other generals had been retired...
...Directed by the well-known writer Ernesto Sibato, CONADEP sought to trace the thousands who had disappeared under the military dictatorship...
...Aldo Rico streaked their faces with black combat paint and seized the Campo de Mayo infantry school, 25 kilometers north of Buenos Aires, expressing solidarity with Barreiro and the C6rdoba uprising...
...Half a million demonstraters converged on the Casa de Gobierno in Buenos Aires chanting slogans for democracy and against the armed forces...
...Their doctrine, however, remains the same...
...A few very timid steps, some merely pro forma, have been taken to restructure the armed forces...
...A RGENTINA'S CONVICTION OF THE ARchitects of the "dirty war" is a Latin American first...
...Barreiro was cashiered, but when the police tried to take him prisoner, fellow officers prevented his arrest...
...In the cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentine workers-many of them recent immigrants-had organized some of the strongest, most militant unions in Latin America...
...While generally not charged with crimes, their existence was acknowledged by the authorities or courts...
...By the mid-1950s, the intelligence services were well on the way to becoming a significant force both within the armed forces and in society at large...
...None of this near-universal support for democracy has been characteristic of Argentina during the past half century, and it necessarily gives rise to considerable optimism...
...From that time on," Cant6n comments, "it was increasingly clear that Argentina had two parliaments: the one to which the president delivers an annual 'State of the Nation' address, whose star was rising...
...Compared with previous de facto governments, the 1976-1983 regime brought naked and total control by the armed forces...
...The moment is unprecedented in the past half century...
...Nevertheless, two days after the rebellion ended, Alfonsin replaced Rios Erefili with a new chief-of-staff, Jos6 Dante Caridi...
...Increasingly, Argentines await Navy Day (May 17), Army Day (May 29) and Air Force Day (August 10) with anxiety about what the high comand may reveal of their attitudes and plans...
...and the one elected by the people, whose importance was declining...
...But the military spurned Alfonsin's offer, failing to rid itself of those instrumental in the repression...
...T HE CYCLE OF MILITARY RULE THAT began with the 1930 coup against Yrigoyen is over...
...And that reorganization took place under the rule and conservative ideological influence of the Argentine oligarchy, producing in the military an almost instinctual distrust of popular movements in power...
...Rico was being held...
...REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20Never Again: Sibato turns over an undisclosed list of accused torturers Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the Commission of Families of Disappeared and Political Prisoners, the Center for Legal and Social Studies, the Peace and Justice Service and the Jewish Movement for Human Rights...
...Signed into law on December 23, 1986, puntofinal did not produce the anticipated calming effect in the officer corps...
...To the British, the agreement was about as welcome as rotten fish...
...In three and one-half years, they only made one judgement, the acquittal of Navy Capt...
...Elections were held in 1973, but even the new democratic government was a parade of three presidents: H6ctor J. Cdmpora, Juan D. Per6n and Maria Estela (Isabel) Martfnez de Per6n...
...Even Chile sent a communique pledging that it was "prepared to state its solidarity on every occasion and every forum that may be necessary...
...The country appeared to be entering a promising period of economic development and political democracy...
...Elected president in 1946 and again in 1952, Per6n encouraged Argentina's workers to form trade unions and developed a broad-based system of state- and union-adJULY/AUGUST 1987 17RThe Ties At Bind The Ties That Bind ministered social programs...
...All political parties without exception backed Alfonsin, though some expressed criticism of his policy toward the military...
...Following massive anti-government riots that rocked C6rdoba, Argentina's second largest city, in 1969, and with a worsening economic situation, the military tired of Ongania and forced him to resign in favor of two other generals, Roberto M. Levingston and Alejandro A. Lanusse...
...In practice, military judges refused to act...
...Uriburu's provisional regime held elections in 1931, but the populist Radical Civic Union was barred from participating, and fraud was widespread...
...Aversion to the armed forces is widespread, and has grown in the aftermath of the Holy Week uprisings...
...London had warned that it "would have no basis in international law," and on October 29, shortly after Alfonsin returned home, Great Britain announced plans to create a 150-mile conservation zone around the islands...
...While it appears likely that Argentine democracy will survive, it may well be weakened...
...in 1982 such usage, granted by Brazil's military government, had facilitated Britain's victory...
...The security situation is considered acceptable...
...9. Author's interview with President Ratil Alfonsin, January 1984...
...During the May 29 Army Day festivities, over 100 officers marched on the Combat Support Services School, where rebel Col...
...All this was cut short on September 6, 1930, when a coup d'6tat toppled President Hip6lito Yrigoyen and ushered in 53 years of military interventions that ended with the inauguration of President Radl Alfonsin on December 10, 1983...
...This nascent republic was far from perfect: voting rights were still restricted and there were uprisings and social strife...
...His first attempt in August 1986-instructing the military's chief prosecutor to absolve those found to have acted while "following orders"--triggered increased pressure from higher-ranking officers, including many implicated in crimes carried out during the "dirty war...
...The age of admission to these academies must be increased and the recruitment of officers diversified, so that they are not all graduates of military institutions...
...The number of unionists grew from 600,000 at the beginning of Per6n's first term to six million in the mid-1950s...
...Gen...
...charged with 43 counts of murder and 24 counts of kidnapping...
...At the time his message was not well understood by those seeking punishment for torturers and executioners...
...Juan Domingo Per6n, a leader of the 1943 uprising...
...Although the obediencia debida law was a major concession by Alfonsin to the military, the chiefs of the armed forces have indicated that they do not consider it sufficient...
...The intelligence services of the armed forces' three branches, dedicated to control the population rather than foreign enemies, remain intact...
...Around 1920, it was estimated that half of the Argentine military's higher-ranking officers had been trained in Germany.' Uniforms, salutes, regulations, ceremonies and military tribunals were all patterned on Prussian models...
...Later the scope of this law was extended to include other high-ranking officers who had directed the repression, including Gens...
...OPING TO "INCORPORATE THE ARMED forces into the democratic political project," Alfonsin always called for prosecuting the military's upper echelons while arguing that middle-ranking offiJULY/AUGUST 198121 JULY/AUGUST 1987 21The Ties That Bind cers should not be blamed for participating in acts conceived and directed by their superiors...
...Promotions from one rank to the next became occasions for changing positions within government ministries, and retirement from government agencies occurred in keeping with military regulations...
...Agustin P. Justo was elected and served from 1932-1938 in a government widely perceived to lack real legitimacy...
...References The Military: What is to be Done...
...President Arturo Illia made a new attempt at constitutional government in 1963, only to be toppled on June 28, 1966, by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force...
...Particularly after the 60-day period for bringing new charges, commanders and their civilian supporters were increasingly vocal, arguing that-despite the methods employed-the armed forces were under attack for having waged a necessary, just and even "holy" war against subversion...
...Although the Army initially formed a key element in Per6n's support, as his policies became more radical it ultimately abandoned him, returning to its traditional alliance with the oligarchy's most conservative sectors...
...Isolated from the rest of society in Prussian-style training centers, the officer corps rapidly came to view itself as an aristocratic caste, bearers of the nation's fundamental values, responsible for and destined to control Argentina's future...
...Usually only those with the rank of colonel or above could acquire their own apartments in civilian neighborhoods...
...The government had the support of the population, but the armed forces had refused to move against the rebels, leaving the civilian administration virtually defenseless...
...Ortiz resigned for health reasons in 1942 in favor of his vice-president, Ram6n S. Castillo, who succumbed to a military revolt on June 4, 1943...
...El Diario del Juicio, a weekly newspaper that contained witnesses' *Gen...
...The virtual apartheid separating officers from * both enlisted soldiers and civilians was epitomized in the rules governing elevators in military buildings: one set of lifts was used by officers and another for civilians and lower-ranking soldiers...
...7. Ernesto Sibato et al., Nunca Mds: The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1986), p. 2 4 9 . 8. Ibid...
...They also sought unsuccessfully to have the country's political parties sign an accord blocking investigations into official corruption, mismanagement and rights violations...
...But the British refused to back down...
...It was clear that a massive consensus favored democracy and that no significant sector of Argentine 22society wanted the armed forces to govern...
...Sentences passed by the supreme council of the armed forces could be appealed before federal civil courts...
...Pinochet claims the large weapons cache found in northern Chile in August 1986 was left by Cuban and Soviet fishing boats, and hypothesizes that the treaty would encourage the flow of Soviet arms to Chilean guerrillas...
...6 Over the years, military holidays have become occasions for the armed forces' leaders to deliver pronouncements on national politics...
...9 During his election campaign, he frequently said it was "necessary to distinguish between those who gave the orders, those who carried them out and those who committed excesses...
...Beginning in the 1920s, special neighborhoods and clubs were constructed for officers and their families...
...Both are manifesting a new openmindedness, honesty, maturity, imagination and realism...
...The authorities negotiate with labor and business groups in hope of reaching suitable compromises-what Argentines have termed a "social pact...
...Relations between the governing party and the opposition are smooth and cordial...
...he went by the names, "Dolphin" and "Maximo...
...In mid-May, as a result of the Holy Week rebellions, Alfonsin sent Congress a bill establishing the principle of obediencia debida or "due obedience" in any further prosecutions of members of the armed forces for crimes committed during the dictatorship...
...The Army then stepped in, slaughtering scores of workers during what came to be known as the semana trdgica or "tragic week" of January 1919.* Two years later, the Army perpetrated a series of massacres against shepherds and laborers on the latifundios in the southern Patagonia region who had demanded modest improvements in living conditions and salaries...
...Rubdn J. Chamorro.* Alfonsin's second bill, later approved by Congress, established that members of the armed forces, security agencies, police forces or prison guards believed responsible for crimes would be tried before military tribunals...
...In provincial capitals, Argentines gathered on central squares and in many places staged demonstrations in front of military installations...
...Pascual Pistarini predicted the coup against the elected government of President Arturo Illia that took place only a *In early January 1919, a policeman was killed during a confrontation with striking metallurgical workers...
...The proposed accord, which was rejected by the political parties, would have precluded reorganization of the armed forces, as well as any attempt to curtail their power in matters of external defense and internal security...
...The impact of Nunca Mds was amplified by the grassroots education efforts of human rights groups, including the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, the Argentine League for the Rights of Man, the Ecumenical Human Rights Movement, the Mothers and * Only in May 1987, following court appeals, did the Defense Ministry strip the convicted junta members of their ranks and bar them from wearing uniforms...
...Leopoldo F. Galtieri, ended in catastrophic defeat, the armed forces decided to retire from power and called for elections to be held according to norms established in the 1853 constitution...
...Meanwhile, some 2,000 cases against military officers that had been filed with the armed forces' supreme council remained inactive...
...Instead they continue to seek total amnesty and moral vindication...
...No death sentences were ever signed...
...civilian power has not yet reached them...
...UT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A VAST, completely clandestine repressive system of state terrorism--based on wide-scale disappearances-was the most important difference between the 1976-1983 dictatorship and previous military regimes...
...Nobody was ever executed publically...
...Only the United States remained silent, in keeping with its support for Britain during the 1982 war...
...Some 150 commandoes led by Col...
...Were torture, murder of prisoners and cruel treatment "excesses...
...On Army Day 1966, for example, Gen...
...But after 1912, with the enactment of obligatory and universal suffrage by secret ballot, the country was increasingly stable, and Argentines enjoyed a high level of political participation...
...This strategy of selective prosecutions was unsuccessful, in part because the definition of "excesses" was unclear...
...Unlike CONADEP, which relied largely on personal testimony, the proposed parliamentary commission would have been empowered to examine military records and installations and to request judicial authorities to return indictments...
...A LFONSIN MANAGED TO AVOID THE INevitable until April 15, 1987, when Army Maj...
...The rebellion in C6rdoba was resolved within 48 hours through negotiations that permitted Barreiro to flee, although he later surrendered and was taken into custody...
...The following year, Argentine officers sent for further study in Europe were required to continue their education exclusively in imperial German regiments...
...The message was significant, given that on the day it arrived, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was railing at a Santiago press conference about "the dangers of Communism lurking at our shores with this (Argentine-Soviet fishing] agreement...
...Lower- and middle-ranking officers began to organize meetings where they declared their intention to resist, threatening not to participate in "unjust and illegal" trials brought under punto final...
...In addition to the "disappeared," the nation's prisons overflowed with some 10,000 "legal" political detainees...
...Nine thousand "disappearances" have been documented...
...The system of "disappearances" created widespread fear...
...Can Argentina's nascent democracy consolidate itself and reach its full potential without the complete subordination of all factions of the armed forces...
...Subsequently, it became clear that while bloodshed and perhaps even civil war had been avoided, the surrender of the Campo de Mayo officers had not been unconditional...
...Mutilated bodies with signs of torture frequently washed up on the coast or the banks of the River Plate, providing mute testimony to the holocaust that was occurring...
...As a safeguard to ensure prosecutions in the event of inaction or delays by the military's judicial system, the federal civil courts were empowered to hear cases that were tied up in the armed forces' tribunals...
...But despite Per6n's popularity and his formidable mass base, he too fell victim to military machinations...
...Unlike later military coups, the uprising that toppled Yrigoyen was not a generalized action of the entire armed forces...
...few, if any, would like to do so after previous disastrous experiences in power...
...Ramon J. Camps: Police Chief of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police Headquarters...
...At the trial's end, the court sentenced Gen...
...6. Cant6n, p.100...
...FOR 68 YEARS IN THE LATE NINETEENTH and early twentieth centuries-while much of Latin America was immersed in a seemingly endless series of civil conflicts and coups-Argentina enjoyed constitutional government and orderly transfers of power...
...These include not only armaments factories, but steel, chemical and other plants that produce for civilian markets, as well as the national cartographical and meteorological services...
...Unlike last season, the USSR and Bulgaria did not apply for licenses because of the bilateral agreements with Argentina...
...The new regime was able to hold power and carry out a smooth transition to constitutional rule primarily because of the exceptional political gifts of then-Col...
...Although Alfonsin did not explain the exact meaning of his words, it was clear he sought to punish only the first and third categories, treating with leniency most of the active-duty officer corps, who had merely carried out orders...
...Collective security" assumes that while the United States will defend the continent, the Latin American armies will concern themselves with "ideological" rather than geopolitical frontiers, functioning as repressive national police forces...
...Within 24 hours, South America once again joined forces against the British...
...T HE CYCLE OF MILITARY RULE THAT began with the 1930 coup against Hip6lito Yrigoyen had its immediate roots in the economic crisis...
...the real number is undoubtedly much higher, probably between 20,000 and 30,000...
...Jorge Rafael Videla and Adm...
...Onganfa in a 1965 speech at West Point--continues to be the guiding postulate of military ideology...
...It was evident, however, that he feared conflict with the military...
...As early as 1904, most instructors in the higher military academy were Prussians who trained new officers as well as the high command...
...1. Dario Cant6n, La politica de los militares argentinos: 1900-1971 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 1971...
...Even Fidel Castro embraced Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Mdndez...
...1,500 pages of documents were sent to a California judge in support of an extradition case against Suarez Mason, who at presstime is still being held in San Francisco...
...T HE MAJORITY OF ARGENTINES ARE CONvinced that, unlike the past, domestic and international conditions would not permit another military coup...
...Paid for out of the military budget, these clubs-like the special apartment complexes erected near major military installations-accentuated the officers' ignorance of civilian values and aspirations...
...Gens...
...This pressure led Alfonsin to send Congress the "punto final" or "final stop" bill, allowing prosecution only of those officers charged within 60 days of the statute's approval...
...The vast majority of the officer corps is aware of its isolation and impossibility of governing...
Vol. 21 • July 1987 • No. 4
