Lehrstuhl für Politikwissenschaft

mit Schwerpunkt Vergleichende Regierungslehre

Seminar: Contemporary Approaches to Comparative Politics

Wintersemester 2023/24

Joseph Klaver, Dr.

Title:

“Transitional Democracy and Justice: A Comparative Approach to Argentina’s Last

Dictatorship Human Rights Violations through Democratic Eyes”

Student: BARDUIL, Alexis Pablo

Matriculation Number: 111911

E-Mail: bardui01@ads.uni-passau.de

Semester: 3

Course of Study: Bachelor in Kulturwirtschaft/International Business Studies

Module: 603645 “Governance/Public Policy (L) or (S)”

Examination Number: 321324

Date: 27.02.2024
Index

1. Introduction

2. Body

a. Authoritarian rule period (1976-1983)

i. “War against subversion”

ii. Repression and prosecutions

iii. Malvinas/Falklands Islands war

b. Transition to democracy

c. Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989)

d. Carlos Ménem (1989-1999)

e. Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007)

3. Conclusions

4. Bibliography
Introduction

From the repression of basic civil rights, prosecution and censorship, to genocidal mass
performance, torture and assassinations, Argentine history is tinted with blood during the
numerous dictatorships that tried to implement neo-liberal policies along the years that
preceded the comeback from democracy in the year 1983. Such events were determined to
lead an attempt to reconstruct the basis of a democratic system which contains effective
judicial and legislative institutions after being completely corrupted over the years, specially
in the period from 1976 to 1983, where the last coup d’etat displaced Isabel Martínez Perón’s
government.
In this paper I will make an attempt to compare and analyze the way some of the
democratically elected governments in Argentina, those which came to power after the last
dictatorship, acted, or not, towards the judicial punishment of the mass human rights
violations from the Military Junta in this specific coup, also in order to disclose how different
these performances can be while all the actors being under democratic regimes and its
relationship with the judicial system.
In order to convey a proper analysis, I will start by describing the way the mentioned
dictatorship performed its genocidal practices and with which basis and intentions.
Afterwards I will proceed to disclose the way the following governments acted towards the
prosecution of the armed forces which committed such atrocious crimes against humanity,
being this analysis political with mainly judicial basis, all within the eyes of what has been
discussed among scholars. The democratic administrators selected to analyze in the paper are:
Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Ménem and Néstor Kirchner. Consequently and to conclude this paper,
I will evaluate the way the autocratic regime paved its way during the years in office, in
contrast to the work of Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski discussed in class, to
afterwards continue to use a comparative framework to showcase the previously mentioned
performances without disregarding the big scar this time in the national history left in
Argentine society within its social and cultural collective consciousness.

Body

Authoritarian rule period (1976-1983)

The date March 24th from the year 1976 will never be forgotten by the Argentine society, as
during the early hours of the morning, the government of María Estela Martínez de Perón was
knocked down by a coup d’etat led by the National Armed Forces, which from this time on,
established themselves to rule the country in order to re-establish the stability that the
economic crisis, political disconformity and social fracture were concerning, not only the
working-class society, but also the aristocratic élite. What happened in Argentina is what
O’Donnell (1973) labels as “‘bureaucratic-authoritarianism’, not only as rule by the military
as an institution but also as dictatorship committed to (a) conservative economic ideology
facilitated by the delegation of economic policy to technocrats and (b) an understanding of
national security focused on the challenges of leftist internal subversion rather than external
enemies” (Geddes, Frantz, Wright; 2014).
The Military Junta that took over what was the last period of democracy at that time, making
the early comeback to democracy the shorter democratic rule in between authoritarian
regimes in the history of the country, started with the winning elections that took president
Héctor José Cámpora to rule after the ending of the dictatorship led by officer Alejandro
Agustín Lanusse in the year 1973, and finished with the strike from the authoritarian regime
previously mentioned, in March 1976, where Jorge Rafael Videla took the executive premises
to start the bloodiest years Argentina ever faced so far. Bonvecchi and Simison (2020)
disclosed the power-sharing agreement that took place as follows: “the Military Junta
appointed and removed the President by unanimity rule. The President and the Junta divided
and shared Executive power: the latter appropriated the powers to declare states of emergency
and war and to promote military officers; both shared the powers to appoint Supreme Court
justices and provincial governors; and the President kept all remaining powers previously
attributed by the Constitution to civilian presidents” (Bonvecchi, Simision; 2020).

“War against subversion”

This regime, later known as the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (National

Reorganization Process), or PRN, took power “under the pretext of restoring order
and creating conditions favorable to the reintroduction of civil government” (Skaar, 1994;
40). This so-called “war against subversion” was the position the Armed Forces (at this point
conformed by the Navy, the Air Force and the Army in equal parts) took in order to surpass
left-wing terrorism, an issue that started earlier on, and was addressed by the previously
civilian government by convening the Armed Forces, in a declared state of emergency in
1974. With this pretext and the so-called National Security Doctrine (Doctrina Nacional de
Seguridad), the Military Junta expanded the fight against the left-wing terrorism to every inch
of the society that could have been opposed to their rule, including mainly middle-class
sindicalist militants, social activists, and intellectuals of every kind, mainly political
oppositors, journalists and press-related jobs, teachers, among others. Nonetheless, the
repression methods within the dictatorship were from its start violating human rights among
the society in various innovative ways, which gave place to the scholars in the topic to
assume the perfectly planned coup d’etat, not only by its execution, but also by allowing the
perpetrators to not be punished and/or judged whenever the ruling years concluded. Among
these scholars, I highlight Elin Skaar’s report under the name “Human Rights Violations and
the Paradox of Democratic Transition” from 1994, which is a really extensive and detailed
analysis of this period not only in Argentina, but also in Chile, and will be referred to later
on.

Repression and prosecutions

State violence and mass repression characterize this period in a unique way, leading scholars
to categorize it as a genocide because of the amount of casualties by the end of it. Emilio
Crenzel (2019) disclosed how the atrocities against humanity took place in the framework of
genocide, also regarding of how numerous groups already labeled the violence within the
crimes in the framework previously mentioned. I find it important to take into consideration
the way Argentine politicians at the time, specifically the democratically-elected president
Juan Domingo Perón, were associated with European fascist branches, a link that later on
played a role when labeling Peronist doctrine under the fascist labels. Perón was part of the
Military Junta who took over the government in 1944 as Vice President and Minister of War
for the authoritarian regime led by Edelmiro Julián Farrell. Later on, he was democratically
elected after running for President of the Republic and starting one of the most powerful
ideologies in Argentine history to this day: Peronism. Nowadays, supporters of Peronism and
anti-Peronist ideologies still polarize the Argentine political panorama, fragmenting the
country’s society not only politically, but mainly within social extents. After the last period of
rule from Perón in 1974, he was succeeded by his wife at the moment, María Estela Martínez
de Perón, who also practiced peronist rule during her time before the coup. Censorship and
repression was common during the years of these democratically elected governments, which
raised accusations of tyranny and authoritarianism later on as well.
What is more, as Guest (1990) declares: “In Argentina there was yet another factor
contributing to the ferocity employed in the eradication of subversion: the long-standing hate
between the armed forces and the Peronists, and the obsession to keep Perón out of politics
before his return to power in 1971” (Guest 1990: 17).
But what differentiates the repressiveness of the discussed regime from the dictatorship relies
on the scale of violence against the civilians. Sikkink (2008) mentions a few of the repression
methods during the dictatorship, all compelled into “a program of brutal repression of the
opposition, including mass kidnappings, imprisonment without charges, torture, and
murdered”. What is more, was the now famous “forced disappearances”, a term which
appeared in law vocabulary within the trials for crimes against humanity, the bloodiest years
of Argentine history were, and still are, discussed worldwidely, and it is still an open wound
to contemporary society. Elin Skaar (1994) also describes a very important issue while
analyzing the repression methods implied by the armed forces while comparing the atrocities
that were taking place in Argentina and in Chile simultaneously, as she describes how
efficient was the method of disappearing bodies, as nobody could be convicted for a murder
unless the body was found. What is more, she clarifies how “few mass-graves were found
during the period of authoritarian rule, thus making it extremely difficult to attribute guilt to
any specific institution or individual” (Skaar, 1994; 58). This is only a glimpse of the way
this will evolve into one of the many issues and obstacles that the authorities had to face in
the trials to finally be able to punish the armed forces for the gross human rights violations.

Malvinas/Falklands Islands

On April 2nd of the year 1982, another memorable date for Argentines took place. Within the
authoritarian rule and among military instability, the dictatorial regime decided to launch an
attack on and occupy the Falklands Islands, by this time and since 1833, under the control of
the United Kingdom. This was not only to place the society’s attention on somewhere else
and distract them from internal affairs and the fragmentation of the military forces within the
ruling government, but also to create a sense of nationalism in the society in order to gain
support. The Malvinas’ conflict was, is and will be a sensitive topic that attacks the feeling of
national integrity and, since the war took place, reminds not only the human losses but the
national disappointment after the defeat in the conflict itself. A short and senseless war of this
kind was fought with the National Armed Forces in combat, consisting from the Army, the
Air Force and the Navy, and where large numbers of young and inexperienced soldiers were
sent to the front. Not only the loss of hope, but the huge disappointment within society led to
revolts and social protests, which ended up with the collapse that characterized the last year
of the regime.

Transition to democracy

As the Military Junta was expecting to happen soon, the process of transitioning to
democracy was accelerated by the defeat in the war, an event which was going to change
historically the way every citizen would remember the awful years of dictatorial rule. While
the pressure against the Military Junta was growing, “their prime concern was to negotiate
their exit from power in an orderly way which would ensure them immunity for the crimes
committed during the so-called dirty war” (Skaar, 1994;71). Firstly, this was attempted by
negotiations with the parties running in the democratic elections to be held soon, which in a
first attempt failed abruptly. Nonetheless, the Military Junta tried other ways to get away with
the mass human right violations committed during the period they ruled. These other ways
consisted of a series of laws which I will detail above, precisely named the “Final Document
on the War against Subversion and Terrorism” and the “Law of National Pacification”, and a
presumed destruction of all the documents regarding the military repression during the
dictatorial years.
As Skaar (1994) mentions, the Final Document on the War against Subversion and Terrorism
was issued on April 1983 and implies that all the casualties were an “error committed in all
wars”, regarding the human rights violations, also emphasizing the necessity for the families
of the victims of forced disappearance who were not in exile, to consider their relatives as
“dead for all legal and administrative purposes”.
What is more, in another attempt to exonerate the guilt from their shoulders, the Military
Junta declared a self-amnesty for all the security forces who gave or carried out orders during
the period from the coup d’etat in May 1973 to the resignation of the last officer in June
1982. Skaar (1994) also mentions the way these measures led to massive protest
demonstrations, gathering around 40,000 people in Buenos Aires along with human rights
groups. Finally, the last move the Military Junta did in order to reassure its intentions was to
find a middlefield with the strongest party running in the elections, which they thought was
the Peronists for the huge following they gathered within the years earlier and even during
the dictatorship. Through this so-called agreement, the amnesty laws were not to be removed
by the following constitutional government, allowing the self-exonerations planned to
succeed.
A great victory for the working-class finally took place in the elections held in October 1983,
where the victory of the Radical Party over the Peronist Party, which would continue to
assure the fight for justice, and would also let without effect the previously described
agreement for the amnesty laws issued by the Military Junta. Still, the judicial fight and
criminal justice will have a long list of ups and downs after the restoration of the democratic
institutions and its functionality along the Raúl Alfonsín’s government that was about to start.
Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989)

On December 10th 1983, the newly elected democratic government came into office with a
big responsibility to face: the fight for justice. Since the electoral campaign, the Radical Party
led by Raúl Alfonsín showcased how important the human rights cause was, as well as the
punishment against the officers who led and guided the operations that violated humanity’s
right in every possible aspect.
“How can a country overcome a legacy of dictatorial rule and massive human rights
violations if the new government is subject to significant institutional and political
constraints? How may a country under such circumstances succeed in harmonizing the
conflicting objectives of justice and social peace?” (Zalaquett 1990) are questions I found
proper to ask to any candidate willing to restore democracy after a dictatorial period as the
one in Argentina. After this being said, the trials against the armed forces were supposed to
take place.
The very first issue that the government had to face in the courts was the previously
mentioned self-amnesty law that was enacted during the military rule. As Carlos Nino (1991)
states, Alfonsín issued numerous bills to the Congress as soon as he got into office. These
issues, he describes, “were designed to abrogate draconian criminal legislation enacted by the
previous Peronist government and the military regime, to punish the crime of torture with the
same penalty as murder, to ratify all the relevant international covenants dealing with human
rights, to abrogate military jurisdiction for crimes committed in the future by men of the
armed forces in connection with acts of service, and to eliminate other kinds of
discrimination” (Nino; 1991; 2623). Initially, he applied to military judiciaries to take cards
on the matter, expecting a military prosecution for human rights violations within its own
institution. Nothing happened in the first 6 months of the given time period. After an
extension of this period, which also concluded without success, the cases were transferred to
civilian courts to take the matter. Once there, the cases for the main 9 officers who were
responsible for the first three Juntas during the authoritarian rule started, and ended up with 5
out of those 9 convicted on the civilian courts at first, followed by the other 4 being convicted
afterwards in military courts, where they were found guilty for mismanagement of the war
against the United Kingdom. The prosecution of these officers in the civil court were based
on something around 700 cases. Still Alfonsín’s government must use, as Nino (1991)
explains, “indirect mechanisms” due to the large amount of obstacles the judicial system was
providing: self-amnesty laws, military courts, the Constitution, and even the fear of the
Government to be seen as powerless for not taking on the trials and, consequently, producing
or inspiring the rise of a new coup d’etat.
As these issues proceeded, a new series of events took place by the end of, already, 1986,
after all the time lost with the first attempt of the military trials: the government enacted the
“full stop law”, which consisted in a “Congress push through a statute setting a sixty-day
period for the submission of new complaints of crimes committed during the ‘dirty war’”
(Skaar, 1994; 114). The so-called “full-stop law” was a consequence of the amount of cases
that were presented to the courts after the success of the first 9 officers imprisoned, success
that gave society a breath of hope regarding the issues they faced in the previous years, and
followed by the long-lasting process the trials needed to achieve actual punishment. Even
with the short period notice, Skaar (1994) estimates that more than 450 people were indicted.
Consequently and as it was expected, an uprising took place from the armed forces, where
numerous officers refused to follow judicial orders of detention, under the name of
“Operation Dignity” during Easter. Once again after negotiations between the government
and the armed forces, the uprising was took down, and under pressure from almost every
sector, including the Supreme Court, the Left and the military, the government enacted the
“due obedience law”, which “defined which military ranks held decision-making capacities,
and excluded the exception of atrocious and abhorrent acts for all other military ranks” (Nino,
1991; 2629). This law was both socially and politically condemning for Alfonsín’s
government, which, as Skaar (1994) puts, “Alfonsín put higher priority on retaining political
stability by appeasing the military than on keeping his promise of justice by pressing for
large-scale punishment of the alleged human rights violators” (Skaar, 1994; 115). The
consequence let out of trial loads of officers and executors which, from now on under the
eyes of the law, were innocent for the charges presented by the victims of the genocide. What
is more, Kathryn Crawford (1990) discloses how different judiciaries within Argentina
enabled, enacted and regarded the due obedience law as a Constitutional amnesty for the
officers. She analyzes Justice Petracchi and showcases how “he cited the Supreme Court
precedent that granting indiscriminate pardons for atrocious and inhuman crimes that had no
connection to the political motives alleged by the perpetrators” (Crawford, 1990; 36) to
afterwards declare the amnesty “in order to safeguard peaceful coexistence in the country”
(Crawford, 1990; 36). Later on, after disclosing how the law “is not an amnesty because the
acts that it addresses are no longer considered crimes but are legally justified within the limits
of the due obedience doctrine” (Crawford, 1990; 36), the author states how the judiciares did
not considered the way international law was being called by outlawing the crime of torture
while enacting the law as an amnesty. She continues, “in international proceedings, the
pardon of a criminal can implicate a state's responsibility for a ‘denial of justice’” (Crawford,
1990; 37).
To conclude, Alfonsin’s government did whatever it could to deal with the amount of
obstacles to face the trials while also dealing with the pressure from numerous institutional
entities, including the military and the opposition parties, the human rights organizations, but
most importantly, the society. When concluding the paper, Crawford (1990) states how the
due obedience law, instead of preserving the peaceful coexistence in the country, led “the
court upheld the codification of military power” consequently undermining the peace
necessary to face the uncertainty a re-stated democracy needs to face the justice in question.

Carlos Ménem (1989-1999)

After stating the “denial of justice” that Crawford discloses while mentioning the pardon of a
criminal by the state, the newly elected President of the Republic Carlos Ménem, took the
office after winning the presidential elections held in 1989. Nevertheless, an important
remark to make on this administration is the change in the Constitution in the year 1994,
which allowed and assured his re-election in 1995. Before stating the way this government
acted towards the punishment of the perpetrators of human rights during the dictatorship
along its administration, I will disclose some of the terms the scholar Ezequiel González
Ocantos analyzes in his paper “Persuade Them or Oust Them: Crafting Judicial Change and
Transitional Justice in Argentina” from July 2014 published in Comparative Politics.
In the paper, even though Ocantos focuses on the ways in which the judicial system was
collaborating -or impeding in this case- within the trials, he also pays particular attention to
the society’s active role in providing judiciaries enough elements to carry on with the eternal
seeking for justice after the atrocities committed during military rule. Ocantos discloses “the
transmission of "know-how" by civil society actors such as NGOs as a crucial dimension of
judges' capacity to become agents of justice” (Ocantos, 2014; 480). He also proceeds to state
the way in which international human rights law and amnesties can contribute or dilute the
efforts in the judiciaries to condemn past crimes, which I mentioned and analyzed in its
context when describing the amnesty laws enacted during Alfonsín’s administration in the
1980s and its development within the trials. Ocantos (2014) also mentions the need to
undermine domestic positivist law in order to avoid executives to perpetuate impunity within
the judicial system.
I find this information useful to introduce one of the ways the Peronist candidate Carlos
Ménem paved his way to the election in 1989. During the campaign, besides addressing the
way he would solve the economic crisis left after Alfonsín’s mismanagement, he also
addressed the issue of the seeking of truth and justice which was dividing the society still
after so many years of judicial ups and downs. He described the “national reconciliation” he
would seek, which, as Michael Langan (1991) describes, fuelled “expectations he would opt
for some type of pardon for military offenders instead of prosecution in a bid to eliminate a
controversy which has set so many Argentines against one another” (Langan, 1991; 146).
After coming to office, in October 1989 president Ménem issued the so-called “presidential
pardons” anticipated during the campaign, which set free 280 officers that were being
prosecuted for violating numerous human rights.
However, with the 1994 constitutional reform, human right treaties on international law were
declared to be constitutional. Consequently, besides the presidential pardons, now the
investigations from the trials that were put on hold could be resumed. Besides the amnesties,
“the judiciary could still request information in order to establish the fate of the disappeared”
(Ocantos, 2014; 487), which also emphasizes how international law allowed the victim’s
lawyers to appeal in order to seek the investigation of the officers for the victim’s right for
truth. What is more, Ocantos also mentions Kathryn Sikkink’s work on how European allies
put pressure on Ménem’s government in order “to soften its anti-transitional justice policy”
(Ocantos, 2014; 479) by 1989, when his administration was coming to an end after the 10
year campaign and the issue of the presidential pardons. I find this last remark interesting to
mention, as it also links Peronist administrators with European powers towards human rights,
also creating parallelisms with what happened years before in the World Wars and the rise of
far-right ultra nationalist movements.

Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007)

After the presidential election of 2003, winning candidate Néstor Kirchner came into office to
set a drastic change for the destiny of the still processed officers for the human rights
violations during the military rule. After his election, the human rights ally Kirchner started
performing towards the never-ending chase of justice Argentines were seeking since the
bloody years that characterize the last dictatorship in their country. Following the re-opening
of investigations after the human rights international law being declared constitutional,
President Néstor Kirchner, as the Latin American Data Base staff puts in their 2003
publication “President Kirchner Fights Impunity”, he “annulled a decree forbidding
extradition of former military officers to stand trial abroad for crimes committed in
Argentina” (LADB Staff, 2003; 1). Consequently the Supreme Court dictated the
inapplicability of amnesty laws, allowing hundreds of trials to be resumed and started, also
allowing foreign courts to start trials to judge and condemn the torture and/or execution of
foreigners that were in Argentina during the military rule years. By the time of the previously
named report, the trials had yet no date set for them to take place, but officials were already
being extradited and put in custody, in the cases mentioned on it, these being against the
Argentinean military members Ricardo Miguel Cavallo and Adolfo Scilingo, under Spanish
and international law. Spain continued to judge and ask for extradition from around 46
Argentines at the time of the report in August 2003.
President Kirchner continued to perform his duty towards the judicial punishment of the
crimes against the officials, even by actions that were seeking to re-establish faith within
society and human rights groups. For example, he “ordered the removal of the pictures of
General Jorge Videla and General Reynaldo Bignone, both members of the Junta, from the
gallery of presidential portraits at the military college on the outskirts of Buenos Aires”
(Figari Layús, 2020; 111). As the author implies, its symbolism was a powerful message to
the victims. Another act in Kirchner’s policy towards the dictatorship, was the opening of
memory spaces in the previously taken places used as former-detention centers, where
victims were tortured and executed. During Kirchner’s administration, the feeling of
solidarity and recognition from society regarding the trials was common among citizens at
the time.
According to a report from the Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis International, or
CESRAN International, from November 2010, Francesca Lessa states “1.589 people are
implicated in crimes against humanity, 277 have been charged, eight-two condemned, 442 are
currently under pre-trial detention, eight have been acquitted while 255 have passed away”
(CESRAN International, 2010). What is more, the President started the “Verdad y Justicia”
(Truth and Justice) program, as well as the “Plan Nacional de Acompañamiento y Asistencia
a los Querellantes y Testigos, Víctimas del Terrorismo de Estado”, which consisted in
providing psychological support to the victims of state terrorism, more importantly during the
time of the trials and the testimony giving.

Conclusions

After reviewing the first two particular democratic transitions after the dictatorial years, these
being from the military rule to Raúl Alfonsín, and afterwards from Raúl Alfonsín’s
government to Carlos Ménem’s, followed by Néstor Kirchner’s work regarding the
punishment for the human rights violations during the genocide that took place in Argentina
between the years 1976 and 1982, I will conclude by stating a comparative disclosure of the
duty each administration performed regarding the human rights movements characterized by
the ongoing institutionalization and deinstitutionalization in between transitions, and which
led the judicial trials to take so long, and finally to polarize Argentines even more
dramatically to this day.
Following the analysis I made regarding the autocratic regime that lasted until 1983, I will
overview the facts stated through the eyes of Jeniffer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski’s paper
from 2007 “Authoritarian Institutions and The Survival of Autocrats”. The authors state how
autocrats who “overinstitutionalize” are most likely to survive longer in power, giving an
estimated number of 8,38 years to the duration of its time in power. As well, they state that
military regimes are also more likely to stay longer in power due to the way its members can
rely on the support of the structure of the military as an institution which provided their
formation. As mentioned in the first section of the paper, the Military Junta did rely on the
military institution for structure, specifically by divisioning the influence of the Army, the Air
Force and the Navy on equal parts, not just in the Executive, but also by appointing the
legislators to take control of the bi-cameral Legislative system Argentina still has. They state
that, “if rulers counter the threat with an adequate degree of institutionalization, they survive
in power.” So, the Military Junta’s division, and institutionalization consequently, provided,
at first, consent within the Junta itself, which helped to avoid internal affairs and present
difficulties for the lasting of the regime. What is more, I find it important to also emphasize
on the way the Junta was looking at the mistakes made in the previous coup d’etats, but also
to the autocratic regime that was taking place in Chile simultaneously. What is also
interesting about the survival of the regime is, that besides its institutionalization, as
mentioned before, the Junta performed its terror in such innovative ways to dissuade
opposition and the so-called “leftist subversion”, which ended up encompassing a huge scope
within the Society at the time, creativity that led afterwards to make it hard to blame and/or
punish anyone about the committed crimes. Consequently, the hard labor of finding the
bodies, which were thrown in the ocean or dug in secret mass graves, gave limited space to
blame any individual and or institution for the crimes. What I intend to clarify with this
disclosure is how, not only an appropriate institutionalization helped the regime to last as
long as 7 years, but also the sinister creativity the military had in order to dissuade
subversion, opposition, and inspire terror among almost every sector of society. Regarding
the end of the regime, Gandhi and Przeworski quote as follows, “the relatively frequent
replacement of military leaders by democrats reflects the fact that the military often come to
power without intending to establish permanent rule: as “arbitrators” or “guardians” (Finer,
1976; Nordlinger, 1977; Perlmutter, 1977)”, which also measures up with the Military Junta’s
speech on their will to take control of the government in order to “protect” national security
with its National Security Doctrine, so “only” to re-establish control within the government
and restore the peace among the citizens.
The aftermath showcases the hold of democratic elections and the two different approaches
the running candidates performed to gain support for the comeback to democracy in the year
1983. As regarded above, the transition to democracy was the first glimpse of how different
democracy could be looked at regarding the seek of justice after the crimes of the ending
dictatorship: the assurance of amnesty laws for impunity to the Military Junta members
through their agreement with the Peronist Party, and the actual judicial fight the Radicals
intended to present if winning the primary elections. After the win, the invalidity of the
mentioned agreement assured the Radicals the way towards human rights and its will to
achieve justice to take place, characterizing Alfonsín’s administration as one committed with
its people. The final parallelism I can find to set a comparative framework appears as a result
of the duty that the analyzed administrations had in order to pursue justice regarding the mass
human rights violations within civilian and democratically elected governments.
Despite Alfonsín’s government intention, numerous obstacles that presented themselves in
the judicial process created heated ambience among the citizens, the Military, the Left and the
judicial system. Some trials took place, showcasing improvements within the fight for justice,
but enacting the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws played a big role in the retrocession of
the trials, also leading to the collapse of the administration and the resigning of the President.
To acclaim the mentioned retrocession, the presidential pardons issued by the following
President Carlos Ménem reinstalled a sense of hopelessness and anger among the citizens that
only wanted Truth and Justice. This administration counterbalanced the retrocession with the
constitutionality of human rights and international law, allowing the trials to be resumed and
restarted, also creating a new sense of hope to the victims. Consequently and to continue with
the hope, after the investigations resumed during Carlos Ménem’s final years, Néstor
Kirchner came to office with a set of policies and actions that proceeded to allow justice to
take place. The Truth and Justice program, as well as the institutionalization that
accompanied it, led him to be acclaimed as the administration that not only showed, but also
acted towards being concerned about the restoration of human rights in the country.
As it was showed along the paper, the ongoing progression and retrocession flow among the
judicial system acting towards the seek of justice in Argentina was and still remains to be a
complex phenomenon characterized mainly by the efforts and compromises the
democratically elected presidents made with its citizens, but also by the obstacles the judicial
system itself presented during each of the discussed administrations. As well, I believe that it
is also showcased how there is plenty of research done by scholars in the area, even though
not enough as the topic is still being discussed, and still concerns Argentinean society and
politics, giving academic space for further investigation and development in multiple areas,
but specifically in Human Rights.
Conversely, I believe it is worth mentioning how further research and development can be
done by future scholars regarding the topic and the relationship between it and the newly
elected president Javier Milei. Having a vice-president as Victoria Villarruel, who is both
daughter and nephew of military officers, controversies took place and the topic was
discussed in the presidential debates held before the elections in 2023. Here, both the
president and vice-president had no issue on discussing the overly sensitive and controversial
topic, where a statement about judicial fight for “fair justice” against the officials was made,
a counterclaim against Néstor Kirchner’s policy in the field, and a negationist posture
towards the widely accepted number of 30,000 victims in the last dictatorship took place.
Consequently, I believe this field has a big potential for further development and exploration,
where comparative case studies such as this one, and interdisciplinary approaches can take
place in order to give new opinions and analysis.
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