Friday, March 25, 2016

Obama, human rights and Argentina

Obama's second and last day in Argentina was the Argentine National Day for Memory, Justice and Truth, recalling the crimes of the 1976-83 military dictatorship, the most brutal in South America, far exceeding the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile in its human rights violations.

Obama visited the Park of Memory, Monument to the Victims of State Terror. I was there last May, and I found it to be a very impressive set of commemorations of the victims of the dictatorship.

Obama appeared with Argentine President Mauricio Macri in a presentation at the park, President Obama promises to release U.S. files on Argentina's 'Dirty War' 03/24/2016:



What Obama said was good. But I couldn't stop thinking while I was hearing him praising Argentina for prosecuting officials for crimes they committed in office, including torture, about how Obama for over seven years as President has ignored his own legal obligation under the Torture Convention to prosecute known torture crimes by US government officials during the Cheney-Bush Administration.

Argentine human rights groups were cool to Obama's visit and its implications, as reported in "Sin derechos no hay democracia" Página/12 24.03.2016:

Los organismos también advirtieron sobre un "doble discurso" del gobierno de Macri, porque habla de la continuidad de los juicios contra los represores pero al mismo tiempo "despide a los trabajadores y trabajadores que los garantizan". "Las políticas de memoria, verdad y justicia solo se sostienen con los trabajadores y las trabajadoras adentro, exigimos que se terminen los despidos", reclamaron. En el mismo sentido, recordaron que hoy en el Parque de la Memoria, junto a Barack Obama, Macri dio un discurso que insinuó la teoría de los dos demonios al pedir "nunca más la violencia política e institucional".

The {human rights} organizations warned about the "double discourse" of Macri's government, because it talks about continuing the trials against the repressors but at the same time "fires employees and employees and workers that stand behind them" [I.e., employees working on the cases]. "The policies of memory, truth and justice can only be sustained with the workers inside, we demand that the firings be halted," they demanded. In the same sense, they recalled that today in the Parque de la Memoria, together with Barack Obama, Macri gave a speech that insinuated the theory of the two devils to ask "never again political and institutional violence."

The reference here is to Nunca Más [Never Again], subtitled "The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared Hardcover – October, 1986." It was an early official reckoning with the crimes of the dictatorship; the commission is known as CONADEP from its Spanish. It advanced what is commonly known as the theory of Dos Demonios (Two Devils), a kind of Both Sides Do It approach that struck a kind of equivalence between the activity of armed guerrillas and the dictatorship. Juan José Feinmann describes the ideological function of the "theory of two devils" in La Sangre Derramada (1996; 2006 edition):

Aquí, en la Argentina, esa teoría le sirvió al gobierno de Raul Alfonsín para implementar sus relaciones con los estamentos militares y los organismos de derechos humanes. Desde su horizonte conceptual se elaboró el Nunca Más. Centralmente decía que la sociedad argentina - inocente en sí misma - se había visto arrasada durante los años setenta por dos horrores: uno provenía de la extrema izquierda, el otro de la extrema derecha. Uno era la guerrilla, el otro la represión del Estado militar ... importa aquí señalar lo siguiente: los dos demonios suponen un empate histórico entre dos fuerzas desquiciadas y violentas que abisman en el miedo y el caos a una sociedad inocente. ... Y en el inocente y santo medio (los demonios no participan de los atributos de la inocencia ni de la santidad) está el capitalismo de mercado, con su respeto por las libertades individuales, la democracia. [pp. 17-18]

[Here in Argentina, this theory served the government of Raúl Alfonsín [1927-2009; President of Argentina 1983-1989] to implement his relations with the military establishment and human rights organizations. From his conceptual horizon, the Nunca Más. At the core it said that Argentine society - in itself innocent - had seen itself in the 1970s squeezed between two horrors: one belonging to the extreme left, the other to the extreme right. One was the guerrillas, the other the repression by the military state. ... {It is} important here to state the following: the {theory of the} Two Devils supposes a historical connection between two deranged and violent forces threw an innocent and violent society into fear and chaos. ... And in the innocent and holy middle (the devils don't possess the attributes of innocence or holiness) is market capitalism with its respect for individual liberties, {and for} democracy.]
Human rights groups also reject striking an abstract equivalence between the guerrilla groups (Montoneros, PRT-ERP) and the military dictatorship. The guerrillas committed crimes and human rights violations of their own. But the main problem in the Two Devils theory is not just that the dictatorship wracked up a much bigger "body count" than the guerrillas ever did. It's because the dictatorship was the government, acting as the state and in the name of the Argentine people, under cover of law and a false claim of legitimacy, misusing public institutions like the military, the police and the courts as instruments of murderous repression and widespread torture.

Ernesto Sábato, then head of CONIDEP, wrote an introduction to the Nunca Más official commission report, which is credited with kicking off the Two Devils theory.

Pilar Calveiro offers the following observation on the Two Devils theory in the historical journal La Lucha Armada en la Argentina (1:1 2005), "Puentes de la memoria: Terrorismo de estado, sociedad y mililtancia":

No creo en una responsabilidad difusa, repartida entre todos de igual manera sino en responsabilidades sociales y políticas concretas, específicas. ...

Creo entonces que no se trata de uno, de dos, ni de veinticinco millones de demonios. Acá no hay demonios sino actores sociales, actores políticos, que están involucrados de manera diferente en una organización social autoritaria, con un Estado autoritario que se gesta a lo largo de todo el siglo XX, y quizás antes. El autoritarismo estatal penetra profundamente en la sociedad y permea las prácticas políticas con la lógica autoritaria, con la lógica binaria, que naturaliza el recurso de la fuerza.

[I don't believe in a diffuse responsibility, divided among everyone in the same way, but rather in social responsibilities and concrete policies, specific. ...

Therefore, I believe that it's not a matter of one, or two, not even 25 million devils. There are no devils there but rather social actors, political actors, who are involved in a different manner in an authoritarian social organizations, with an authoritarian state that developed throughout the 20th century, and perhaps before. State authoritarianism penetrates deeply into the society and permeates political practices with an authoritarian logic, with binary logic, that naturalizes the recourse to force.]
Returning to the Página/12 article:

"La participación civil en los delitos de lesa humanidad todavía tiene impunidad", continuó la lectura del documento, en el que se denunció que "la coporación {sic} judiucial {sic} sigue defendiendo a sus socios". En otro tramo, se valoró el anuncio de la desclasificación de archivos secretos vinculados con la dictadura, anunciada por Obama en el marco de su visita al país, pero se reclamó que "EEUU debe dejar de violar los derechos humanos tanto en su territorio como en otros, como en la base de Guantánamo".

"A 40 años del golpe genocida, nos sentimos nuevamente convocados a defender la democracia", leyó la presidenta de Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto,y afirmó que "el cambio de gobierno está significando a diario la vulneración de derechos". Por último, la titular de Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, Taty Almeida, expresó el repudió "a los intentos destituyentes a las democracias latinoamericanas" y manifestó: "Abrazamos al pueblo de Brasil en defensa de la soberanía popular".

"Van por (Nicolás) Maduro en Venezuela, por Evo (Morales) en Bolivia, por Dilma (Rousseff) y Lula (Da Silva) en Brasil; las corporaciones no tienen fronteras, van por nuestra libertad y nuestros derechos", agregó Taty y criticó los despidos y el acuerdo por la deuda del actual gobierno nacional, tras lo cual concluyó: "Sin derechos no hay democracia".

["Civil participation in the crimes against humanity still have impunity," continues the text of the document, in which it denounces that "the judicial branch continues to defend its members." In another section, it assesses the announcement of the declassification of secret archives related to the dictatorship announced by Obama in the context of his visit to the country, but it charges that "the United States should stop violating human right in its own territory and in others, like in the base of Guantánamo."

"Forty years after the military coup, we feel ourselves calleld once again to defe3nd democracy," read out the President of the {human rights group} Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, and affirmed that "the change of government is signifying daily violation of rights." Finally, the chief of the {human rights group} Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, Taty Almeida, declared her rejection "of the attempt to remove Latin American democracies" and stated: "We embrace the people of Brazil in defense of popular sovereignty."

"They are coming for (Nicolás) Maduro in Venezuela, for (Morales) in Bolivia, por Dilma (Rousseff) and Lula (Da Silva) in Brazil; corporations don't have frontiers, they are coming for our liberty and our rights," added Taty and criticized the firings and the agreement on the debt by the current government, after which she concluded: "Without rights there is no democracy."]

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