Latin American seek justice

Duncan Campbell, Guardian News Service, Santiago

Extraordinary things have been happening over the last few weeks in Latin America. In Argentina, measures have been passed by both houses of the legislature to remove the immunity from members of the military who took part in the disappearances and torture during the "dirty war" against the left in that country in the 1970s and early 1980s.

This means that Argentineans will be able to examine, through the courts, what happened during those dark years, who was responsible and why they were able to get away with it for so long. The measures have been energetically backed by Argentina's popular new president, Nestor Kirchner.

In Chile, last month, President Lagos announced plans to explore the equally grim period in his country's history that followed the 1973 military coup. His measures, set out in the document No Tomorrow Without a Yesterday, would allow immunity to some of those who took part in the atrocities in return for their cooperation in the investigation into what happened to the more than 3,000 who died at the hands of the military.

In Peru, last week, there was the publication of the truth and reconciliation commission's report about that country's own troubled period, mainly in the 1980s, when 60,000 died or "disappeared." This, too, could lead to prosecutions, and a reopening of what happened and why.

These developments have met with a mixed reaction in the respective countries. The periods under examination represent painful times. Some, mainly conservative, commentators have argued for "drawing a line" under the events so that, in that over-used phrase, people can "come to terms with what has happened" and move on.

Some of those commentators have also co-opted the rhetoric of President Bush, who has tried to create the notion of a phantom, all-purpose "terrorist" who carries out his atrocities for no other apparent reason than he is "evil" and "hates freedom". When dealing with such people, goes the argument, any methods are allowable.

One theory used to justify a general amnesty is that of the "two demons". This suggests that the militaries in the three countries were all fighting communist or extremist elements and fire had to be fought with fire. The argument goes that war is war and both sides do hellish, demonic things that cannot be examined fairly in peacetime.

This is a dangerous argument. On a numerical basis alone, it does not stand up. In Argentina, leftist guerrillas in a 20-year period were responsible for an estimated 600 deaths, compared with the state's 15,000 killings and disappearances. In Chile, the military was responsible for an estimated 3,000 deaths while around 150 members of the security forces were killed. In Peru, the Shining Path is blamed for a larger proportion of deaths, but the state is held responsible for around 20,000.

The argument, however, is not to do with body counts but the fact that the murders and torture were carried out under the authority of the state. The whole apparatus of the state, from its intelligence- gathering to the use of its barracks and naval schools, was employed in illegal activity in Argentina, Chile and Peru. Whatever one thought of the guerrillas or what they were fighting for, what they did was punishable by law and through the courts. The state almost invariably acted with impunity.

"The real test of Peru's willingness to confront its past lies in how the government handles the question of prosecutions," said Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch last week. "The world will be watching to see if the attorney general puts the necessary effort into investigating and prosecuting these cases."

These are matters not just for the countries concerned but for the international community, and there are lessons to be learned today. President Carter, alone of his fellow office-holders, stood out against the abuses in Argentina. The then U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who connived in and celebrated the Chilean coup, now has to consult his lawyers before he travels abroad to ensure that he will not be arrested in a country that seeks to examine his shabby role during that period. That is as it should be. Once a state suspends its laws and excuses its actions on a threat of terrorism, the slope is a slippery one, whether the country is a democracy or a dictatorship.

In The Real Odessa, his book about the Nazis' escape route to Argentina, my colleague Uki Goni recalls an episode in Buenos Aires in 1974. A billboard was suspended around the obelisk on the city's main avenue with the message: Silence is Health. The sign was meant to discourage motorists from blasting their horns, but it seemed at the time to carry a much deeper, Orwellian meaning. Finally, that silence is being broken. Those who have had the courage to raise their voices and to seek justice over the years in Argentina, Chile, Peru, deserve the world's admiration and encouragement.