Whitewash

A report's agonizing questions

In the seven years they have been in power, Argentina's military leaders have shown a continuing knack for selfdelusion. In the "dirty war" against leftist guerrillas in the 1970s, they unleashed a domestic counterterror of their own, confident that the excesses would never have to be explained. Last year they invaded the Falkland Islands, tragically underestimating the British will to resist and the U.S. reluctance to abandon an ally. Now, with the Falklands debacle behind it and elections for a return to civilian rule scheduled for October, the military's latest attempt to justify itself has once again run afoul of reality.

Faced with the nagging question of what really happened to at least 6,000 people who mysteriously disappeared in the government's 1970s crackdown, the junta finally went public with an answer. In a masterwork of avoidance, the military claimed that from 1973 to 1979,2,050 civilians were killed. But it said nothing of how, when or where the victims died. The report denied the contention of government critics that many of the missing were still in detention. Anyone not known to be in exile or hiding, declared the report, is now "for judicial purpose considered dead." Conceding that "mistakes were made" and that basic human rights may have been violated, the junta said nonetheless that abuses were to be expected "in a war of such peculiar circumstances as this one, where the enemy did not use uniforms."

As it had before, the military clearly miscalculated foreign reaction. Most of Argentina's 28 million people are of European ancestry, many of them from Italy, and among the missing are some 400 people of Italian citizenship or descent, 35 Spaniards and 15 French, including two nuns. Italy's President Sandro Pertini took the lead, denouncing the junta's "chilling cynicism." The Vatican was no less outspoken, rejecting the report as incomprehensible and full of "agonizing questions." At his weekly audience, Pope John Paul II declared that "the insistent problem of the disappeared ones has always been, and now is more than ever, in my soul."

In Argentina, the report was met with skepticism and anger. The nation's Roman Catholic bishops declared that the first step toward reconciliation should be a willingness by the military to admit its role in the disappearances. Emilio Fermin Mignone, head of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, expressed a widespread fear that until the military considers itself subject to "law and morality," voters can never be sure it will not mistreat them again. While Argentine law courts are clogged with 6,000 suits seeking information on the disappeared, the junta has long sought to avoid the issue altogether. The discovery of more than 1,500 unmarked graves last October made that silence especially difficult. Pressure also mounted from civilian politicians, along with the resolute "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo," who for years have demonstrated every Thursday in Buenos Aires' central square, demanding to know the fate of their missing children and other kin.

The crux of the military self-justification was its claim that security officials had a mandate to "annihilate subversive elements." The point is crucial to the many unrepentant officers, who fear a civilian probe and possible prosecution after the scheduled October elections. To stave off this prospect, the report flatly stated, the military would submit to no further questioning. Ominously, the military also warned that having once saved the nation from terror, it would not hesitate to "do so again." . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.