August saw one of the year's most positive developments in human rights: The reopening of the trials of military officers responsible for gross violations of human rights during Argentina's "dirty war" (1976-1983). In mid-August, both houses of Argentina's Congress voted by a large majority to annul the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, which had barred the prosecution of military officers for human rights violations.
On August 26, Human Rights Watch Americas Executive Director José Miguel Vivanco and researcher Sebastian Brett met in Buenos Aires with ministers in the Kirchner government and two members of the Argentine Supreme Court, Enrique Petracchi and Juan Maqueda. Though the justices could not discuss the cases now under consideration, they conveyed their approval of several past court decisions upholding international human rights law. Six months ago, no one would have bet money on the court nullifying the amnesty laws; now the odds seem better than even.
The Spanish human rights judge Baltasar Garzón sparked these developments by issuing warrants for the extradition of 45 former military officers and a civilian accused of torture and "disappearances," so that they could stand trial in Spain. In August, President Nestor Kirchner repealed a decree that prevented the extradition of Argentines from standing trial abroad for human rights crimes.
Since the parliamentary vote, and with the Supreme Court decision likely, it appears that the officers will be finally tried in Argentina. The Spanish government has announced it would drop its extradition request.
On September 2, the Federal Court of Buenos Aires ordered trials to be reopened into crimes committed in the Navy Mechanics School, a notorious torture center, and secret detention centers attached to the First Army Corps. Among those accused is Alfredo Astiz, a former naval intelligence agent who escaped extradition to France last year, and Carlos Suárez Mason, former commander of the First Army Corps, who was extradited to Argentina from the United States in 1988, and pardoned by then-President Carlos Menem.
The fate of these and other court cases rests on the Supreme Court decision, which is expected soon.
See Human Rights Watch's work on human rights in Argentina at https://www.hrw.org/en/americas/argentina
