Argentines Hotly Debate Sentences Ordered at ‘Dirty War’ Trial

Argentina completed its second year as a democracy Tuesday with the same spirit of expectation and controversy in which it was born.

As usual, President Raul Alfonsin, a resolute centrist, was in the middle.

When Alfonsin took office on Dec. 10, 1983, ending almost eight years of military dictatorship, Argentines gasped as magazines newly free of censorship dared to discuss sex openly or to contemplate the possibility of justice for human rights abuses under the military.

On Tuesday, the headlines in these publications dealt with a question that few would have thought, two years ago, could ever be raised openly:

Did a civilian court go too far Monday, or not far enough, in condemning five of Argentina’s former military rulers for massive human rights violations and acquitting four others?

As for what happens next, Alfonsin, who ordered the historic trial, has offered no opinion, at least in public. And there has been no clear indication as to whether the government intends to continue pressing its human rights campaign.

Swirling around the president is a spirited post-trial debate that is divided on ideological grounds.

“Instead of closing wounds and reaffirming the rule of law and state responsibility, this kind of revisionism only reopened them,” said Jesus Iglesias Rouco, a newspaper columnist who seems to enjoy baiting Alfonsin.

Conservative politician Alvaro Alsogaray said, “There were sentences, but where is the evidence?”

In the wake of the trial, in which members of two successive military juntas were convicted of kidnaping, torturing and murdering their adversaries in the so-called “dirty war” against Marxist guerrillas, the Argentine right is pressing demands for an amnesty.

Reluctantly accepting the judgment against the former commanders, the right demands that there be no prosecution of subalterns who carried out the orders that led to the deaths or disappearances of at least 9,000 people.

The political left and human rights groups are almost unanimously disappointed by what they consider lenient sentences. They want more trials. An hour after the sentences were announced Monday, about 3,000 human rights activists blocked downtown traffic in a noisy but peaceful protest demonstration. More demonstrations are planned.

The court sentenced two former junta members, including former President Jorge R. Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1980, to life in prison. Three other officers for whom the prosecutor had asked life sentences were ordered to serve between 54 months and 17 years. The four remaining defendants were acquitted--to the surprise of leftists.

“The sentences defrauded expectations of an exemplary sentence for the principal authors of genocide,” said Nestor Vicente, leader of a democratic socialist party.

Alfredo Bravo, a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, said, “Some of the sentences met expectations, while others will create some discontent.”

Positive reaction to the court’s action came mostly from members of Alfonsin’s Radical Civic Union party, from officials in his government and from other centrist parties.

Justice ‘Honors Us’

Radical legislator Cesar Jaroslavsky said: “The sentences leave the sensation that something has ended in Argentina and something has begun. The republic has again met justice, which honors us.”

Christian Democratic leader Carlos Auyero said, “It was an exemplary decision by a judiciary which has recovered from years of horror and struggle.”

As is customary, the armed forces made no comment on the trial, which is known to have infuriated the officer corps. Roque Carranza, Alfonsin’s civilian defense minister, asserted Tuesday that the verdicts have caused “very little repercussion” within the armed forces.

Historically accustomed to great political strength, the armed forces chafe at Alfonsin’s attempt to impose civilian control on them. Yet the military’s prestige has not recovered from either the “dirty war” or the humiliating 1982 Falkland Islands War with Britain, except among its most right-wing civilian allies.

Three members of the junta in power when Argentina invaded the Falklands were among those acquitted Monday of human rights charges but are being court-martialed for their conduct of the war.

The court martial also has before it about 1,700 human rights cases brought against 200 to 300 individual officers by “dirty war” survivors or their relatives.

1,000 Were Accused

In all, about 1,000 active and former members of the armed forces have been accused of human rights abuses in testimony gathered by a commission of inquiry created by Alfonsin.

Thus far, the military justice system has delayed any action on human rights cases. In the case brought against the nine former commanders, the civilian court took jurisdiction after a military tribunal failed to meet prosecution deadlines.

As part of its ruling Monday, the six-judge civilian court ordered the military tribunal to pursue accusations against field commanders who carried out illegal repression, “and all others who had any responsibility for those actions.”

Prosecutor Julio Strassera, although displeased with the sentences, called the order a key part of the court’s decision, clearing the way for further prosecutions. If military justice again delays or is negligent in its prosecution, the subaltern cases may be returned to civilian courts, Strassera said.

Amid the national debate over how much justice is enough, the next move then, belongs to the military court. But as it has for the past two years, the pressure weighs heaviest on Raul Alfonsin.