Argentina’s Senate OKs Plan for Time Limit on Prosecuting Cases of Human Rights Abuses

The Argentine Senate on Monday approved a bill, proposed by President Raul Alfonsin, setting a time limit on prosecuting military officers charged with human rights violations under military rule in the late 1970s.

The measure was passed on a 25-10 vote, and it is expected to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies.

Demonstrators from the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, representing mothers of people who disappeared during the so-called “dirty war” waged by the military against suspected leftists, were ejected from the public gallery during debate over the bill for distributing pamphlets and shouting slogans against the measure.

Opposition senators from the labor-based Peronist and independent parties voted in favor, as did Alfonsin’s Radical Civic Union, which has only a minority in the Senate.

Sets 60-Day Deadline

The Chamber of Deputies called a session for today to act on the measure. The 254-member chamber, where the Radicals enjoy a 130-seat majority, would have to approve the bill before Alfonsin could sign it into law.

The bill sets a 60-day deadline for starting the trial of officials who stand accused of abduction, torture, murder or other human rights violations while they were striving to wipe out leftist subversion in the late 1970s, when the armed forces were in power.

It sets a 30-day deadline for filing new complaints in connection with the repression, which followed a wave of leftist guerrilla violence.

Courts would be empowered to speed up the trial process.

The initial stages of trial now are under way for about 30 to 35 officials, human rights groups estimate.

Military Rule Ended in 1983

Alfonsin said the bill, known in Argentina as the “ punto final ,” or final chapter, was necessary to turn a page in the nation’s history and unite the military establishment with the rest of the country.

Alfonsin took office Dec. 10, 1983, ending nearly eight years of military rule. Since then, 10 military officers and police officials, including two former ex-presidents, have been given jail sentences ranging from life to four years for human rights abuses.

There are approximately 6,000 documented cases of disappearances, and all these victims are now presumed dead. Amnesty International, the human rights group, estimates that 15,000 to 30,000 Argentines were killed or disappeared during the period.

Hundreds of other human rights complaints are pending in the courts.

Alfonsin’s policy has been to punish senior military offenders but grant leniency to junior officers who followed orders. Human rights organizations and left-wing political parties opposed his proposal.

Two blocks from the legislative chambers, demonstrators erected a symbolic jail made from wood and cloth. Inside was protester Adriana Laborde, a president of the Former Disappeared-Detainees Assn., which organized the protest. Laborde was abducted by security forces on Feb. 14, 1977, when she was seven months’ pregnant. She gave birth during confinement, and she and her baby girl were freed on April 28, 1977.

Laborde was an influential witness in the human rights trial of nine former military junta members in 1985. Five of the ex-commanders received jail sentences in December, 1985, and on Dec. 2 of this year, five former police officials were also convicted.