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I am a student at Syracuse University and my class is connected to Transnational NGO Initiative.

STAND.

References

The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons

History of the Disappearances

Military intervention in the political sphere was common in Argentina since the 1930s. Torture and violence were used as mechanisms to control political conflicts or to deter the actions of opposition. But, the implementation of forced disappearances began to be prevalent following the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, displaying a determination to eliminate opposition with a more hidden method.

The dictators denied any involvement in the disappearances and used “Centros Clandestines de Detención” (Clandestine Detention Centers) to place the “disappeared”. They were similar to the prisons of Argentina in regards to condition and structure but the detention centers could deny if a captive was being retained there. This gave the captors more freedom for torture or to kill the captives. These hidden methods kept the Argentine government from being susceptible to international scrutiny and allowed the murder and torture of anyone without someone having to be held accountable to explain for the actions.

Relatives of the “disappeared” for many years following the abductions demanded solely for truth about the fate of the “disappeared”. Over 5,000 reports were filed from Argentina to the La Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos (Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, APDH) and thousands of complaints were submitted to the Organization of American States, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN Human Rights Division, Amnesty International and organizations with various religious affiliations. These reports promoted visits from both Amnesty International and IACHR, but the dictatorship succeeded in denying the charges until the Falklands War in June of 1982 and Argentina’s defeat.

Following this defeat, widespread coverage of the charges against the Argentine dictatorship spread through the press causing civil society organizations to demand that the parties responsible for the disappearances be brought forth and charged. A popular slogan used by these organizations was “juicio y castigo a los culpable” (trial and punishment for the perpetrators).

In April 1983, the dictatorship published the “Final Document of the Military Junta on the War against Subversion” in which the military argues that the acts that they committed were under the orders of the current president, Isabel Perón, in which he ordered to “annihilate subversion”. In September 1983, the regime then passed the “National Pacification Act” that granted impunity to the state by saying that all the action that was a result of the “antisubversive war” was then “extinguished”. This act prompted human rights organizations to demand that a commission would be formed by the government with the task of investigating state “terrorism”. The demands also included that the commission would include members from the House and the Congress and be advised by the human rights community.

Creation of CONADEP

CONADEP was created by Raúl Alfonsín who was the candidate for the Unión Cívica Radical (Radical Civic Union) party and took office on December 10, 1983. He emphasized that to prosecute the guilty parties responsible for the disappearances that three categories of people would have to be distinguished: those who planned and issued the orders, those who acted beyond the orders and those who carried out the orders strictly to the letter.

Alfonsín proposed to take away the “self-amnesty” law that had been implemented by the military regime and ordered for the prosecution of seven guerilla leaders and the first three military juntas of the dictatorship. But, Alfonsín wanted to hold the trials in military court, with the possibility of an appeal in a civilian court. Human rights groups disagreed with this and though that the military courts would refuse to impose any legal sanctions on the prosecuted and believed that the only way to see justice was to have a “bicameral commission”. This way, the commission could manage an inquiry and then deliver a sentence. Alfonsín denied the idea of a “bicameral commission” because of concern that legislators would compete among themselves to give the harshest punishments.

Ernesto Sábato, Eduardo Rabossi, Gregorio Klimovsky, Hilario Fernández Long, Marshall Meyer, Ricardo Colombres, Monsignor Jaime de Nevares, Magdalena Ruiz Guiñazú, René Favaloro, and Carlos Gattinoni were all invited to join the Commission. CONADEP was created on December 15, 1983 by a presidential decree and was to report to both the executive branch and the legislators from both chambers. It was allotted 6 months time to collect reports about the disappearances, look to see if they could discover what happened to the “disappeared”, find abducted children, find evidence of attempts to conceal crimes and destroy evidence, after which they would refer this information to the court and issue a final report.

Although the decree was passed, only three Radical Party Congressmen and only one human rights group, APDH, participated in CONADEP because human rights groups did not think that CONADEP would be successful. They felt that only a bicameral commission had the power of coercion necessary to subpoena the military and political offenders.

The "Nunca Más" Report

The Nunca Mas Report, meaning "never again", was the main report created by the CONADEP. Within its 50,000 pages of depositions from the survivors of the disappearances, there contains detailed accounts of the treatment by the Argentine armed forces towards the captives, or the "disappeared", of the Dirty War. The report contains detailed descriptions of how the people were tortured or killed.

The report was successful in identifying 300 secret detention centers throughout Argentina used during the "Dirty War" and administered by the military. It also gave evidence that the inquiries made by the CONADEP helped to find many of the mass burial sites around Argentina that were used to bury the "disappeared". The report contained an analysis of the social and class backgrounds of the "disappeared", giving statistics about the people that were kidnapped. For example, the report concluded that about 30% of the "disappeared" were women and that no less than 200 children under 15 were kidnapped.

Achievements

In February 1984, CONADEP found a mass grave in San Vincent Cemetery in Córdoba, Argentina, that at the time of discovery, was the largest mass grave discovered in Argentina since human rights organizations began to oppose the secret burial of victims during the military repression in Argentina during 1982. The Commission procured a copy of the city morgue ledger that listed around 700 people whose bodies passed through the morgue during the years following the military coup in 1976. The ledger contained descriptions of the conditions of the body. Ernesto Sabato, the president of CONADEP, was quoted as having said that “the tortures and torments and bullets holes form the firing squad” were all described in the ledger.