Thursday, July 08, 2010

Videla's argument

Página 12 (in Spanish) has a lengthy discussion of the latest declarations by former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, as well as a succinct history of his case.  His argument is identical to that put forth by Augusto Pinochet and his supporters in Chile.  Marxist terrorists controlled by foreigners needed to be exterminated, and now these same Marxists were orchestrating the trials of patriotic members of the military.  Life is therefore unfair.

The nice difference is that Videla has spent 12 years in prison, whereas Pinochet spent none.

12 comments:

Anonymous,  12:55 PM  

A portion of the Videla statement is true and should be considered as part of the historical record. Various guerrilla groups were conceived, supported, trained and directed from Havana, Cuba. Likewise revolutionary groups sought support from the FARC, PLO and Libya. There is no question that the revolutionaries of Argentina in the 1960s and 70s were partly a result of the international Cold War and aligned with the USSR.

It is also true the Videla fought the revolutionary groups as an army officer during military governments and democratic governments. (Although he misleadingly claims the mantle of the latter.) The revolutionaries did not stop their actions against the Argentine state due to elections, pardons, rule of law and/or other bourgeois niceties. Indeed historians trace the beginnings of the Dirty War to the AAA under the elected government of Isabel Peron in 1975.

Between 1973-1976, over 6,000 acts of terrorism (kidnapping, bombing, attacks on the army and civilians) were carried out by the lefitist revolutionaries.

While there can be no justification for a government behaving as the Argentine junta did between 1976-83, it is clear that there is also substantial culpability on the left. It is not morally equivalent. The leftist revolutionaries were later pardoned and some are now in leading positions of the Argentine establishment or living free from fear of trial.

leftside 5:02 PM  

Violent revolutionaries should have been tried for their alleged crimes Anon, not totured and killed.

Anonymous,  5:50 PM  

I agree. The actions of the leftist revolutionaries does not justify the Dirty War.

Boli-Nica 7:50 PM  

There is no justification for throwing college students with slit bellies out the back door of a C-130 into the South Atlantic.

However horrid the terrorists were - and Castro does bear some blame for supporting the Montoneros and egging on the hard left in general - mass murder is just plain wrong.

And as far as extremist ideologies go, the Argentinian military had its own version of State-security doctrine. A brew of Third Reich veneration, Falangist Catholicism, French counterinsurgency doctrines and US Military Psy-Ops.

With that kind of extremism on the military side, its easy to see how this happened.

Justin Delacour 7:24 AM  

I think it's important to point out that "counter-insurgency" also tends to serve as a convenient foil for right-wing governments that are intent on destroying social movements more generally. The Argentine junta's reason for existence wasn't just to destroy the Montoneros but also to deal severe blows to organized labor.
In other words, the dirty war was by no means only about fighting an armed insurgency, and it's not correct for Videla to portray it as such.

Anonymous,  7:35 AM  

True, but the innocent victims were many in Argentina--leftists, students, Jews, labor etc... One element somewhat different about Argentina (vis-a-vis Latin America as a whole) was that labor was better established under Peron. It was loyal too. The leading labor organizations sided with the Perons when they went after the montoneros (revolutionary Peronists) and initiated the Dirty War. Much of the labor movement was already middle class and wanted order much like white collar society. Later, they came to regret it.

Boli-Nica 1:24 PM  

The issue of destroying labor unions is much more complicated than that.

If it was Peronist labor Unions - the military as a whole wanted to stamp them out completely - but it is arguable that they were doing this more as a way of destroying Peronism in general.

Where labor as a whole was a seen as a threat in the military's view was as a key contributors to the inflation, economic paralysis, and political chaos. In other words,labor in that view, was a destabilizing force affecting the "peace and security" of the country. The military would probably be content with a corporatist arrangement with docile labor unions, as long as they had nothing to do with Peron. Despite the "free market" rhetoric of Videla and co. and some official state policies, the military did little or nothing to keep the large state employment and patronage arrangements in place.

Justin Delacour 2:12 PM  

The issue of destroying labor unions is much more complicated than that.

There's nothing particularly complicated about the agendas of right-wing military juntas. Their agendas are always to either destroy or severely restrict any form of independent social mobilization among subaltern sectors of society. There's nothing particularly complicated about that.

Explaining how and why the Southern Cone went the direction it did is complicated, but the agendas of the military juntas themselves were pretty simple and straight-forward.

Anonymous,  10:59 AM  

My point was twofold; 1) The Dirty War starts under a democratic system with the AAA and, 2) The Peronist unions initially sided with Juan and Isabel Peron's repression of revolutionary Peronists.

The Dirty War, after the coup in 1976, I agree has many of the characteristics that Boli-NIca and Justin point out. It was plainly anti-Peronist and anti-union (among many other characteristics).

I would add though that there is greater complexity in Argentina's history when one considers the extent in which social reforms, including the recognition of unions, resulted from governments led by Juan Peron (1943-55). The same "official" labor support was present during this period 1973-1976 when the Peronists came back to power.

Justin Delacour 5:55 AM  

I would add though that there is greater complexity in Argentina's history when one considers the extent in which social reforms, including the recognition of unions, resulted from governments led by Juan Peron (1943-55). The same "official" labor support was present during this period 1973-1976 when the Peronists came back to power.

Peronism is indeed one of the most unique and complicated political phenomena the Western world has ever known. Peronism does not fit into any standard political typology.

Boli-Nica 6:36 PM  

My point was twofold; 1) The Dirty War starts under a democratic system with the AAA and, 2) The Peronist unions initially sided with Juan and Isabel Peron's repression of revolutionary Peronists.

There were substantial differences between leadership of the Peronist Unions, well before the start of the dirty war.

Some of them supported the mid-60's military coup and/or collaborated with the military government.

O'Donnell in particular wrote about how divided Argentinian society was in the 1960's. An environment of inter and cross-sectoral conflicts leading to paralysis and inflation. And like the Unions show, the divisions cut across the same sectors - with the military not being immune to it either. And a large percentage of voters were angry with politicians of all stripes, as well as the business classes and unions.

It was in this atmosphere where many in Argentinian looked to the military to act as an arbitrer. And the military began seeing itself as the "saviors" of Argentinian society.

Justin Delacour 7:57 PM  

O'Donnell in particular wrote about how divided Argentinian society was in the 1960's.

Yes, but O'Donnell reserved his most critical postures for precisely the social forces that you are most inclined to support, Boli-Nica. O'Donnell saw middle-class technocrats as the primary social force behind the dirty war. What most disturbed O'Donnell was the rising tendency among middle-class sectors to view democracy and popular movements as obstacles to development.

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