Argentina: 50th Anniversary of 1976 Military Coup

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio talks to Henry Bonsu for Times Radio.

Transcript

Henry Bonsu 0:00

It's indeed now an important anniversary. This week marks 50 years since the final military takeover of Argentina. The junta and dictatorship that followed triggered the Falklands War in 1982 and oversaw the disappearance of as many as 30,000 people in Argentina. Here to talk about uh this anniversary and the impact this dictatorship left on both country and region is Times Latin America writer Jon Bonfiglio. Jon, hello, welcome to the programme. This is a big one, half a century. How are people in Argentina marking the anniversary? Particularly given that the current government is rather fond of some of the characters from that era.

Jon Bonfiglio 0:43

Yeah, it's interesting because actually there's been a sort of um it's been a national process, uh, largely uh speaking. There's not been really any sort of questioning about what took place and the horrors of um the of the junta of the dictatorship until now, until um the Milei regime, which has sort of opened up a deep fissure in in the country. Uh, it's been directly attacked by the Milei government through funding cuts, uh, engaged organizations, direct media attacks from the from the president. Every anniversary he releases a video questioning what took place, denying the scale of the events and even some of the events themselves. It's direct um revisionism. Milei's perspective is that historical memory basically equates to sort of left-wing ideology, which is a threat to his process of um of nation building. So, I mean, it's a big deal because it was a big deal, because it was a huge event in Argentina, but it's even more marked now given the political context in the country.

Henry Bonsu 1:41

Right. Now, here in Europe, of course, when people engage in Holocaust denial, it it creates a really furious reaction, particularly in countries like Germany and Austria, because the data is there, the videos, the history, the living testimony is there. You know, these things really happened. Millions of people, six million Jews and other people died, were murdered by the Nazis. 30,000 people in Argentina were disappeared. How robust is the data? How clear is the memory?

Jon Bonfiglio 2:11

Um, it is robust. I mean, there's still hundreds of stolen children um at the moment, still unaccounted for. There's remains of victims still being identified. And actually, it's part of um of the sort of the strength of Argentina's memorializing that it is still very tangible and felt. 70% of people um are engaged with the sort of the truth and reconciliation equivalent, which in Argentina is known as memory, truth, uh, and justice. It's nationally accepted. Um, there's no questioning around that, but now it's um again, this is the first time since that period that um that there is a public questioning. In a way, what Millet has done is behind closed doors, I guess, there was always this sort of scratching at the surface of the thing by certain individuals, but he's now made that public, brought it out into the open and made it okay to speak about.

Henry Bonsu 3:06

How much resistance is this revisionism encountering? I know that the UN uh human rights group warned only last week that Argentina was experiencing, quote, alarming setbacks in its historic fight for memory, truth, and justice, and which was held as an exemplar, not just for Latin America, but worldwide. Um, how much resistance is there though to this revisionism?

Jon Bonfiglio 3:30

I think you're you're you're absolutely right. And it's important to say that Argentina's sort of established processes were regarded as being landmark standards um internationally. Um, in terms of the pushback, I think there's still lots of again memorializing or um uh or sort of touchstones that that make very uh visible and tangible what what took place. Amongst the most visible of these is the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who in 1977 remarkably began walking this square, challenging the regime, demanding information about their disappeared uh children. These women, those that are left, are in their 90s now, and some of them still meet on Thursday afternoons in the same square in an act of memory and resistance. So it's it's not one-way traffic, that's that's for certain. Uh, but they're they're old wounds that have been um that have been unscabbed in the with this particular administration.

Henry Bonsu 4:23

And what do you think the impact of that series of coups, and the final one, of course, launched 50 years ago, had not just on Argentina, but but on the region, on Latin America?

Jon Bonfiglio 4:35

Yeah, you're you're absolutely right. I mean, partly in Argentina, in the sort of 50-odd years between the 1930s and the 80s, there were seven different coup attempts in um six successful in in Argentina, and regionally, I mean, Chile under Pinochet, Brazil, uh uh, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic. I mean, I'm I can I can go on. The threat and fear of military takeovers and autocracy in the region is firmly ingrained in the Latin American psyche.

Henry Bonsu 5:02

This is it. And um, when it comes to the people who I mean, this is we're talking 50 years ago. Some of them, but the perpetrators are suspects, are still alive. Um are people still being tried for things they did 50 years ago?

Jon Bonfiglio 5:15

Yes, there are trials still ongoing. There are more than a thousand uh convictions, around 1,200 convictions, many individuals under house arrest. And this process is is far from over. It's a very live process currently.

Henry Bonsu 5:30

All right. Jon Bonfiglio, Latin American writer for the Times. Thank you very much indeed.