Never Again

 "Argentina 1985”film directed by Santiago Mitre, 2022

This is a rare look at the aftermath of the long string of Argentine dictatorships, especially the bloody anti-communist juntas of 1976 to 1983 that took power after a coup. It is the trial of 9 members of the high Argentinian military by the new civilian government of President Raul Alfonsin. It involves two courageous civil prosecutors who manage to successfully indict and convict 5 of the 9, including 2 for life sentences, Generals Videla and Massera. (Black-haired Videla wears a big Hitler mustache throughout the film.)

"The Defense has asked for you to remove your scarves."

The prosecution faced many obstacles – the threat of assassination; a very short time period of 5 months in which to build the case; the reluctance of almost every seasoned lawyer to help; pressure from the government itself; and most of all pressure from the military, which was threatening a coup if their members were found guilty. It was also reluctantly led by a non-political head prosecutor, Julio Strassera, who did not want the job. Due to the lack of experienced help except from two friends, he is forced to use a new deputy prosecutor and a bunch of young law employees from the Department of Justice.

The energetic 'kids' come through. The deputy, Luis Ocampo, is excellent. They dig up 709 testimonies of those kidnapped, tortured, jailed, beaten, abused and relatives of the missing. (Though in an interview, Ocampo said they had 2,000 testimonies.) This was done with help from the famous Madres de Plaza de Mayo. A key testimony at trial was that of an innocent young woman kept almost naked, hand-cuffed behind her back, forced to give birth in the back of a car without help, watched by laughing soldiers. The baby slipped onto the floor-boards after being born. The 1985 trial ends with a magnificent speech by Strassera that leads to a standing ovation in the courtroom, ending in the very familiar phrase “never again.”

ISSUES

The legal tactic was to show that every region of the country was affected by the tens of thousands of arrests, disappearances and deaths, with detention centers run by every military branch, including the worst, the Navy. This might have been because many bodies were dumped at sea. It was clear to the civilian judges who heard the case that this could not have happened without the highest level of coordination from the top. The defense had argued that the crimes were only the acts of rouge subordinates.

The second main thrust was to show that the defenses' ideas that they were fighting a 'war' (called 'the dirty war') against leftist urban guerrillas – the Monteneros, socialists and left-wing Peronists – was a lie. The film ignores the politics of the guerrillas, making them invisible, though they are the hidden protagonists here.

Even in a war, rules are supposed to be followed. In Argentina, there were none but the fascist one – do anything you want. Wars are not supposed to involve lack of due process, arbitrary arrest, torture, attacks on civilians, arbitrary executions, kidnappings, rapes and rampant brutality against innocents. This one did, and it was done within a society, not by some foreign enemy. After the verdict, lower level military figures – 1,000+ - were also indicted and put on trial. In a way, this trial channeled Nuremberg - though many lower-level Nazis remained in Germany, were exported to the U.S. or escaped to countries like … Argentina.

Under Detention

THE HISTORY & OMISSIONS

Between 9 and 30 thousand were disappeared or were executed. The whole left was actually the target – trade unionists, journalists, Peronist and socialist activists, leftist students, relatives, children, militants of any kind. This is also unmentioned in the film, which attempts to focus only on process. No mention is made of the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance either, a right-wing death squad that assisted the military and was led by a government minister.

This trial was an exception, as most capitalist dictatorships face, at best, 'truth and reconciliation' but not punishment. This trial was a poster-child for the success of the state's court system – one of those rare exceptions where the upper-class guilty, the political criminals, the military murderers, actually paid, and the civil apparatus of President and judges actually carried through. It is a notable exception to the general rule of the double/triple class system of justice, as is apparent in the U.S. and many other countries. This is probably the political reason why the film won a Golden Globe for best foreign picture.

Ocampo, who is still alive, went on to become the first prosecutor for the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2012. However, neither the U.S. and now Russia recognize its jurisdiction, which figures.

The most glaring omission here is the role of the U.S. government. Through war criminal Henry Kissinger, it backed the juntas unconditionally in Operation Condor, as Argentina was just another front in the 'Cold' War in Latin and Central America. Evidently Jimmy Carter later condemned the junta, though I'd call this an example of democracy-washing ... similar to the occasional U.S. memos about opposing new Israeli settlements on the West Bank while never taking real action to prevent them. Examples of this kind of empty U.S. 'democracy' talk could be multiplied.

A low-key, personal and human film that nevertheless deals with momentous events. It reveals a history young Argentinians might not know and reminds the rest of the world of one way to handle fascist and military thugs. Perhaps this film will lead to Bolsonaro being thrown out of Orlando, as he no longer has diplomatic immunity. He could be sent back to Brazil to face justice for his role in the Jan. 8 invasion of government buildings in Brasilia, among other things. Or a bit of insight into the recent U.S. backed coup and blooshed in Peru.  But don't bet on it!

Prior reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “Revolutionary Rehearsals in the NeoLiberal Age,” “The Shock Doctrine” (Klein); “Open Veins of Latin America” (Galeano); “Washington Bullets” (Prashad); “The Long Revolution of the Global South” (Amin); “The Diary of Che Guevara,” “The Secret History of the American Empire” and “Economic Hit Men” (both by Perkins); “With Liberty and Justice For Some” (Greenwald); “The Divide” (Taibbi).

The Kultur Kommissar

January 16, 2023

Happy MLK Day!