ARGENTINA: President has restored faith in discredited political class, writes Michael McCaughan
It took one small step on a makeshift ladder for Argentina's Defence Minister to remove two portraits from the entrance hall of the military training college in Buenos Aires this week.
The portraits were of Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, two generals who led a military coup in March 1976, beginning a period of state terror which saw thousands of citizens 'chupados', literally 'sucked' off the streets by death squads into one of 300 concentration camps set up throughout the country.
Inside the Navy School of Mechanics, (ESMA), in the heart of the capital city, 5,000 suspects were 'processed' including dozens of pregnant women who were kept alive, chained to beds, until they gave birth to children who were then given away to families with military connections.
The mothers were then drugged and dragged onto helicopters before being tossed into the sea. At least 200 children of the disappeared have grown up in households where their identity has been carefully disguised.
Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner opened the doors of the ESMA to the public this week, signing a bill which transformed the former death camp into a 'museum of memory' dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights.
ESMA survivors crowded into the army complex in silence, pacing the corridors, identifying the cells where they were held for months, and in some cases, for years.
One of the first people through the gate was Juan Cabandie, who discovered his true identity just two months ago. "I was born here" said Cabandie, staring in shock at the drab cells where his parents were tortured and killed.
Cabandie confirmed his identity through a DNA database managed by the grandmothers of the disappeared, a process which has restored 77 stolen children to their blood relatives.
Many more children of the disappeared are still unaware of their fate or prefer to ignore the clues, while a handful have discovered the truth but stood by their adoptive parents.
A crowd of 40,000 people turned up to witness this remarkable event, unthinkable even five years ago when the armed forces still enjoyed enormous power over state institutions. Since the return of constitutional rule in 1983, dissident military officers have led several barrack revolts against civilian rulers who tried to rein in their power.
"As president of the nation I come here today to ask forgiveness for the shame of a democracy which stayed silent on these atrocities during the past twenty years", said President Kirchner, speaking on the 28th anniversary of the military coup. Kirchner visited the ESMA a week previous and was greeted by an insolent but silent protest which led to the dismissal of the head of the navy training school.
At the navy's anniversary celebration last month navy chief Jorge Godoy delivered a mea culpa which saw an admiral and several high ranking officers walk out in disgust.
Former President Carlos Menem (1989-99) approved an amnesty and pardon law which stifled efforts to bring repressors to justice, with the exception of those suspected of involvement in child theft.
President Kirchner, elected by a meagre 22% of citizens, has restored faith in a discredited political class after an economic tailspin saw the nation declared bankrupt in December 2001 and five presidents occupy the presidential seat in the space of two weeks. Kirchner has faced down the military at home and stood up to the IMF abroad, limiting debt repayments to insure adequate state funds for social programmes.
Argentina's human right's organisations, led by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, have acted as the moral conscience of a nation struggling to come to terms with its past.
The first mothers to denounce the disappearance of their loved ones were themselves disappeared by the security forces, but the women marched relentlessly every Thursday, a ritual which continues.
The archives of repression are still under the control of the army which remains unrepentant at their iron fisted rule, insisting that the country faced mortal danger from 'communist subversion'.