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 Editorials | October 2007 
The End of Impunity
 Ben Whitford - Guardian Unlimited
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 |  | As Latin America seeks to exorcise the ghosts of its authoritarian past, why isn't Washington doing more to help? |  | |
Behind a metal gate on a leafy Buenos Aires boulevard stands a cluster of shabby buildings: the Naval Mechanics School. During Argentina's long years of military dictatorship, around 5,000 people were imprisoned and tortured here; fewer than 200 survived to tell the tale.
Until recently, the naval school - described by one official as "Argentina's Auschwitz" - was still in use as a military training centre; now, at last, the school has been closed and its buildings converted into a memorial to the victims of the country's "dirty war". Meanwhile, Argentine courts are beginning long-overdue hearings into the atrocities carried out at the site; a former officer went on trial last week, and many more prosecutions are expected.
Argentina's attempts to confront its bloody past reflect a broader trend, as courts across Latin America seek to hold accountable those responsible for the excesses of the continent's authoritarian regimes. Suriname's former strongman, "Desi" Bouterse, will shortly stand trial for allegedly ordering the notorious "December Murders", in which 13 dissidents were marched into the jungle and machine-gunned to death. Peruvian courts have scrapped amnesty laws passed by Alberto Fujimori, paving the way for the former president's trial next month. In Chile, too, laws that once protected Augusto Pinochet have been rescinded; the move comes too late to try the tyrant himself, but his family and inner circle now face corruption charges.
Brazil's attorney general ruled recently that the country's amnesty laws don't rule out criminal investigations; Haiti hopes to bring charges against kleptocratic ex-dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Even Vicente Fox, the former Mexican president, is under investigation after a poorly judged photo op at his luxurious ranch prompted fresh scrutiny of his personal finances.
But amid the continental carnival of recrimination, one key figure is refusing to play along. As the region faces up to its past and seeks to bring former leaders and their lackeys to justice, the United States has refused either to consider its own transgressions or to help the healing process.
Forget, for now, the fact that many of the region's strongmen rose to power with American support. Never mind that tens of thousands of the troops who carried out their brutal orders were trained at US military academies; or that some of the regimes' most horrific crimes grew out of CIA-backed efforts to crush the Latin American left. After all, nobody realistically expects American officials to face up to their complicity in the misdeeds of Latin America's military governments.
But the fact remains that as Latin America finally segued from dictatorship to democracy, it was the US that insisted new administrations put economic stability ahead of justice and accountability. Latin America's outgoing strongmen often had US officials on hand to stage-manage their departure; in many cases, it was the US that secured their assets, brokered their amnesty deals, and even paid the rent on the beach villas where they began life in exile.
Such policies were ostensibly intended to smooth Latin America's transition to democracy; but stability came at a price. By encouraging new administrations to gloss over their predecessors' actions, Washington weakened the rule of law and prevented judiciaries from demonstrating their ability to prosecute and punish the crimes of the past. Ultimately, the US helped enshrine a culture of impunity that has taken decades to overcome.
Worryingly, there's little sign that the US has learned its lesson. In recent weeks, it has ignored Panama's demands for the extradition of Manuel Noriega, and will instead send the former dictator to Paris, where he'll be held in relative luxury as a prisoner of war. Similarly, Bush has snubbed Bolivia's requests for the return of former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, currently living in exile in the Washington, DC suburbs, to face charges in connection with a massacre that left 67 civilians dead; human rights lawyers have now resorted to using ancient piracy laws in a bid to have "Goni" tried in the US.
Meanwhile, little has been done to force Colombia - the recipient of massive amounts of US military aid - to confront its human rights record; US officials are instead spearheading a disingenuous public relations blitz, seeking to convince Congress to overlook the country's problems and rubberstamp a new free-trade deal. Similar mistakes are being made in Mexico, where the White House looks set to plough the lion's share of a billion-dollar anti-drug deal into military aid, even as Mexican troops are accused of increasingly brazen human rights abuses.
Just as US imperial ambitions contributed to the rise of the region's dictators, so now Washington is standing aloof from the healing process. There's a lesson here for Latin America's leaders as they seek to exorcize the lingering ghosts of authoritarianism: some of the problems may have been imported, but the solutions will have to be homegrown. |
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