New rules for dictatorship crimes in South America

[ocpagu]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A generation after dictatorships gave way to democracy in South America, Brazil and Uruguay are catching up to their neighbors in digging into long-buried crimes against humanity. A "truth and reconciliation" commission to investigate four decades of human rights abuses passed Brazil's Congress unanimously this week. On Thursday, Uruguay's Congress revoked a military amnesty and classified dictatorship-era kidnappings, torture and killings as crimes against humanity. President Jose Mujica ordered it published into law on Friday.

"It indicates an enormous leap forward, away from the fear," Argentine-Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman said by telephone from London, where a revival is being staged of "Death and the Maiden," his play about the failures of Latin American justice. "The past has been haunting Argentina, and Chile and Brazil and Uruguay for many years now, and unless you bury it well, it turns into a ghost, and you can't kill a ghost."

Brazil's vote late Wednesday night represented a compromise between military leaders and human rights advocates after years of argument. Uruguay's lawmakers did the opposite hours later, breaking a deal made a quarter-century ago to protect both the right and the left as democracy was restored.
Rights advocates in both countries hope their governments will now reveal more about what really happened, just as in Argentina and Chile, where hundreds of dictatorship-era officials have been convicted of "dirty war" crimes.

The latest such convictions came Wednesday in Argentina, where a one-time navy secret agent known as the "Angel of Death" and 11 other former officials were sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, torture and murders of detainees at the notorious Navy Mechanics School, where 5,000 people were held and only half survived.

Military dictatorships allied with the United States ruled much of South America in the 1970s. They combined forces in Operation Condor, a coordinated effort to crush the threat of armed revolution.
As each nation returned to democracy in the 1980s, still-powerful militaries forced them to make uncomfortable compromises such as amnesties or rulings by pro-junta judges that delayed or denied prosecutions, or "truth" commissions whose ground rules left many unsatisfied.

Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/rules-dictatorship-crimes-south-america-083600460.html

[ocpagu]

1. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo...

...celebrating after the trial against former military and police officials in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011. The Angel of Death was sentenced for life.

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/SnmWIuQtrGcHGmSTUm9cxw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD00NDY7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/l6Cjk3b17lPQGsljHbww8Q--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD00MjA7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/

And congratulations to Argentina for the reelection of Cristina Kirchner! I'm so proud of South America!

[Peace Patriot]

2. I hope it happens here some day...

...but we have quite a lot of democracy work to do before it will--beginning, in my opinion, with ridding ourselves of the corporate-controlled 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, which were installed all over the U.S. during the 2002 to 2004 period (and now have a full lock on U.S. voting results). That coup was specifically inflicted upon us to continue the Forever War, keep the war profiteers in filthy lucre and expand U.S. war crimes for corporate gain, to many additional countries. It was bad enough to be told that "we need to look forward not backward" on the crimes of the rich and powerful and that "impeachment is off the table." It's yet worse to realize the continuity of crime among our political leadership. Lately, President Obama didn't even bother to consult a warmonger Congress about drone-bombing Libyans; didn't even bother to lie about it. War by presidential fiat is now the norm, without the slightest nod to the Constitution. Though the Bush Junta was far bloodier, the precedents that Obama is setting are very ominous.

And will ANY of the death and destruction that the U.S. has rained down on other people--numerous assassinations without benefit of trial, wholesale bombing and slaughter, torture and other horrors--ever be dealt with in a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission," even a weak one, or a court of law, here or anywhere?

I'm just shaking my head, that possibility is so remote at present. We have lost our power as a People--even to the very counting of our votes, the most basic mechanism of democracy. And with no "people power," we have no law.

It is truly a joy to see democracy working somewhere else--on this matter, and so many others. We need to pay attention to how this is being accomplished in Latin America. There are lessons for us. One of them is that we must never give up--as the Latin Americans are proving every day. After decades and centuries of oppression--lately by our own Corporate Rulers, fascists and militarists--they are achieving what we can only dream of, at this point: government of, by and for the people; government with a memory; government that truly serves all.