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News > Latin America

Argentina: 5 Facts Prove Macri Dismantling Human Rights Gains

  • Abuela de la Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto and President Macri — different views on human rights.

    Abuela de la Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto and President Macri — different views on human rights. | Photo: minutouno.com

Published 16 May 2016
Opinion

Human rights advocates report the government is slowly dismantling all human rights policies.

From the very moment Mauricio Macri became Argentina’s president-elect, human rights policies were expected to be one of the main differences between him and his progressive predecesors, Nestor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez.

Despite having made several attempts to appear as a pro-human rights leader, Macri has not adopted any concrete measures. Quite the opposite, human rights advocates claim the government is slowly dismantling all human rights policies.

Today we reaffirm our commitment to defend democracy and human rights and we say “Never again” to institutional violence.

Macri avoids talking about state terrorism, using the term “institutional violence” instead.

1. Dismantling cooperation with human rights organizations

In a press release issued in early May, Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, probably the most prestigious of Argentina’s human rights organizations, denounced the fact that the government was deactivating the Special Group of Judicial Assistance, which depends on the Security Ministry and helps in the identification of their missing grandchildren.

The decision was reported by the country’s Official Bulletin and despite the fact that the government agreed with the Abuelas to rectify this decision, there is no official information about it yet.

2. Dismissals harm the implementation of human rights policies

The massive layoffs in the public sector carried out by Macri are not only harming employment levels. Both human rights organizations and state workers' unions report that there have been more than 500 dismissals in the Justice and Human Rights Ministry that had started to tackle the implementation of some of its policies.

“In some cities there are public memorials that are operated by two or three workers. When they fire one or two of them, it means the memorial can no longer receive visitors,” Diego de los Santos, a member of the State Workers Association who works in the Human Rights Secretariat told teleSUR.

3. Government officials meet with advocates of state terrorism

Cecilia Pando is one of Argentina’s most famous advocates of state-terrorism. Spouse of a former military leader that was found guilty of human rights violations, Pando usually refers to him as a “political prisoner” and argues that trials for human rights violations commited during the country’s last dictatorship are acts of vengance. On April 25, Justice Minister German Garavano held a private meeting with Pando in which she talked to him about alleged “irregularities” in such trials.

Earlier in January, Human Rights Secretary Claudio Avruj held a meeting with the Center of Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims, an association of state terrorism advocates that seeks to put the human rights violations committed during the last dictatorship on the same level as the actions carried out by urban guerrillas in Argentina during the 1970s, something which Argentine and international law reject.

4. Government tries to turn public memorial into a theme park

As if it were not enough, the meeting was held in the building of the Navy’s School of Mechanics, the most famous former illegal detention center of the last dictatorship. During Nestor Kirchner’s presidency, it was turned into a public memorial dedicated to the victims of the dictatorship, and it is the headquarters of the Space for Memory and Human Rights, a joint public institution formed by the government and human rights organizations.

Human Rights Secretary Claudio Avruj announced the government seeks to build a Civic Center for Human Rights, reducing the political profile of the memorial. “We want to make this a friendlier place, to make it more approachable for the neighbors,” Avruj told the press. “We want all the United Nations’ agencies that have offices in Buenos Aires to settle here," he added.

Human rights activists such as the Abuelas and members of the Former Disappeared Association, which brings together survivors of state terorrism, reject the initiative and say the government seeks to white wash the struggle for memory.

5. Political refugees could be turned over to their countries

In 2010 the Argentina’s National Commission for Refugees gave political asylum to Sergio Galvarino Apablaza Guerra, a former member of the Communist Party of Chile and also of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front guerrilla. Apablaza, also known as Comandante Salvador is wanted by Chilean judiciary for allegedly trying to kill a coworker of Pinochet in 1991. He asked for the status of political refugee, which was granted by the government as part of a tradition in the country based on the significant amount of Argentines that were given the same status in other countries during the last dictatorship.

In January, Vice President Gabriela Michetti told the press that Argentina is considering turning over Apablaza. This was rejected by human rights organization in both countries. The Argentine League for the Rights of Mankind and Chile’s Association of Relatives of Victims of Political Executions, together with five other organizations demanded the Argentine government keep granting Apablaza political refugee status since there is no guarantee of a fair trail in Chile.

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