Genocide in Argentina and in Chile
The military attacks on the people of Chile began in September 1973, and the disappeared would become thousands of citizens who were murdered or kidnapped during the 16 year reign of the Pinochet ideology ending with president Aylwin. From 1973 to 1983, thousands of people would disappear overnight never to be seen again into the 500 concentration camps where they would be tortured and murdered in Argentina. The people of Argentina crimes were to speak out against the inhumane conditions around them. The tormenters would eventually be brought to justice in Argentina, but Chile, Salvador, Nicaragua would never bring their perpetrators to justice.
Out of these atrocities against humanity the Rettig commission was born, and they had testimony, court documents, and all other past dealings. They left it up the courts to decide the fate of the tormenters of Chile after they had found out the truth. According to Fraser and Weissbrodt (2006), “The Rettig Commisions might have also taken a stronger stance on the 1978 Amnesty Law, which constitutes a major obstacle to prosecution and even investigations of a large number of cases”. The Rettig Commission did not get any support from the military spokespersons so the real truth was lost. Many of the people who testified were granted immunity and fines in case of crimes against humanity. In the future, commissions who will able to prosecute the people who carried out the heinous act against the people are needed, so the perpetrators will not be led off with a slap on the wrist.
Some of the positive things to come from the Rettig Commission is the truth was brought to the open for many, and it gave the victim’s families the dignity if knowing what happened...
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...uld protect the victims’ rights. They held the military trails to punish the murderers and to restore democracy. The new government would be built on human rights and on the idea of “Nunca Mas” which means never again. The same words uttered about the Holocaust in Germany.
Finally, the only crime the people Argentina committed was to talk about injustices and for this they were kidnapped and murdered, The people of Chile lived for 16 years under the sadistic rule of Pinochet and he was never brought to justice. These murders should be brought to justice and go before a court of law of their peers.
References
Fraser, P. W. & Weissbrodt, D. (1992). Book Review. Human Rights Quarterly. 14, 601.
Jelin, E. (1994). The politics of memory: The human rights movements and the construction of democracy in Argentina. Latin American Perspectives, 21(2), 38-58.
In Mañana Es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s Argentina, Mariano Ben Plotkin - an emeritus professor and doctor in history and writer of Peronist Argentinean history at the university of California, Berkeley, addresses one of the first populist movement in the region of South America: el peronismo. After offering an important contextualizing “Introduction,” Plotkin organized his book into four main parts composing the book, each containing two chapters, resulting in a total of eight. Consequently, the author also offers, after the main four parts, Notes, a selected bibliography, and an index. The author concludes this book with an interesting and polemic conclusion where he discusses if Peronism was totalitarian. Plotkin, in Manana es San Perón, attempts to give a historical account about Perón’s Argentina through a cultural perspective.
Miguel Melendez’s book, “We Took the Streets” provides the reader with an insightful account into the activities of the Young Lords movement established in the latter years of the 1960s and remained active up until the early seventies. The book’s, which is essentially Melendez’s memoir, a recollection of the events, activities, and achievements of the Young Lords. The author effectively presents to the reader a fascinating account of the formation of the Young Lords which was a group of college students from Puerto Rico who came together in a bid to fight for some of the basic rights. As Melendez sums it up, “You either claim your history or lose authority over your future” (Melendez 23). The quote is in itself indicative of the book’s overall
The Allies’ victory in WWII marked democracy’s triumph over dictatorship, and the consequences shook Latin America. Questioning why they should support the struggle for democracy in Europe and yet suffer the constraints of dictatorship at home, many Latin Americans rallied to democratize their own political structures. A group of prominent middle–class Brazilians opposed to the continuation of the Vargas dictatorship mused publicly, “If we fight against fascism at the side of the United Nations so that liberty and democracy may be restored to all people, certainly we are not asking too much in demanding for ourselves such rights and guarantees.” The times favored the democratic concepts professed by the middle class. A wave of freedom of speech, press, and assembly engulfed much of Latin America and bathed the middle class with satisfaction. New political parties emerged to represent broader segments of the population. Democracy, always a fragile plant anywhere, seemed ready to blossom throughout Latin America. Nowhere was this change more amply illustrated than in Guatemala, where Jorge Ubico ruled as dictator from 1931 until 1944. Ubico, a former minister of war, carried out unprecedented centralization of the state and repression of his opponents. Although he technically ended debt peonage, the 1934 vagrancy law required the carrying of identification cards and improved ...
Due to the nature of military dictatorship, in 1960, social discontent began to give way to left wing militants made up of the Mayan indigenous people and rural peasantry. This is the match that lit Guatemala’s Civil War, street battles between the two groups tore the country and pressured the autocratic ruler General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes to fight harder against the civilian insurrection. Similar to the government abductions that took place in Argentina, the military regime began to do the same.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Peeler, John A. Latin American Democracies. Chapel Hill, NC and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print.
The date September 11th is not only a date of terror for the United States, but for the country Chile it also marks the anniversary of a new error of fear. On September 11th, 1973 General Augusto Pinochet overthrew President Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist. For seventeen years after this Pinochet dictated over Chile and caused for the murder of over three thousand Chileans, the disappearance of over a thousand, and the torture and jailing of tens of thousands more. What might be even more shocking though, is that the United States had a direct contribution to this brutal dictators rise. The United States’ fear of communist nations developing and the ignorance of secretary of state Kissinger to mention the human rights abuses that Pinochet was responsible for, allowed for the United States to assist in the brutal tyranny (Kornbluh 2003, pages 19-22).
The biggest war the world has ever seen was World War II. What was one factor that led to such a quick escalation? Genocide. Over 45 million people were murdered during this tragic time. The question is: was it the allies responsibility to intervene? The answer: No. The Global Community has no responsibility to intervene in states committing genocide.
The current century has witnessed immense improvement and re-conceptualization of standards and sovereignty of human rights in Latin America. With the endemic repression and violations of human rights throughout Latin American in the mid to late 20th century, the International human rights regime, an amalgam of international and intergovernmental organizations and bodies, expanded exponentially. By conducting investigations within certain countries, or simply monitoring overt violations of human rights, the international human rights regime stimulated global awareness of violations of human rights in different countries; soon to follow was change in domestic policy in response to international policy. This also led to increased opposition by domestic NGOs against repressive governments or dictatorships largely responsible for human rights violations. Just as well, a number of organizations and groups aided domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in their growing efforts to establish judicial practices that better protected human rights. Declarations, conventions, and charters, established a number of values that served as the credo for the organizations that constituted the international human rights regime. Over time, more and more countries were pressured and held accountable for these values, which developed into universal standards for human rights practices. Thus the International Human right regime and the pressure they imposed upon governments ultimately resulted in widespread positive changes in human rights.
Brysk, Alison. "The Politics of Measurement: The Contested Count of the Disappearedin Argentina." Human Rights Quarterly 16.4 (1994): 676-692. JSTOR. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
All throughout the 20th century we can observe the marked presence of totalitarian regimes and governments in Latin America. Countries like Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic all suffered under the merciless rule of dictators and military leaders. Yet the latter country, the Dominican Republic, experienced a unique variation of these popular dictatorships, one that in the eyes of the world of those times was great, but in the eyes of the Dominicans, was nothing short of deadly.
As the Latin American nations set out to construct a new government and society in the 1800´s, two opposing models aroused regarding which one would best benefit the countries. ¨Civilization vs. Barbarism¨ by Domingo Sarmiento, a recognized Argentinean revolutionary, contrasts Jose Marti´s ¨Our America¨ ideology which critiques U.S. capitalism and focuses on developing a good government based on the needs of the nations and each nation´s autochthony. Contrastingly, Sarmiento, guided by his beliefs in democratic principles, declares his preference towards the European urbanized way of life as the key to progress and stability for the nations. Despite the differences in the models proposed by Marti and Sarmiento for the New Nations to follow,
By the fall of 1981, the Argentinean government under the leadership of General Galtieri and the military junta was experiencing a significant decrease of power. Economical...
Protests calling for educational reform often end in clashes between demonstrators and police. The problem is, these public protests are not regulated by law, but rather by a 1983 decree given during the Pinochet dictatorship. This decree gave local law enforcement the ability to use force to disperse these protests, as well as permission for government officials to break up these protests. The police often uses teargas and water cannons to break up these marches. These methods, although generally safe, can still result in severe injuries. Law enforcement also use paintball rifles to mark these protesters, which at one student protest, caused one student the loss of his eyesight. One other frightening thought about this abuse is that the government has yet to present legislation that ensures the Carabineros, the Chilean national police, accused of human rights violations to be tried by civilian courts. Many are instead brought to military courts, which results in limited opportunities to cross-examine witnesses and lack the independence of ordinary criminal investigations. If this issue is not resolved, Chilean citizens could potentially attempt to overthrow the government, much like how citizens of the United States overthrew Great Britain to create their own government. If they succeed, Chileans would most likely reform the military and constitution of Chile, which could result in the eventual deterioration of the safety of
Much G. L., 2004, Democratic Politics in Latin America: New Debates and Research Frontiers, Annual Reviews
Third world countries became the perfect battleground for cold war proxy battles during the early 1940’s to late 1990’s. United States wanted to flex its political muscle and try to curtail the spread of Soviet Communism in the developing nations. Most of the nations in developed world had already made their political and socio-economic stand regarding the form of governance and leadership pursued. Underdeveloped nations in Asia, Latin America and Africa were still vulnerable and easily influenced in terms of ideologies and political direction. Most nations in Latin America like Chile were recovering from colonialism and thus logistic, economic and political aid from powerful nations to propel their economies which made it easy for Americans and Russians to act as their “saviors’”. The quest for global dominance had intensified between United States and USSR and the shift was focused to developing nations like Chile. Both Americans and Russians used different mechanisms to enhance their propaganda and support the regimes which were friendly to them and used any means necessary to topple hostile regimes. CIA used covert operations in Chile and most of the Latin nations to plant their puppet leaders in order to safeguard their foreign policy interests and maintain dominance. Military coups and social unrests were planned, orchestrated and executed with the assistance of CIA. The research paper tries to critical analyze the impact of the cold war on Chile and influence of United States.