Javier Milei wants to blow up the consensus on the crimes of the Argentine dictatorship built in the last 40 years of democracy.
The president and his vice president, Victoria Villarruel, arrived at the Casa Rosada denying the existence of a systematic extermination plan between 1976 and 1983 and this Sunday, when 48 years of the military coup are commemorated, the Government went further.
From the official accounts of the Casa Rosada, the Executive released a video this Sunday that equates State terrorism with the violence of guerrilla groups, defends that there was a "war" in which "innocent people fell on both sides," questions the number of victims of the dictatorship and suggests that human rights organizations “collected a tithe” to seek justice for the thousands of missing people.
The provocation came hours before a march, which is expected to be massive, for the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, which commemorates the anniversary of the coup and honors the victims.
On March 24, 1976, the bloodiest dictatorship in the history of Argentina began.
The military remained in power for almost seven years during which they carried out a systematic extermination plan.
They kidnapped, tortured, murdered, stole babies and disappeared thousands of people whose bodies have never been found.
Upon recovering democracy, Argentines said never again to state terrorism and those responsible for these crimes against humanity began to be judged.
Since then, more than 1,200 people have been convicted in a unique judicial process in Latin America that has allowed Argentines to learn the details of the atrocities perpetrated by the military.
Until Milei, all democratic governments had condemned state terrorism.
Macri questioned the figure of 30,000 missing persons maintained by human rights organizations, but not the regime's criminal plan demonstrated in more than 300 trials.
For the ultra president, however, there were neither 30,000 victims nor was there state terrorism.
Already in the campaign, Milei declared that in the seventies in Argentina “there was a war [between the military and guerrillas] and the State forces committed excesses.”
The vice president, Victoria Villarruel, agrees and demands a “complete report” that includes the victims of the guerrillas.
The Government expressed its version in a 12-minute video broadcast this Sunday on the official networks of the Casa Rosada.
In the recording, you hear the testimonies of María Fernanda Viola, whose father was murdered in 1974 - still in democracy - by an armed group, the writer and politician Juan Bautista Yofre and the former guerrilla Luis Labraña.
According to her story, in those years “the country could no longer resist” and what happened was a “war” between “monsters.”
But for the protagonists of the video, “only one side” of that story has been shown and a “complete truth” is necessary to “heal the wounds.”
The video omits to point out, however, that the justice system has determined that the Military Juntas launched a plan of disappearance, torture and extermination of a sector of the civilian population and that those responsible were convicted of crimes against humanity in a series of processes that began in 1985 and continue to this day.
This State policy has been pioneering and has been largely promoted by human rights organizations such as Abuelas or Madres de Playa de Mayo, who in the video are accused of making “a big business” with their work.
The communication deployment activated this Sunday was not a surprise: after 8M, while feminism took to the streets, the Government announced that it would change the name of the Casa Rosada Women's Hall, the expectation about the actions that it would activate this Sunday She was tall.
The change in discourse has broken one of the most solid consensuses in Argentine society and has triggered tension in the days leading up to the anniversary of the coup.
Days ago, a human rights activist reported that she was assaulted, gagged and abused in her home.
“We didn't come to rob you, we came to kill you,” the attackers told him.
Before leaving they wrote on the wall: “Long live freedom, damn it!”, the catchphrase that the president popularized since his presidential campaign last year.
This same week, the Marea publishing house, which has a wide catalog of books on human rights, suffered a cyber attack and the president of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, reported that her phone was tapped.
De Carlotto attributed the background noise and constant interference heard during the radio interviews she gave in recent days to these alleged illegal eavesdropping.
Workers from the Human Rights Secretariat have also denounced defunding, lack of appointment of authorities and dismissals in areas such as the National Memory Archive, in the Directorate of Institutional Violence or in the Press team.
“We found no criteria.
Only the dismantling of the State and the public policies of memory, truth and justice,” criticized Flavia Fernández Brozzi, representative of the secretariat workers.
The secretariat is within the property where the Navy Mechanics School (exESMA) operated, military facilities that during the dictatorship operated as the largest clandestine center for detention, torture and extermination.
There is also the Museum of Memory, a space declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO that Villarruel threatened to dismantle.
New military role
Milei also wants to change the paradigm that has remained in force for the Armed Forces since the return of democracy.
Her Government has announced that it will send to Congress a reform of the Internal Security law that authorizes the intervention of the military in conflicts such as the drug violence that hits the city of Rosario.
Today the military does not want to know anything about this change of functions.
The Armed Forces controlled Argentine politics for more than half a century.
In 1930 they carried out the first coup d'état, which was followed by others to try to repress first the Radical Civic Union (UCR), and then, starting in 1955, Peronism.
When they handed over power in 1983, they had forcibly removed five democratic governments from the Casa Rosada.
From then on his power diminished.
The president of the transition, the radical Raúl Alfonsín, tried the leaders of the dictatorship in 1985. In 1991, a Peronist, Carlos Menem, pardoned them.
However, a process of defunding the Armed Forces and the withdrawal of troops to the barracks also began, which Milei now wants to put an end to.
Contrary to the cuts in other areas of the State, the Government is willing to modernize their equipment and training so that they regain prominence with new roles.
The massive mobilization called this Sunday stands up to the Milei Government's attempt to minimize and rewrite the darkest episode in the history of the South American country.
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