The last civil-military intervention – Infobae

On March 24, 1976, the sixth, last and last coup of civil-military status in our country was consummated. Without a doubt, the most advertised of all. So much so that a few weeks earlier, for example, the American newspaper The New York Times "It seems inevitable that the armed forces perpetuate a coup d'etat (…) in order to overthrow the reckless and inefficient government of María Estela Martínez de Perón."

With few exceptions, the referents of the national task had an ambiguous attitude towards the defense of the democratic system. The bad government of the time and the subversive violence were excuses. Even the noted military coup leaders acknowledged that nothing prevented the elimination of atrocious, senseless and criminal terrorism against the state –released by irregular armed organizations, mainly the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) and Montoneros, with the constitutional government of that time.

Security and police forces have not been brought under control and the above-mentioned organizations have not been dismantled; they were decimated and their functioning significantly affected.

The main cause of the coup d'etat was the power ambitions of senior military commanders, backed by pressure groups and sectors of economic power benefiting from prebendary fiscal capitalism.. In this conception, Arturo Pellet Lastra described the dictatorship as "clearly oligarchic, as vulnerable to the pressures of external power as it is implacable in the suppression of guerrilla warfare".

Unlike the previous coup d'état, this new systematic plan, designed by the high commandments, was to purify our country through a form of extreme eugenics, which called for the elimination of all those who were qualified as irrecoverable namely, students, employees, teachers, politicians, trade unionists, journalists, diplomats, religious, athletes and the military. They resorted to odious procedures: forced disappearance of persons, torture, murder, rape, secret executions, theft of babies, illegal deprivation of liberty and looting of property.

All the force emanating from the current legal order and the basic principles of morality, ethics and religion have been marginalized. The military high command, with the control of the fact and the power of decision, does not badume its responsibility and entrusts it to its subordinates. This is the case of General Carlos G. Suarez Mason, who fled to the United States; before he repeatedly expressed: "They will pbad near my dead body before touching one of my subordinates for what has been done." A large part of society did not understand that she accepted a dictatorship as a lesser evil, but that it would not protect fundamental human rights such as life, freedom and property, and would impose state terrorism. Without a doubt greater harm.

The repressive procedures responded to the so-called French doctrine, applied and defeated in Indochina (Vietnam 1954) and Algeria (1962). A system of feudal repression was set up, designed in zones, sub-zones and zones, in which each commander had carte blanche to execute the repressive plan independently, counting on the loyalty of factions of the minority sectors. armed forces. This was promoted by a commission or an omission, because the one who presided over the dictatorship, Jorge R. Videla, he was identified by his lack of character, his firmness in the exercise of command, his lack of charisma and leadership, and, moreover, It was unresolved.

This was exploited by his subordinate high commands and by his peer of the military junta, Emilio E. Mbadera. He made fun of Videla that he described as "incapable, weak and indecisive". Mbadera had an uncontrolled appetite for power and was the symbol of the established system of impunity and unlawfulness, terror and systematic violation of the law.

Videla and Mbadera frequently invoked the fact that they worked according to Christian precepts, but they forgot that killing in the name of God is blasphemy.. This is what Cardinal Bergoglio says: "Ideologize religious experience (…) and the deification of power in the name of God".

Once the foregoing has been established, as has been done in the past, I reiterate once again that human rights violations are acts or omissions that violate the fundamental rights of individuals, whatever their author. It is therefore not necessary to emphasize, because of its obviousness, that decades later, criminal proceedings were instituted exclusively against officials, to the exclusion of arbitrarily arbitrary members of organizations. illegal armies.

Criminal acts committed after March 24, 1976, were investigated and sentenced. These were wrongful acts perpetrated by irregular armed organizations, before and during a constitutional government. Among them: the bloody attempts to take control – by the ERP – the blue military garrison in January 1974, the Monte Formosa 29 infantry regiment – by Montoneros – in October 1975 and the arsenals battalion 601 of the army at Monte Chingolo (in Greater Buenos Aires) – by the ERP – in December 1975. Political leaders of that time can not be released from responsibility for these events prior to the coup d'etat.

The armed forces have learned the hard lesson of history and, as citizens of the uniform, since the last decade of the last century, have culturally integrated subordination to the civil power and absolute respect for the Constitution by the laws of the Republic. democratic values ​​and human rights.

To try a definitive reconciliation that will lead us to the long-awaited agreement of the Argentinean people is always an outstanding debt, as well as the mea culpa of those who, by their behavior, offended humanity.

The author is the former head of the Argentine army. Veteran of the Falklands War and former ambbadador to Colombia and Costa Rica