Washington, D.C., August 20, 2002 – George Washington
University's National Security Archive and its Argentine partner
NGO, the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), today
praised the State Department's declassification of more than
4,600 previously secret U.S. documents on human rights violations
under the 1976-83 military dictatorship in Argentina.
"The State Department under Secretary Powell - and
previously under Secretary Albright - deserves credit for
this historic release, which demonstrates again that openness
serves our national security interest in democracy and human
rights," said Thomas S. Blanton, Archive director.
Victor Abramovich, director of CELS, said that the July
10 arrest of former Argentine dictator Galtieri and 40 other
military veterans on human rights charges from the "dirty
war" period made the State Department declassification
even more urgent: "The documents will help clarify
this case of great public importance, as well as the whole
period of military rule."
The State Department last week shipped copies of the documents
to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires for distribution to
the Argentine government and the groups of survivors and
families of the disappeared - almost exactly two years after
then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promised the
families to open U.S. files (16 August 2000). State will
post the full set on its Website <http://www.foia.state.gov>
and the
National Security Archive posted today a selection of the
most important new documents, with analysis by the
Archive's Southern Cone project director Carlos Osorio,
at <http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73>.
Osorio worked with CELS to provide the State Department
with a detailed chronology of key human rights cases from
the "dirty war" period for State's use in its
search and review process, which was largely completed by
September 2001. The September 11 tragedy and Argentina's
fiscal and political crisis in November held up release
of the documents until now. Osorio commented, "These
files provide a vivid chronology of a massive and indiscriminate
counterinsurgency campaign," and noted that CIA and
Pentagon documents were not included in the release. Among
the new documents are:
- an organizational chart of the primary Argentine death
squad unit, Battalion 601 of military intelligence, with
an explicit chain of command leading directly to Galtieri.
- a specific description of the abductions by 601 that
are the basis for the Galtieri arrest warrant, including
new details on the cooperation of Brazilian military intelligence.
- an Embassy cable reporting the Argentine military's
embrace of "extra-judicial" tactics, because
"the security forces neither trust nor know how to
use legal solutions" and because "under present
rules 'nobody' is responsible on the record for the executions."