Federal judge Ariel Lijo, President Javier Milei’s nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy, has ordered Human Rights Secretary Alberto Baños to safeguard former detention and torture centres dating back to Argentina’s brutal 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
The decision, a setback for the Milei government, means that so-called “memory sites” and their staff should be protected.
“The National Human Rights Secretariat is required to adopt the necessary measures with the aim of guaranteeing a team of trained staff so that the Memory spaces in the former CCDT (clandestine centres of detention and torture) 'Olimpo,' 'Club Atlético,' 'Automotores Orletti' and 'Virrey Cevallos' continue to function,” ruled Lijo in a court order.
Lijo requested the maintenance of "the activities open to the public in those sites, as well as the tasks of maintenance, conservation, preservation of the building and daily cleaning (necessary for the visits), as well as of the roofs and gutters to avoid flooding which could damage the spaces."
He further ordered fumigation to “preserve the heritage and files compiled until now while continuing the tasks of research and pedagogic coordination.”
The court resolution accepted the requirement of Buenos Aires City legislator Victoria Montenegro, who chairs the Human Rights Committee, requesting the protection of the sites and rejecting dismissals of staff by the national Human Rights Secretariat.
For these same reasons, the Unión por la Patria legislator also filed a criminal lawsuit denouncing Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona.
The Kirchnerite deputy and daughter of ERP (Revolutionary Army of the People) militants who were disappeared under the dictatorship reacted positively to the decision.
“Faced with the advance of this government to dismantle human rights policies y attack their organisations, we secured a court pronouncement attaches value to the commitments to Memory, Truth and Justice,” she affirmed in a statement.
During the Milei Presidency, the Human Rights Secretariat has lost 250 workers, according to the Noticias Argentinas news agency.
Early this year, 90 employees from the Centro Cultural Haroldo Conti at the ex-ESMA (Navy Mechanics School) Memory Museum received messages relieving them of their responsibilities and ordering them to be placed on “active stand-by” in their respective homes, awaiting further instruction.
This added even more to the concerns of the human rights organisations, who mobilised at the former clandestine centres to repudiate the government’s measures.
The court ruling is the latest clash related to human rights policies. Government critics accuse Milei officials of denialism and of relativising the crimes of the dictatorship.
The Milei administration sparked controversy with a video produced last year mark the anniversary of the March 24, 1976 coup that brought the military dictatorship to power, in which it called for a “complete memory” of the conflict and claimed the estimate of 30,000 disappeared was manufactured by human rights groups.
Last year, a group of six lawmakers from Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party visited a prison in Buenos Aires Province to meet a number of jailed individuals convicted of crimes against humanity committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, including Alfredo Astiz, the so-called ‘Angel of Death.’ The visit was reportedly aimed at “looking at the living conditions” of the detainees.
Argentina’s shift to democracy in 1983 and the years of uninterrupted democratic rule that have followed have been accompanied by a process of memory, truth and justice that has seen human rights violators jailed for crimes against humanity.
– TIMES/NA
