Council On Hemispheric Affairs
MONITORING POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND DIPLOMATIC ISSUES AFFECTING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
COHA MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESS:
Rumsfeld’s Harvest: Argentina’s Navy Spy Scandal
• One year after Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s visit to Buenos Aires, brutal memories have once again been
awakened in Argentina
• Rumsfeld’s ill-advised policy of rehabilitating Latin America’s armed forces begins to yield its bitter fruit
• Rather than enforcing probation for its ghastly human rights atrocities from 1976 to 1983, the Pentagon puts
Argentine military at the top of the hemispheric pecking order
• Rare opportunity to tame an unregenerate military is frittered away
In a country that has long struggled, but has always failed, to confront the legacy of a “dirty war” as brutal as any in
the history of the hemisphere, and after the country’s disgraced military supposedly had accepted a now more moderate
mission, the recent revelations involving the Argentine Navy should come as no surprise. Even 23 years after the end of
the withering military dictatorship that gripped the country, the disclosure was made that elements in the Argentine
navy maintained an active domestic spying program against officials, journalists, and leading celebrities in the arts
and sciences.
The espionage case, which involves surveillance operations by naval personnel targeting politicians and activists,
underlines the fact that, despite the return of democracy after years of military rule, elements of the armed forces are
still brashly defiant of civilian rule, and believe in its impunity, a right which it has held for so long. This
attitude on the part of Argentina’s military establishment reveals the missed opportunities of the two decades when
successive Democratic and Republican administrations in Washington failed to effectively propel the development of
constitutionally-bound armed forces throughout the hemisphere, and in effect were complicit in sanctioning a dangerous
“re-militarization.” When it came to the conduct of Argentina’s armed forces during the dirty war (1976-1983), both the
Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations have been eager to be accommodating to the military, with the Democratic
president preaching that the country’s civic leaders should sweep the excesses of the military junta under the rug, and
the Republicans urging a strategy of “getting on with it,” and no longer dwelling on the bleak memories of military
rule.
Lingering Darkness
The story broke last Friday when police raided the intelligence office at the Almirante Zar naval base in the southern
province of Chubut, according to EFENews. That base had been the scene of unspeakably vile crimes during the dirty war.
The investigation was sparked by a complaint filed by the famed Argentine human rights NGO, the Center for Legal and
Social Studies (CELS), which later revealed that the Naval office maintained a number of dossiers on Argentine groups
and individuals ranging from unions to indigenous rights movements. The apparently comprehensive spying program
reportedly included such high profile targets as Néstor Kirchner (who was active in Patagonian politics prior to winning
the presidency), and Defense Minister Nilda Garré.
Twenty six folders were seized, and according to the governor of Chubut, Mariano Das Neves, the dossiers contained
information that was typical of the “ideological control” of past eras, and that “30 years ago [it] would have resulted
in people [secret agents] coming to your house.” Reports suggest that the files went into extensive detail, and Das
Neves noted that they included “analysis about the children of officials, elements of their private lives, even about
alleged addictions to drink or personal relationships.”
It is this strain of fascist obsession that continues to inform the marrow of much of Argentina’s national life, and
which led to the systematic repression of the highly regarded cultural and philosophical Buenos Aires discussion group,
BAYS (The Buenos Aires Yoga School), which consisted of some of the capital city’s most distinguished intellectuals and
artistic figures – many of them Jewish (thus prompting the anti-Semitic ire which is a military habit). Many of those
individuals may have been subjects of the same genera of spying that was undertaken by the dissident Patagonian naval
officers.
In reaction to this evocation of the bad old days, when upwards of 30,000 Argentines were tortured, murdered, and then
disappeared by agents of the secret forces, Kirchner’s government has moved quickly and aggressively on the issue. The
judge managing the case, Jorge Pfleger, has pledged to investigate the entire chain of command, and Defense Minister
Nilda Garré quickly sacked the head of navy operations, Vice Admiral Eduardo Avilés, and head of navy intelligence, Rear
Admiral Pablo Rossi. Furthermore, all naval intelligence offices have been closed down while the investigation is
carried out. Head of the Navy, Admiral Jorge Godoy, assumed full responsibility for the violations, but denied that it
was anything more than an “isolated incident,” although he was prepared to acknowledge that more officials were involved
beyond those already identified.
A Military Unchecked
Godoy’s demurrers, however, may ring hollow, and knowledgeable Argentine sources strongly believe that Godoy will not be
able to long survive the scandal. Indeed, the case seems to firmly imprint an institutional culture of impunity and
excess. Das Neves is to be commended for brushing aside Godoy’s lame effort at damage control, and has asserted that the
case seemed to represent “an intelligence operation of national magnitude,” and that he did not “believe that what we
see is an isolated event, peculiar to some group of officers in Chubut.”
Yet even a single incident of this nature could have fateful implications. The case sharply recalls the bleak years of
the dictatorship, when tens of thousands were “disappeared,” and hundreds of thousands more were terrorized by a
paranoid and venomous junta. During this period, the Navy was fully engaged in atrocities, as was reflected in the
heinous actions of Captain Alfredo Astiz and naval officer Adolfo Scilingo, murderous assassins who, among other
exploits, pushed several drugged French nuns and human rights activists out of a plane flying above the ocean off
Argentina, a tactic which concealed the tortured bodies of the victims. Das Neves comments that the newly uncovered
files were eerily reminiscent of dirty war dossiers, and suggest that a hard right officers’ cabal persists in the armed
forces, and has not been eradicated, even by a left-leaning government like that of Kirchner that has sought to address
such past crimes.
Argentines are right to be wary, and Kirchner would be wise to seek a full investigation of the intelligence services of
all military branches. As the country begins its baleful commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the start of the
military dictatorship this Friday, this case serves as a chilling reminder that Argentina’s military is still not
prepared to be accountable for the reverberations from its deeply embedded neo-Fascist past. The government must move to
confront the military over this issue, and this event could provide the necessary impulse for more profound reform. The
good people of Argentina deserve better than permissive governments and abusive militaries.
Washington Woos the Latin American Military
Yet much of the blame for this recrudescence of anachronistic extreme rightwing military lodges can be pinned on
Washington, which has failed to effectively push for human rights prosecution in countries where the military ran
rampant – often with the backing of U.S. policymakers of the day, with Henry Kissinger very much in mind. It is a matter
of fact that the Clinton Administration missed an opportunity to help in a major way with the establishment of truth
commissions to confront questions of past abuses throughout Latin America, a decision which reinforced the military’s
non-compliance and its belief about its own impunity, thus vindicating the obnoxious decree that there can be crime
without punishment.
The Bush Administration has taken the appalling step of renewing weapons shipments to Latin American militaries, ranging
from cooperation with the Paraguayan and Guatemalan armies, to supplying Chile with a fleet of F-16s, which clearly will
tempt the Peruvian, Bolivian, and Argentine air forces to follow up with an arms race. The recent Washington visit of
the Guatemalan defense minister, Francisco Bermudez, and his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, serves as example enough that
the Pentagon is tightening its bonds with regional militaries, and is eager to be their munitions salesman, despite
their bloody histories. The Guatemala meeting followed the resumption of military aid to that nation, support which had
been suspended at the end of that nation’s civil war owing to the appalling brutality of the armed forces in that
conflict.
While much of the new aid is cloaked as anti-drug or joint cooperation agreements, it is tantamount to an exoneration
and re-legitimization of the region’s armed forces whose defining mark was their systematic brutality, and is far from
the sort of benign assistance that could be described as helping Robin Hood to safely cross the street. Clearly, the
public has mixed thoughts concerning the military’s utility. Several years ago, the UN commissioned a public opinion
poll that established that almost 60% of all respondents were prepared to submit once again to military rule if it would
mean that their standard of living would be raised.
Rumsfeld as Seneschal
Underscoring Washington’s role in rehabilitating unrepentant Latin American militaries, today marks the first
anniversary of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s meeting with his Argentine counterpart in Buenos Aires, an event at which
Rumsfeld praised that nation’s military – even singling out the Navy – for their participation in global security
operations. Indeed, Rumsfeld has single-mindedly spearheaded the push to rebuild the region’s armed forces. The
secretary has made several tours of the region, including visits to Guatemala, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru, and has
convened several major meetings of regional defense ministers and their senior serving officers.
These personal visits are hardly hollow gestures on Rumsfeld’s part: military aid to the region has steadily grown over
last decade and a half, and at $908 million for 2006, now almost equals the United States’ economic assistance to Latin
America. Further evidence can be found in the Pentagon’s joint cooperation arrangements with the Paraguayan military,
that include the use of an airbase in the west of that country, and a likely expansion of existing arrangements in
Ecuador. These suggest that Rumsfeld is dedicated to the principles of military applicability in a region whose
sensitivities on the subject he appears to not register at all, and where the lethal capacities of the armed forces have
often resulted in horrendous abuses and near genocide.
Grim Realities
Democracy has taken some steps forward in Latin America since the start of the new millennium. Yet the White House has
consistently failed to help Latin American nations tame their monstrous militaries once and for all, and in not doing
so, has ensured that the threat of a revanchist return to the dictatorships of the 1970s remains ever present, if the
right set of circumstances emerge. The Argentine domestic espionage case only underscores this fact, and reaffirms the
reality that the regional armed forces would be only too willing to assume their old role as brutal “protectors of the
nation.” The Latin American military can never adequately assure the public that it has now purged itself of the notion
that it is a legitimate government-in-waiting in case the civilian authorities falter on the job. For democracy to
survive, only a small military force should be tolerated, and it must be made permanently aware of the fact that it is
perpetually on probation.
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This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry Birns and Research Fellow Michael Lettieri
March 22, 2006
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