Politics Events Country 2025-12-31T04:25:17+00:00

Argentina Revives Debate on Amnesty for Military and Guerrillas

A group of civilians and military personnel in Argentina is pushing for an amnesty law for individuals responsible for crimes against humanity committed in the 1970s. Their initiative, based on legal and humanitarian arguments, poses a direct challenge to the country's post-dictatorship policy of memory and justice. The government has so far remained silent.


Argentina Revives Debate on Amnesty for Military and Guerrillas

The mobilization of these civilian and military sectors represents a challenge to Argentina's policy of memory, truth, and justice, prompting a profound review of recent history and the criminal responsibility derived from the genocide.

The activation of this debate in the corridors of power marks a turning point in how groups linked to the armed forces interact with the State. Subsidiarily, the text suggests the implementation of pardons or the commutation of sentences, based on a technical interpretation of the National Constitution and comparative jurisprudence, mentioning international cases where measures of clemency were applied to end prolonged internal conflicts.

Law of Amnesty and Extermination Plan

This political move emerged in a context where Argentina has been world-renowned for the prosecution of crimes against humanity. A group of civilians and military personnel launched a strictly confidential political offensive with the firm objective of reinstating on the public agenda the possibility of an amnesty or pardon for those responsible for crimes committed during the 1970s.

According to an investigation by the news site Realpolitik, the proposal was formally presented to the Casa Rosada and the Ministry of Defense, supported by a complex legal framework that seeks to reverse the consensus reached on human rights since the return to democracy. The initiative gained visibility when lawyer Emma Corazza presented the petition to Silvia Ibarzabal, an official from the Defense ministry. The lawyer acted on behalf of groups like Black Handkerchiefs and the Patuso Group, made up of relatives and associates of the armed forces.

The core of the request proposes that the Executive branch push for an Amnesty Law covering both military and former guerrillas, invoking the powers of the National Congress. That repressive process, judicially classified as genocide by various federal courts, left a deep wound in the social fabric that the current presentation seeks to definitively close. The technical argumentation of the applicants avoids street slogans and takes refuge in the doctrine of prominent constitutionalists.

The presentation details the health situation of detainees over eighty years of age and criticizes the systematic denial of house arrests. It warns of the death of nearly a thousand people in prison under these conditions, using this data to justify the urgency of an exceptional measure that shifts the focus from criminal justice to institutional clemency.

Amnesty Law or Decree Project

The strategic choice of timing for filing this dossier coincides with a political climate where the National Executive has openly questioned certain pillars of human rights policy of recent decades. The proposal is not presented as an isolated demand, but as a "technical tool ready to be executed by the Presidency," offering a menu of legal options ranging from a legislative project to a direct decree, seeking to influence the official agenda immediately.

To date, national authorities have maintained strict silence regarding the formal entry of this request, although the file is already under review within the relevant areas. For this sector, the passage of time and the new political conditions of the country provide a favorable scenario for what they call "national reconciliation," equating state responsibility with that of civilian organizations of the era.

A central point of the pressure exerted on the government is the humanitarian factor. The document, which had already been entered into the President of the Nation's registry, requests a direct intervention from Javier Milei to resolve the procedural and penitentiary situation of military and former members of security forces. As the source Realpolitik warns, the claim has ceased to be a testimonial expression and has become an organized political pressure that, through constitutional doctrine, seeks a definitive closure to the judicial cases for events half a century ago.

They argue that the Magna Carta does not explicitly prohibit amnesty for these cases and propose a legal hierarchy where the constitutional text prevails over international human rights treaties. This reasoning seeks to break the principle of imprescriptibility that governs crimes committed under state terrorism in the country.

The document also incorporates language laden with religious symbolism and appeals to national unity. The authors mention the need to achieve "an inner peace and the general well-being," terms taken directly from the constitutional preamble, and situate their request under the protection of a "higher moral authority." During the military dictatorship that began in 1976, the State implemented a systematic extermination plan that included forced disappearances of people, the theft of babies, and the establishment of clandestine detention centers.