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Argentina: An Orderly Transition
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13588 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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4 / 1988 |
1,195 Words |
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Dan Newland
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When democracy returned to Argentina at the end of 1983, nobody thought the going would be easy. After all, there was no reason to think it would be: The country had just been through nearly eight years of harsh military rule, which included a four-year "dirty war" on leftist subversion that resulted in the "disappearance" of some 8,900 people and the deterioration of the country's political, social, and moral bases.
Furthermore, the military regime's flamboyant economic policies left the country with the third largest foreign debt in the developing world, at a time when the international market for Argentina's traditional beef and grain exports was on the slide.
But after winning a surprise landslide victory in October 1983, President Raul Alfonsin set to work consolidating the basis for a lasting democracy in a country where 35 of the past 50 years had been spent under military rule. The democratic spirit of his government, the discrediting of the military as a result of the "dirty war" bloodbath and the ill-fated war on Britain in the South Atlantic in 1982, and the disillusionment of the Argentine people with the armed forces as a viable political escape valve combined to make nonsense of early predictions that the new democracy would not last six months.
Four years later, democracy is still intact in Argentina. While to the casual observer abroad the road to stable democracy in Argentina may appear very rocky to date, it is important to note that a solid victory over authoritarianism has very recently been won here with the crushing of a military rebellion led by former Lt. Col. Aldo Rico.
Several antidemocratic plots have been uncovered since Alfonsin came to office, but two revolts led by Rico--a former army commando leader who received training with the U.S. Special Forces and saw action in the 1982 war against Britain--have constituted the most blatant attempts against constitutional order in the last four years.
But the prospects for lasting democracy increased dramatically between Rico's first revolt during Easter Week last year and his latest rebellion in January 1988. During last year's uprising, Alfonsin's government was backed into a corner when Rico and a small band of fellow officers and noncommissioned officers took over installations at the Campo de Mayo army base just outside of Buenos Aires. When the president ordered the rebellion put down, he found himself faced with an army that was reluctant to obey such an order and with generals who were more sympathetic to Rico's cause than to democratic rule.
After all, Rico was calling for an end to trials against military men for gross human rights abuses committed from the mid- to late-1970s in the course of the "dirty war." Not only that, he was seeking recognition by the government of the army's annihilation of leftist subversion, no matter what means had been employed. These were issues the bloodstained army hierarchy could definitely relate to: Their necks were involved here.
As a result, the president found only one general in the country willing to put the rebellion down by force. When that commander and his men arrived at the gates of Campo de Mayo, such a long period of hesitation and uncertainty ensured that the president was finally obliged to
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