After The Restoration of Democracy
The Argentine military and other people have expressed different opinions on the Dirty War. A few among the military involved have conceded that their actions were morally wrong and unjustifiable. A number of them have fully acknowledged their commitment and expressed no regrets. A third group refers to the crimes of the military as "excesses", implying that the country was in fact undergoing a war, with two sides fighting for different goals, so that certain objectionable outcomes were inevitably bound to occur, "as in all wars".
Democratic forces were united in their criticism of the military in the run-up to the restoration of democracy in 1983. Less than three months after the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín, several critiques of Montoneros arose from within the democratic spectrum. Firstly, Montoneros, la soberbia armada (ISBN 950-37-0018-3), a book written by the leftist journalist Pablo Giussani, that compared Montoneros to European extreme-left terror organizations. Then, a comprehensive and documented effort by British historian Richard Gillespie titled Montoneros, Soldados de Perón was widely read and contributed to cement a non-romantic image of Montoneros. Juan José Sebreli invested a whole chapter of his Los deseos imaginarios del peronismo (ISBN 950-37-0018-3) to Montoneros, calling it "left-wing fascism". A few years later, Silvia Sigal and Eliseo Verón deconstructed the (verbal) opposition between Perón and Montoneros in the third section of Perón o muerte. Los fundamentos discursivos del fenómeno peronista.
Alfonsín put the military juntas on trial, and prosecuted Montoneros leaders as well, as well as people accused of "illicit organization" with the Montoneros, such as Ricardo Obregón Cano, former Peronist governor of Cordoba deposed in a police coup in February 1974, and sentenced to ten years' prison in 1985. Under the Alfonsín administration, a state committee inquired into the disappearances. When its report was delivered to the government, the Interior Minister, Antonio Tróccoli, gave a speech equating Dirty War criminals and terrorists that was criticized by the leftist and Peronist opposition as an exponent of the "doctrine of the two demons".
In 1988–1989, President Carlos Menem pardoned both the military commanders and the guerilla leaders.
After taking office in 2003, the Néstor Kirchner administration has shifted the focus towards the uncovering and punishment of crimes of the Dirty War, including those formerly covered by the now-repealed amnesty laws passed in the mid-1980s. In August 2005, a judge struck Menem's pardons as unconstitutional, and a final pronouncement of the Supreme Court on the matter is expected soon.
Read more about this topic: Theory Of The Two Demons
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