Variation On a Theme

ON MARCH 25, the day after a military coup overthrew the government of Isabel Peron, an army major in charge of public relations in the city of Cordoba called a press conference. He instituted "temporary" press censorship and finished his instructions by saying, "Remember, I don't want to see any mention of Chile." On March 30, General Jorge Videla, the head of the ruling military junta, announced on national television that his new regime was deeply committed to human rights, based on "profound Christian convictions." The smooth and relatively bloodless coup followed by constant reassurances stemmed from a well-defined plan to avoid comparison with the Chilean situation at all costs.

Pinochet and his military junta had not wasted any time in showing their repressive intentions, and after the bloody coup which overthrew Allende in September of 1973 quickly turned Chile into a murderous police state. The horrified reaction of the world press to the Chilean repression was widespread and still rang loudly in the ears of Videla and his co-conspirators. In addition, a U.S. Senate committee had just published its findings of CIA involvement in the Chilean coup, and the image of a murderous Pinochet aided by CIA support had become prevalent in an uncomfortable U.S. press.

However, much of this same press was full of praise and hope for the Videla regime. In the days after the Argentine coup, The New York Times published pictures of soldiers on guard in front of the government palace smiling relaxedly at women or cheerfully playing with pigeons in the park. An April 4 Times editorial implied that Videla's regime was moderate and well intentioned. True, there had been arrests in the first few days, but these were rather selectively aimed at corrupt Peronist functionaries. The contrast with Chile was evident and the efficiency and advance notice of the coup were even treated with touches of good humor.

But the story since the takeover has been quite different. News coming out of Argentina indicates that a widespread campaign of repression and arrests has finally started and that the arrests are no longer confined to former Peronist bureaucrats but form part of a general crackdown on leftist intellectuals, university professors, students, writers, psychoanalysts, journalists, scientists, and political and union activists. In addition, there is a widespread campaign against leftist political exiles from Chile and other South American countries. Conspicuously little treatment of these roundups has appeared in the U.S. press in the last few weeks.

Nevertheless, a few stories have emerged. The Boston Globe (5/5/76) estimates the number of Argentine detainees to be about 7500. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the well-known Colombian novelist, estimates that there were about 10,000 foreign detainees as of April 22 (N.Y. Times, 5/8/76). Some individual cases can be recounted here: Emilio de Ippola, a Paris and Montreal educated Argentine sociologist, disappeared on April 4 along with his wife and Eduardo Molina y Vedia, a reporter from La Opinion. A prompt international campaign of telegrams to Videla inquiring about the disappearances made the junta aware that the news had somehow leaked out. The junta admitted to having detained them for interrogation and assured that they were alive and well. The prompt campaign of telegrams may well have saved their lives. Antonio Misetich, an MIT-affiliated Argentine scientist, was arrested on April 19 (Globe 5/5/76) by army security forces. Others who have been arrested include Osvaldo Sunkeld and Marta Zabaleta, both economists, and Harolda Conti, a writer. Pedro Paz, an economist, has also disappeared. (But recent reports from Argentina suggest that Paz and Sunkeld have been allowed to go into exile as a result of U.N. pressure).

It seems likely that the Argentine junta, sensitive to the international revulsion against a violent coup comparable to Chile's, decided to act in two stages. First, a moderate period with sporadic arrests and little censorship, then strict censorship and the imposition of a hard, repressive line. Videla, Agosti and Massera count on two things. This carefully orchestrated two-stage process may allow them to carry out repressive measures under less international pressure. Furthermore, the solidarity campaigns organized in the United States, Canada and Europe, which were so successful in saving many Chilean lives, have somehow become exhausted. Almost three years after the fall of Allende, the situation in Chile, needless to say, has not become any better, yet international outrage and concern have decreased. The Argentine military is thus carrying out a systematic campaign of repression coordinated with police action that might very well approach the brutality of their Chilean counterparts without arousing similar international reactions.

For many years before the coup, Isabel and Juan Peron ruled over a corrupt right-wing bureaucracy which maneuvered and stole with full support of the Peronist-dominated congress. Peron's policies had the tacit acceptance of the Argentine military as long as his (or Isabel's) regime would give the generals a free hand to attack the guerrilla and other left-wing movements. During the last few months of Mrs. Peron's regime, the military and right-wing paramilitary forces were waging an open war against the leftists while "Isabelita" was taking all the blame for economic paralysis and political chaos. This was a very convenient situation for the armed forces which thus appeared not responsible for the collapse of the country and also watched the Peronists, their long-standing enemies, disintegrate amid total corruption and inefficiency.

RATHER MORE URGENT ISSUES than the Peron government's incompetence precipitated the March 24 coup. Argentine foreign debts of about $1 billion will be due at the end of May, and it is crucial that foreign creditors cooperate in extending repayment terms. Emilio Mondelli, the Peronist finance minister, had repeatedly pleaded with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to borrow an additional $300 million to offset the country's trade imbalance. This request had repeatedly not been granted.

In order to gain the favor of foreign investors and bankers, the Peronist government found itself faced with the urgent tasks of curbing inflation, increasing productivity and guaranteeing stability. The two essential steps needed to bring about these changes were a drastic austerity plan and abolition of the right to strike, steps which were antithetical to the basic populism of the Peronists. Only a military regime could bring about the "guarantees and stability" needed to pacify foreign creditors.

The junta's economic and social policies are essentially analogous to the Chilean ones: freezing of salaries to provide cheap labor and to promote heavy private foreign investment. In order to "restore morality and efficiency to the government, wipe out subversion and restore the economy," Videla dissolved the Congress, provincial and municipal legislatures, suspended all political parties, all trade unions, dismissed the justices of the Supreme Court and banned all political activities. A "Legislative Assessment Council" was formed (just as in Chile) which will assist the new rulers in their government. The death penalty was reinstated for attacks on members of the armed forces and a 15 month sentence instituted for acts of political violence.

Of course, Videla said in his speech of March 30, "sacrifices" will be needed so the new economic program can "assure private enterprise and national and foreign capital all the necessary conditions to participate, with their maximum potential and creative force, in the rational exploitation of our resources." The person put in charge of directing this "sacrifice" was urgently summoned from his hunting camp in Kenya, where he was on safari. He is the new finance minister Jose Martinez de Hoz, known as "Joe" to his friend David Rockefeller. Martinez de Hoz is the son of a wealthy traditional cattle-ranching family with very good credit in foreign banking circles. His comprehensive economic plan includes (1) a free exchange rate; (2) selling state enterprises to private investors; (3) letting prices rise to their market levels; (4) cutting down on the state bureaucracy; (5) a tax reform emphasizing a value-added tax; and (6) eliminating restrictions on corporate profit levels. The day after the coup, the IMF released $110 million of the $300 million that Argentina had been requesting.

There were political as well as economic reasons for the March 24 coup. The two left-wing guerrilla groups (People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) and Montoneros) had in the last few months of Isabel Peron's government made some advances in the labor unions. These had traditionally been Peronist strongholds, but recent guerrilla actions had given the Marxist left renewed prestige and influence for the first time in 30 years. A number of industrialists had been kidnapped and ransomed for salary raises and other benefits for the workers. Since July 1974, the ERP had maintained a very active rural guerrilla front in the northwestern province of Tucuman, and with their influence on peasants and workers had caused the armed forces increasing anxiety.

It is in this context of economic chaos (475-per-cent inflation in 1975), foreign investors' pressure, a May 31 deadline on foreign debt, corruption in the Peronist government and slow gains in popularity by the Marxist left, that the officer corps decided that the time had come for a takeover. They could thereby continue the already existing repression, and through the abolition of civil liberties expand the repressive measures in nature and quantity to include a wide variety of previously unaffected people.

The new measures bode ill for the foreign exiles living in Argentina. A large number of political refugees from right-wing repression in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil have sought asylum in Argentina over the years. There is nowhere for them to go now in South America except Venezuela and Colombia, and they would be well advised to stay away from the latter. The Chilean secret police force, operating in Argentina, has rounded up 1300 refugees (Garcia Marquez, N.Y. Times 5/8/76) and will probably try to return them to Chile.

On April 22, Pinochet and Uruguay's president Bordaberry met in Montevideo and after haranguing the "international communist conspiracy" presumably discussed the free exchange of leftist exiles throughout the continent. Videla's regime completes the fascist bloc which now covers virtually all of South America. Among these nations there is an open and borderless traffic of informers who compile and update "lists of subversives" in intimate collboration with CIA agents throughout the continent.

THE FASCIST BLOC in South America has never been as powerful as it is today. Argentina's incorporation into the concert of military dictatorships has reinforced its repression and hegemony. This bloc of right-wing juntas and dictators, of course, naturally responds to many of the basic economic and political interests of the United States in Latin America. American interests are to keep the region free from communism and open to heavy foreign investment.

Brazil provides an example of economic development within these limits. Brazil is heavily indebted to foreign investors, but the ready availability of cash and consumer goods had produced a boom and an "economic miracle" for the upper middle classes. This wealth has not reached the working classes, peasants and Indians, whose living standards have in fact declined in the past few years. The use of torture and repression in Brazil as a form of government through intimidation has become standards. Stability-cum-repression has become a common theme throughout most of Latin America.

With the increasing repression of the military regimes and the delay of their democratic aspirations, the Latin American people may lose confidence in the methods and solutions of liberal democracies and become more and more attracted to armed struggle, as the growing popularity of leftist groups among the Argentine working class indicates. Latin America may overcome one of the darkest periods in its history only after a long and bloody struggle. The United States will then look back on the democratic alternative presented by Allende and lament that it didn't support it when it still had a chance.

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