Historians discuss Milei, memory and dictatorship, 50 years on from coup

The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Argentina's last military coup d’etat ushering in the 1976-1983 dictatorship is an obligatory date for analysis, not only the associated facts but also the repercussions for the future – the true number of persons missing, the disappeared, and the identities of all the newborns snatched from their mothers remain open.

In conversation, historians Camila Perochena and Felipe Pigna analysed the importance of the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice and President Javier Milei’s government, its approach to the issues and its drive “to tell the complete story.”

For Perochena, the importance of the March 24 date is central to Argentina. Firstly, “it permits us to recall the crimes and the human rights violations” which happened in our country. It is a date "to upgrade the importance and the defence of a democratic system,” she adds.

“This day permits to think through and elaborate the traumas of our past and we must do so at the same time that we reflect on the conditions for a better democratic coexistence in the present,” said Perochena.

Pigna maintained that it is "fundamental” to commemorate 50 years since the start of the dictatorship, recognising the 1976-1983 period as “one of the darkest nights” of our history which “destroyed” national industry, “attacked” culture and applied “an irrational censorship” also leaving “30,000 desaparecidos.”

“The state, which should guarantee education, public safety and justice for the citizenry turned terrorist and into a powerful instrument of repression. They ignored the law in general but human rights even more,” he explained.

Regarding the stance of the Milei Presidency on telling the “complete story,” both historians agreed that, with that line of discourse, the government seeks to “minimise state violence.”

They noted that officials hardly ever refer to “the atrocities of the dictatorship.”

For Perochena, the government is showing a will “to open up past battles.” The “new right,” unlike former versions, ”considers that they have to fight a cultural battle” with the remembrance of the 1970s and the last military dictatorship. "They seek a contrast with Kirchnerism,” she noted.

“When they speak of telling the full story, what they are doing is opposing the narrative of the last military dictatorship and the 1970s during the Kirchnerite governments,” she explained.

“The government is debating two points here. On the one hand, [former president] Raúl Alfonsín’s narrative and the idea that democracy requires justice and the trials of the military officers violating human rights. On the other hand, they argue at the same time a central point with Kirchnerism, the role of the armed organisations prior to the dictatorship. 

“What they do is not to denounce the violence of the state but basically of the armed organisations, minimising state violence,” she said.

Pigna assured that the government’s vision is “a partial history,” in which they actually seek to highlight is “part” of history while “partialising it completely.”

For the historian, “they have a huge deficit in telling what happened during the last coup.”

“We presumed they want to tell the crimes of the guerrillas, what happened before [the military took power in a coup] and it should be told, of course – that is what must be done in this context. 

“But then, we need to tell a truly full story, talking about everything that happened. Today there is no such full story in the official narrative,” concluded Pigna.