President Carlos Saul Menem wanted to "close a black chapter" in Argentina's history. But his decision last week to pardon ex-President Jorge Videla and half a dozen other leaders who had been jailed in 1986 for their role in Argentina's "dirty war" in the late 1970s only rekindled popular outrage. Nearly 50,000 citizens took to the streets of Buenos Aires to protest, and Bishop Jorge Novak called the measure a "humiliating defeat for the democratic system."
Menem intended the pardons to cool the simmering resentment within the armed forces that has led to four military uprisings since democracy was restored in...
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