A commission probes the government's record on human rights
When word that Argentina had won the world junior soccer championship in Tokyo reached Buenos Aires, the country burst into frenzied celebration. Two days later, thousands of screaming fans gathered in the capital's Plaza de Mayo as President Jorge Rafael Videla welcomed home the squad, still beaming from its 3-1 triumph over the Soviet Union. Meanwhile a much smaller crowd lined up, almost unnoticed, outside the headquarters of the Organization of American States (O.A.S.). More than 1,500 people waited to present petitions to the visiting Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Last week the commission was near the midpoint of a long-delayed, two-week investigation of the fates of thousands of desaparecidos (the disappeared)— people who vanished without a trace during the government's campaign against terrorism.
No one knows how many Argentines mysteriously disappeared during the reigns of Isabel Perón and the military regime that toppled her three years ago. Human rights organizations, including the London-based Amnesty International, charge that since 1975 15,000 desaparecidos have been abducted, tortured and possibly killed by agents of the government — without authorization by any court of law. Argentine activists guess that the total might be as high as 12,000, while the government insists that fewer than 5,000 people were arrested under executive powers invoked during a state of siege that was imposed in 1974.
Satisfied that the "war" against the Montonero terrorists had been won, General Videla last year ordered that squalid prisons where thousands of political prisoners were held should be spruced up, and invited the Inter-American Commission to make a firsthand inspection of its human rights performance. As Videla told TIME Buenos Aires Bureau Chief George Russell last week: "We have nothing to hide.''
In fact, since last year the regime has been much more selective in using its sweeping powers to arrest people suspected of subversion and hold them indefinitely. The mysterious squads of thugs, who usually ride in Ford Falcons and kidnap suspected opponents of the regime, have been relatively inactive. This year only 36 Argentines, compared with more than 600 in 1978, have joined the ranks of the desaparecidos. Critics of the regime say that the crackdown on alleged subversives, rather than being halted, has simply been redirected. Instead of focusing on individuals thought to have terrorist connections, activists claim, the government is now harassing the human rights organizations that have dramatized the plight of the missing victims worldwide. Says a leader of one such group: "We face a total system of repression."