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During the last Argentine military dictatorship, expressions of international democratic solidarity were very important, both in providing moral support to victims of political persecution and to human rights activism during those dark years, and in raising awareness of the grave situation in the country, including forced disappearances. In this way, they helped expose, shame, and pressure the regime of the Military Junta.
This international solidarity, coming from the democratic world, included diplomats serving in embassies, as well as foreign journalists in Buenos Aires; and governments, organisations, media outlets, and human rights groups, among other international actors.
In this regard, considering that no Memory site in Argentina includes those who were then a courageous voice for the voiceless, CADAL, a private and non-partisan foundation dedicated to promoting human rights and international democratic solidarity, has been compiling cases with the aim of creating a museum to remember them. Some examples are presented below.
The most well-known cases for their diplomatic solidarity in Argentina during the last military dictatorship are those of Italian consul Enrico Calamai and the American Allen “Tex” Harris, together with Canadian ambassador Dwight Fulford and the embassies of France, Sweden, and Venezuela.
Calamai wrote a book in which he recounts his experience. Titled Reason of State: Argentine Political Persecuted without Refuge, and published in 2007 for free distribution by the Tuscan Cultural Association of Buenos Aires, the work of the Italian diplomat offers an excellent chronicle of the political situation in both Chile and Argentina, and the assistance provided to hundreds of political persecuted individuals. For this reason, Calamai has been described as the “Schindler” of the military dictatorship.
In Calamai’s own words: “I was able to verify the real possibilities for humanitarian intervention offered by the privileges and immunities recognised by international law.” He added: “The intelligence of diplomacy must find a way to place itself between the brutality of power and its victims; the former concerned only with eliminating any possible opponent, the latter seeking any open door for their physical survival.”
For his part, diplomat Allen “Tex” Harris, assigned to the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires, received reports of disappearances at the embassy and attended the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo demonstrations in front of the national government headquarters, the Casa Rosada. Harris managed to condition a loan to the Argentine Navy on the acceptance of a visit by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). This visit, carried out in September 1979, marked a turning point in the Argentine military dictatorship. Following his death in February 2020, the Argentine Foreign Ministry issued a statement recalling: “Tex Harris served in Argentina from 1977 to 1979, during which time he opened the doors of the United States Embassy to relatives of the disappeared and tried to help them find their loved ones. During this period, he filed 13,500 complaints about serious human rights violations and made known to the world what was happening in our country through detailed reports based on collected testimonies. For his important work, he was awarded the Order of the Liberator San Martín in 2004 by the government of President Néstor Kirchner.”
On 23 January 2009, Dwight Fulford, aged 78, former Ambassador of Canada during the last Argentine military dictatorship, passed away. He also stood out for his committed work in defence of human rights, supported by his wife Bárbara. The former director of the newspaper Buenos Aires Herald, Bob Cox, dedicated an article to him in which he recalled that “the fact that his story of defending human rights and human lives has not been told demonstrates how diplomatic he was.” He added that “the Fulford’s commitment to human rights was not known by the embassy staff.” Cox cites Adriana Chamorro, who first passed through “the hell” of clandestine imprisonment with her husband, then through a prison in Villa Devoto and provisional release, until they and their children received visas to enter Canada: “We still feel the warmth of the support, the concern and the unfailing solidarity of the Canadian embassy during the dictatorship,” recalling that they left Ezeiza airport under the embassy’s protection.
Cox also recalls the outstanding human rights work carried out by Colleen Cupples at the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires, who arrived in 1981 “as First Secretary (immigration) and began to use a programme for political prisoners and oppressed persons known by an acronym: PPOP.” The programme succeeded in securing the release of political prisoners and sending them into exile in Canada.
In December 1979, the Swedish ambassador at the time, Karl-Anders Wolter, offered protection to journalist Robert Cox and his family for their transfer to Ezeiza airport following threats received by the director of the Buenos Aires Herald.
In the case of Venezuela, one of the three democratic countries in Latin America at that time, its embassy played an important role by providing refuge to political persecuted individuals. Recently, Gustavo González recalled in an article in Perfil how, in March 1983, the Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Dager waited for journalist Jorge Fontevecchia at the entrance of the building on Avenida Santa Fe 1461 in order to provide him with protection and political asylum.
The embassies in Buenos Aires of the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, and Venezuela also used to invite political persecuted individuals and human rights activists to their diplomatic headquarters or National Day celebrations, thus removing them from the state of non-existence in which the military dictatorship and official media had placed them.
Although he was not a diplomat, Israeli activist Daniel Recanati collaborated with his country’s embassy and consulate in Buenos Aires to organise assistance for political persecuted individuals, such as visas, passports, and tickets, managing to save hundreds of activists of Jewish origin who were able to go into exile in Israel or other safe destinations.
In a context of censorship and repression experienced by Argentina during the last military dictatorship, around one hundred journalists were victims of state terrorism. One of the few media outlets that reported on human rights violations, disappearances, and helped make the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo visible was the Buenos Aires Herald, with its courageous director, the English journalist Robert “Bob” Cox, who had to leave the country in December 1979 due to several death threats.
For their part, Dutch journalists Jan van der Putten and Frits Barend took advantage of the 1978 Football World Cup to report on the human rights situation in Argentina. On the opening day of the World Cup, 1 June 1978, when West Germany and Poland played at River Plate stadium, van der Putten attended the Mothers’ demonstration in Plaza de Mayo and recorded moving testimonies from relatives of the disappeared that later circulated worldwide. Meanwhile, Barend approached dictator Videla during a meal at the World Cup and asked him about the disappeared. The case of these two Dutch journalists should serve as an example of journalistic commitment for those who travel to cover events in authoritarian countries.
Regarding international pressure, as Director of Debate magazine in 2003, Héctor Timerman stated in an interview with CADAL that “the colleagues who most helped secure the release of political prisoners in Argentina were those from media outlets such as The New York Times, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica of Italy, and El País of Madrid. I never heard that Granma or Pravda achieved any kind of influence in the struggle for freedom of expression in Argentina.”
In September 1976, just six months after the military coup, a hearing was held in the United States Congress on the human rights situation in Argentina. With the involvement, among others, of Senator Edward Kennedy, testimonies were given about illegal repression and disappearances, including that of labour lawyer Lucio Garzón Maceda from Córdoba, who was then in exile in France. Garzón Maceda described this hearing as the first international defeat of the Argentine military dictatorship.
Between 6 and 15 November 1976, a mission from the British human rights organisation Amnesty International visited Argentina and produced a powerful report of around one hundred pages, published the following year. It included a list of disappeared persons. The delegation was composed of Lord Avebury, a member of the House of Lords, Reverend Robert Orinan, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Patricia Feeney, a British member of Amnesty International’s International Secretariat.
With the beginning of Jimmy Carter’s administration in the United States and the appointment of Patricia Derian as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires became very active and supportive, as mentioned in the case of Tex Harris, who reported directly to Derian. In the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, the United States also promoted a resolution on the situation in Argentina, although it was not approved due to the dictatorship’s alliance with the Soviet Union, socialist bloc countries, Cuba, and the Non-Aligned Movement.
The then president of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Dutch jurist Theo van Boven, also played an important role in attempting to secure condemnation of the Argentine dictatorship.
In September 1979, the well-known visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) took place at its headquarters at Avenida de Mayo 760. Long queues of relatives of the disappeared formed to give testimony, which was later reflected in a powerful report. In a study by Dominican Roberto Álvarez, who worked on preparations for the mission, he highlights the role of Mark Schneider, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, and that of Venezuelan Andrés Aguilar and American Tom Farer in drafting the report on Argentina.
The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Adolfo Pérez Esquivel also formed part of international democratic solidarity efforts. Although he was not widely known, the award helped bring attention to the human rights situation in Argentina and embarrass the dictatorship. According to David Cox’s biography of his father Bob Cox, it was Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams of the Community of Peace People who promoted the Argentine architect’s nomination.
Despite forced disappearances, illegal detentions, and torture, several human rights organisations were able to operate legally during the dictatorship and received financial support from abroad. For example, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH), founded in 1975, received strong support from the World Council of Churches, which also assisted the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. The Mothers also received support from the Dutch Women’s Association, enabling them to purchase their first headquarters. The Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), founded in 1979 by lawyer Emilio Mignone, whose daughter had been disappeared, received support from the U.S. State Department and the Ford Foundation, while the Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ) received support from the French Catholic Committee. SERPAJ’s leader, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, and the funds helped sustain the organisation’s work.
This phrase comes from Héctor Timerman in the aforementioned 2003 interview. In January 2004, as director of Debate, he published an article arguing that the memory of the international solidarity received during Argentina’s dictatorship should compel the country to support current victims of dictatorships and adopt an active foreign policy in this area.
Later, as Foreign Minister under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Timerman adopted the opposite stance to “not being complicit in the silence sought by dictatorships.” He did so throughout his tenure, particularly during official visits to Angola, Cuba, China, and Venezuela.
The same stance was adopted by the human rights organisations mentioned, in some cases even going so far as to justify executions in Cuba and repression of peaceful mass protests, as well as showing ingratitude towards the Venezuelan tragedy by supporting dictator Hugo Chávez.
For this reason, it is not surprising that no Memory site recalls the international democratic solidarity received during the last military dictatorship, nor offers those public spaces to highlight current situations of political persecution and state terrorism.
Fifty years after the military coup of 24 March 1976, the memory of the international democratic solidarity received during this tragic and dark period deserves a physical space to: remember the sensitive and courageous international actors during the Argentine dictatorship; draw attention to current situations in authoritarian contexts around the world where serious human rights violations occur; and educate about the history of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which remains a guiding light for a democratic, peaceful world with well-being for all.
