Uki Goñi’s book The Real Odessa is a fascinating account of how Nazis fleeing Europe in World War II’s wake ended up welcomed in Latin America thanks to the help of officials in the Vatican and various other governments. His research is particularly revelatory in regard to Argentina and the anti-Semitic policies that drove decision making during this period. Beyond this important work, Goñi has also written about Argentina’s dictatorship. This second subject is one he knew more personally. During the 1976-1983 regime Goñi worked for the English-language Buenos Aires Herald. This newspaper was the only local press that published about the desaparecidos at a time when doing so meant taking severe risks.
Today Goñi published an opinion piece in the New York Times. It is in part a reaction to a letter written by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel asking that President Obama cancel his upcoming trip to Argentina. Pérez Esquivel was a victim of the Argentinean dictatorship and his lifelong struggle for human rights has earned him wide recognition, not least the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. It was ironic and interesting to see one Nobel Peace Prize winner (Pérez Esquivel) requesting that another (Obama) not visit his country in the name of human rights. Pérez Esquivel was of course referring to the US’s role in funding, coordinating, and generally supporting the Argentine dictatorship’s widespread kidnapping, torture, and murder. While seeming to agree with this criticism, Goñi also draws attention to another side of US policy that, under President Carter, pushed the issue of human rights with the dictatorship’s officials and thus accelerated the end to those terrible years.
Obama will be in Argentina for the 40-year anniversary of the coup that began this reign of terror. It has been reported that he plans to announce the declassification of archives related to the US’s activities in regard to the dictatorship. This is a welcome step that echoes the one taken by President Clinton who published files related to the US’s role in the 1973 coup in Chile. While certainly this is an important gesture that, depending on what is released, could aid investigations into the 30,000 disappeared and 500 kidnapped babies, it is also a small step. Goñi points this out when he writes that the administration “clearly miscalculated the depth of feeling here that surrounds March 24”. As he has in the past, Goñi presents a viewpoint this could be characterized as a historically-contextualized balance. In this case his conclusion seems to be that the US did bad and good in regard to Argentina, but that Obama will have to go much further than publish some documents even to begin to address the harm that began on March 24, 1976.
Today Goñi published an opinion piece in the New York Times. It is in part a reaction to a letter written by Adolfo Pérez Esquivel asking that President Obama cancel his upcoming trip to Argentina. Pérez Esquivel was a victim of the Argentinean dictatorship and his lifelong struggle for human rights has earned him wide recognition, not least the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980. It was ironic and interesting to see one Nobel Peace Prize winner (Pérez Esquivel) requesting that another (Obama) not visit his country in the name of human rights. Pérez Esquivel was of course referring to the US’s role in funding, coordinating, and generally supporting the Argentine dictatorship’s widespread kidnapping, torture, and murder. While seeming to agree with this criticism, Goñi also draws attention to another side of US policy that, under President Carter, pushed the issue of human rights with the dictatorship’s officials and thus accelerated the end to those terrible years.
Obama will be in Argentina for the 40-year anniversary of the coup that began this reign of terror. It has been reported that he plans to announce the declassification of archives related to the US’s activities in regard to the dictatorship. This is a welcome step that echoes the one taken by President Clinton who published files related to the US’s role in the 1973 coup in Chile. While certainly this is an important gesture that, depending on what is released, could aid investigations into the 30,000 disappeared and 500 kidnapped babies, it is also a small step. Goñi points this out when he writes that the administration “clearly miscalculated the depth of feeling here that surrounds March 24”. As he has in the past, Goñi presents a viewpoint this could be characterized as a historically-contextualized balance. In this case his conclusion seems to be that the US did bad and good in regard to Argentina, but that Obama will have to go much further than publish some documents even to begin to address the harm that began on March 24, 1976.
Click on image to read Uki Goñi's piece
