Lessons from an Argentine Human Rights Trial

How many of these human rights
violators* can you identify?

At the end of the Automores Orletti human rights trial here in Buenos Aires last week, the federal guard assigned to keeping the right wingers and the left wingers apart, asked me what I thought of the prison sentences.

I told him I thought the rule of law had finally prevailed.

Without missing a beat, he asked, "When is that going to happen in your country?"

I looked at him puzzled. He said one word: "Guantanamo."

He then recalled how an Israeli attending the Orletti trial asked him during a break, "How could you Argentines have allowed this to happen?"

The guard said he asked the Israeli how the Israelis could have allowed Sabra and Shatila to happen.

From 1976 to 1983, the Argentine military junta implemented a hideous illegal  system of crime and punishment for political opponents that bore absolutely no resemblance to the South American nation's own legitimate legal system.

Likewise, from the 1960s onward the U.S. and Israeli governments have cynically ignored their own legal systems when it suited them even as they have hypocritically insisted that others adhere to the rule of law.

Whether for the invasion of Iraq on trumped up grounds or for the carpet bombing of civilians in Lebanon and Gaza in retaliation for imagined slights, the U.S. and Israel have earned top honors among the human rights violators in the world.

The question is will they ever pay.

Last week, former Argentine General Eduardo Cabanillas received a life prison sentence for his role in kidnappings, torture, and murder conducted at the Automotores Orletti "detention center". Three underlings received sentences ranging from 20 years to 25 years. Many more prosecutions are under way.

Perhaps in some twisted way U.S. and Israeli officials already have begun to pay a small price. How many times has former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger traveled to Chile? How many Israeli officials have we read about canceling plans to travel to London?

Like the guard in the Orletti trial, most of the rest of the world is not being fooled.

*From left to right, top to bottom: Eduardo Cabanillas, Raul Guglielminetti, Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina); Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama (USA); Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni (Israel)