MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine lower house repeals impunity laws

With marchers demanding justice outside, Argentina's Chamber of Deputies voted late Tuesday night to annul two laws providing immunity from prosecution on atrocities charges for former officials of the 1970s dictatorship.

The legislators declared the Final Stop and Due Obedience laws "null" at 11:34 (0234 GMT on Wednesday) in a congressional session that lasted almost eight hours. Now the nullification bill will be sent to the Senate for its approval.

The thousands of demonstrators in the streets outside got something to cheer about when the lower house voted earlier to approve a government bill incorporating provisions of an international pact on crimes against humanity into the Argentine Constitution.

The measure was the first of three bills that must pass both houses to put an end to the so-called "impunity laws," which were promulgated by the administration of Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989). The head of the governing Peronist party bloc, Jose Maria Diaz Bancalari, called the vote a "historic decision," adding that such an outcome was the wish of President Nestor Kirchner.The measures revoke Full Stop and Due Obedience laws protecting agents of the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. More than 1,500 police and soldiers accused of human rights violations during the military regime have benefited from the two laws since they came into force.

The ratification of a 1968 U.N. convention excluding war crimes and crimes against humanity from the statute of limitations was a clear sign to the Supreme Court, which has been reviewing the validity of the laws blocking authorities from prosecuting military officers accused of atrocities.

The thousands who demonstrated outside Congress to demand an end to the impunity laws cheered the passage of the administration's bill.

"It's necessary to overcome impunity so that what happened never happens again," said Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel. "Without peace and justice, no reconciliation is possible," Perez Esquivel insisted. Argentina signed the United Nations treaty in the mid-1980s. In 1995, Congress endorsed the document, but the administration had to ratify it before it went into effect.

A 1994 reform saw the incorporation in the Argentine Constitution of all international treaties on human and civil rights, except the one denying the protection of the statute of limitations to those accused of atrocities. The treaty establishes that statutes of limitations do not apply to war crimes and crimes against humanity and obligates signatories to adopt the necessary measures to expedite extraditions according to international law. The proposal to revoke the measures would also void the pardons granted since 1989 that secured the release from prison of leaders of the military regime and heads of the guerrilla groups that operated in Argentina from the 1970s.

The issue gained national prominence when former Argentine navy officer Ricardo Cavallo was extradited from Mexico to Spain last month to face trial for murder and terrorism for his actions under the military regime.

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who became famous in 1998 for trying to have former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet extradited from London, indicted Cavallo for offenses committed against Spanish citizens in Argentina during the so-called "dirty war" against leftists and dissidents.

Of the 46 Argentines indicted in Spain on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture, 41 are under arrest, while another two have died and three others were declared fugitives by the Argentine judge handling the case.

Polls show most Argentines would prefer to see the accused tried at home rather than abroad.

President Nestor Kirchner, who took office in May, wants the trials held in Argentina, but the two laws must be repealed before that can take place.