MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Basic training in human rights for Argentine troops

Hundreds of Argentine troops are headed back to class for a different sort of basic training — in human rights.

The initiative was ordered by Defence Minister Nilda Garré, a veteran leftist politician and critic of the 1976-83 military dictatorship. The move comes as Argentina struggles to fully confront the junta era during which security forces killed or caused to disappear about 30,000 people. Some 600 army, navy and air force officers will take the three-month, civilian-taught courses on the role of the state in a democratic society, conflict resolution and justice, the Defence Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. Under the government of President Néstor Kirchner, who took office in 2003, Argentina has forced many military officers into retirement and re-opened hundreds of rights cases after overturning a series of 1980s amnesty laws. Last week a federal court threw out presidential pardons from 1990 for two top junta leaders. But the Kirchner government and activists were dismayed by the disappearance last September of a key witness in a dirty war-era prosecution.