MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Massive support for Alfonsin seen as warning to political system

Tens of thousands of Argentines lined the streets of Buenos Aires on Thursday to watch the funeral procession of former President Raul Alfonsin in a public display of gratitude for a leader who conducted the country back to the longest period of democracy since 1983.

Praised as Argentina's “father of democracy,” he served as president from 1983-1989, and died Tuesday night of lung cancer at the age of 82. Tens of thousands waited for hours on Wednesday to file past Alfonsin's open casket in Congress. Thousands more attended an outdoor funeral mass on Thursday before his coffin was carried in an open vehicle to the historic Recoleta cemetery.

Alfonsin took office during a tenuous time after a seven-year dictatorship left at least 13,000 killed or disappeared and the economy in shambles. The event which triggered the return of civilian rule was the disastrous invasion of the Falkland Islands by the military regime which ended in total defeat and disgrace to the hands of a task force sent by British PM Margaret Thatcher.

Political analysts and commentators said the intense reaction to Alfonsin's death showed a disappointment in the Argentina’s more recent leaders and the functioning of the political system. “The key is ... the comparison between him and his principles with everything that followed in the leadership of the country,” wrote analyst and commentator Joaquin Morales Sola in La Nacion newspaper.

Alfonsin, a lawyer and centre-leftist from the Radical Civic Union party, was the first democratically elected leader in decades who did not come from the Peronist party, and when he left office Argentina saw a rare peaceful transition between democratically elected leaders from different parties.

His daring decision to put top military leaders on trial for human rights violations was lauded worldwide. But he narrowly survived three military uprisings during his tenure and was forced to approve sweeping amnesty laws that protected lower ranking officers. Only now, after the Supreme Court reversed the amnesty, are many of these people being prosecuted for kidnapping, torture and murder.

“Alfonsin's most important legacy has been the trial of the crimes of state terrorism,” said Horacio Verbitsky, a political analyst and journalist in Buenos Aires. “Later he wasn't able to live up to the very forces he had unleashed and he ended up passing the amnesty laws.” Alfonsin acknowledged these shortcomings when Argentina marked the 25th anniversary of civilian rule last year, saying “our democracy is limp and incomplete.”

The Argentine government released on Thursday a personal condolence letter from US President Barack Obama which praised Mr. Alfonsin as “a seminal figure in the consolidation of democracy in Latinamerica. We join those throughout the Americas in expressing our respects and esteem for his personal integrity and his commitment to democratic principles and human rights”.