Alfonsín, Raúl

(1927–2009)

   President of Argentina (1983– 1989), the first democratically elected president in that country after its “dirty war.” He was born in Chascomús, a small farming town 70 miles southeast of Buenos Aires. His father, Serafín Alfonsín, the owner of a general store, was a Spanish immigrant who supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and opposed the dictator Francisco Franco. Serafín also supported the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR, Radical Civic Union, or Radicals), a middle-class party founded in 1890, under whose banner his son would be elected president. Raúl attended the Liceo Militar General San Martín, a military secondary school with a reputation for being the best school in the area. He graduated at 18 with the rank of second lieutenant in the army reserve, but in lieu of a military career, he attended the National University of La Plata, where he studied liberal arts and law and became active in the Radicals.

   After graduating in 1950 with a law degree, Alfonsín entered politics and won a seat on the local council of Chascomús. An outspoken legislator, he endured verbal attacks, death threats, and a brief internment at the hands of the Peronists. He advanced steadily in his political career, winning a seat on the provincial legislature of Buenos Aires in 1958 (reelected in 1960) and then a seat on the Congreso Nacional (National Congress) in 1963. He made a presidential bid in the primary elections of 1972, hoping to wrest control of the party from its veteran wing, whom he accused of collaborating with the military. He lost by a wide margin to Ricardo Balbín. Although some observers thought his political career was over, Alfonsín proceeded to build a large following. He won the support of many young people by forming the Movimiento de Renovación y Cambio (Movement of Renovation and Change), a Radical faction committed to social issues. Following the military coup of 1976, he spoke out openly against the disappearances and demanded that the government account for the missing. He cofounded the Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos (APDH, Permanent Assembly for Human Rights) and used his legal background to defend political detainees. He sought international support for human rights, finding allies in Europe and the United States. (He praised the policies of President Jimmy Carter but criticized those of his successor, Ronald Reagan.) During Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands/ Islas Malvinas in 1982, he was one of the few to speak out against the action, though he did support his country’s claim to the islands. On 30 October 1983, as the leader of the Radical Party, he was elected president, winning 52 percent of the vote and defeating the Peronist candidate Italo Argento Luder. Alfonsín had built his campaign around the issue of human rights, promising to investigate the thousands of disappearances that took place under military rule and to bring those responsible to justice. Meanwhile, Luder had come out on record as supporting the Ley de Pacificación Nacional (Law of National Pacification), an amnesty that the military granted itself before handing power back to civilians. Shortly after taking office on 10 December, Alfonsín repealed the military’s amnesty and ordered the prosecution of the nine former junta leaders as well as such wellknown “dirty war” participants as General Ramón Juan Alberto Camps and General Suárez Masón. And working from the idea that the guerrillas shared responsibility with the military for plunging the country into violence—an idea that became known as the “doctrine of the two demons”—he ordered the prosecution of former guerrilla leaders, among them Mario Firmenich, Fernando Vaca Narvaja, and Enrique Gorriarán Merlo.

   To prosecute, he needed evidence. In December 1983 Alfonsín appointed a truth commission, the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP), or National Commission on the Disappeared. On the strength of the facts collected by the commission, the civilian trial in 1985 of the former dictators—the first of its kind in the history of Latin America—resulted in the conviction of five, including life sentences for Jorge Rafael Videla and Emilio Massera. A second trial, in December 1986—in which a corporal and a police doctor were convicted along with three generals—was noteworthy for assigning responsibility for human-rights violations to lower-ranking officers.

   A public outpouring of testimonials from victims made it likely that many more convictions would follow. But the junior-officer corps, threatened with prosecution and angered by military reforms that included forced retirements and budget cuts, fought back. A series of encounters with the military forced the Alfonsín government to pass two laws that significantly limited the scope of prosecution. The Ley de Punto Final (Full-Stop Law) set a 60-day limit for the filing of human- rights suits, and the Ley de Obediencia Debida (Due Obedience Law) reduced the number of indicted (about 400) to 39, exonerating junior officers on the grounds that they were following orders. His successor, Carlos Saúl Menem, took the additional step of pardoning the 39, as well as Videla, Massera, the other junta leaders, and the former Montonero leader Mario Firmenich. Punto Final and Obediencia Debida were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005. In October 2008 President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner unveiled a bust of Alfonsín, calling him a symbol of Argentina’s return to democracy. He died on 31 March 2009, at age 82.