On 24 March 1976, a military coup brought a brutal regime of terror and persecution to power in Argentina. The military orchestrated and executed a systematic plan to eliminate those deemed “subversive” – from union leaders to artists and students. The atrocities committed during this period include enforced disappearances, kidnappings, torture, sexual violence, murders, and the forced adoption of newborns whose mothers were detained. Against this backdrop, corporate interests aggressively pushed the adoption of a neoliberal economic model in the country and profited significantly from the violence. The dictatorship continued for roughly seven years, but even more than 40 years after it ended, many of its crimes have still not been addressed – while some even continue to this day.

When liberal democracy was reinstated in 1983, the human rights movement – most notably led by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo 1 – became, and still is, a legendary beacon of light in the pursuit of memory, truth and justice. 2 Its main objectives are to uncover the truth about the atrocities committed, to demand justice for the victims and families, and to preserve the memory of those who suffered under the dictatorship. To this day, their work aims to ensure that Argentine society grasps the severity of these crimes, so they may never again be repeated.

Transnational networks, exile communities and civil society actors outside of Argentina have long supported Argentine efforts to end impunity for military and government officials and business actors for the crimes they committed during the dictatorship. At the end of the 1980s, amnesty laws were passed that prevented such prosecutions in Argentina. As a result, investigations by courts abroad became the primary vehicle to address the crimes, but only in cases where the victims were foreign nationals. These efforts also took place in Germany, where in 1998 the Coalition Against Impunity 1 was founded. Lawyers for the coalition, including Wolfgang Kaleck, criminal law attorney and ECCHR’s General Secretary, filed criminal complaints against members of the military junta and business actors (such as Mercedes-Benz) that were involved in the murders and enforced disappearances of German-Argentine individuals. 2 In 2003, these efforts led to a warrant for the arrest of the former dictator Rafael Videla and other high-ranking suspects, which can rightfully be viewed as a great success for the movement. Wolfgang Kaleck sought to continue this type of transnational litigation in the global fight against impunity, which is the reason why ECCHR was founded in 2007.

Seeking justice through legal means to hold perpetrators accountable remains the guiding principle of ECCHR’s work. When avenues for legal action are sealed off in countries where crimes took place, ECCHR supports those affected in seeking justice in international courts or in national courts of third countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction. However, the foreclosure of legal options, as seen during the period of the amnesty laws, also forces social movements to innovate and adopt other approaches toward truth, memory and justice. Art has a long history of playing a transformative role in such cases, enabling us to ask more fundamental and radical questions and expand the reach of human rights struggles into other forums to foster dialogue and inspire collective action. In its work against impunity in Argentina, ECCHR has come together with various artists to address crimes and support civil society movements, including Marcelo Brodsky 3 , the collective Etcetera, Azul Blaseotto and Eduardo Molinari. 4

In this spotlight, we feature works by artist Federico Geller, a long-time collaborator with ECCHR. Geller centers his artistic practice around memory, while weaving in the current political and social context. The drawings presented here emerged from his collaboration with ECCHR and CELS and reflect upon the struggle for memory, truth and justice in Argentina. 5

The long and winding road to justice reached new heights in 2005, when the amnesty laws were finally repealed. This ushered in a wave of prosecutions, some of which are still ongoing today against aging perpetrators. While this opened the door to a more comprehensive reckoning with the systematic nature of the crimes, justice efforts still must contend with the obstacles of time itself. By the time that many perpetrators are called to account, some may no longer be alive or in a physical or mental condition to endure prosecution – granting them de facto “biological impunity.” This race against time is also well known to revisionist forces who seek to bury the history of the dictatorship because, as more years go by, its horrific details become that much harder to uncover.

Among those targeted as “subversive” by the dictatorship were Alejandro Omar Marocchi and Fernando Hallgarten, young men who were detained in 1976 in the city of Mar del Plata and taken to the local Naval Base. Anahí Marocchi and Fabián Hallgarten, the siblings of Omar and Fernando, along with many other families impacted by the dictatorship, were forced to embark on the pursuit of memory, truth and justice to determine the whereabouts and fates of their loved ones.

While several criminal trials in Mar del Plata led to convictions of former members of the military, many perpetrators remain in impunity. One of them was Luis Esteban Kyburg. A former Naval officer, he was Second Commander of the “Tactical Divers” Unit at Mar del Plata’s Naval Base in 1976 at the onset of the dictatorship. When trials began in Mar del Plata, investigations revealed Kyburg’s essential criminal role, as the premises of his unit were being used to hold captive and torture those, like Omar and Fernando, who were detained and accused of being “subversive.” Before a trial against Kyburg could begin in Argentina, he fled to Germany, where his German citizenship protected him from extradition to Argentina.

With the support of ECCHR, in 2018 Anahí Marocchi, who had participated in the Mar del Plata trials as civil party and witness, filed a criminal complaint in Berlin against Kyburg for the murder of her brother Omar and at least 19 other people. 1 In early 2023, Fabián Hallgarten joined the case for the murder of his brother Fernando. Throughout the years, Argentine institutions, civil society organizations (including our partner organization CELS 2 ), activists and experts supported the case by sharing key evidence with ECCHR and the German prosecutors in charge of the investigation. Without this transnational collaboration, the prosecutors would have not been able to understand the systematic character of the crimes committed by the Argentine armed forces during the dictatorship, along with Kyburg’s role in them. 

As a result, on 30 October 2023 the German prosecutors in Berlin indicted Kyburg at the Berlin Regional Court for the murder of 23 people, including Omar and Fernando. Yet, Kyburg had already died earlier that month in a Berlin hospital without having been informed of his indictment. 

Although a clear example of biological impunity, this surprising end to the case does not erase its historical importance. It was the first case brought against a former member of the Argentine military living in Germany, continuing the struggle that the Coalition Against Impunity started more than 20 years ago. The 220-page indictment and the charges against Kyburg exhibited German prosecutors’ extensive understanding of the repressive apparatus that the Argentine state had constructed to commit crimes, as well as Kyburg’s essential participation in it. 

Anahí and Fabián do not see the outcome of this case as a failure. On the contrary, reaching an indictment against Kyburg in Germany, which detailed his role in the murders of Omar, Fernando and others, has tremendous value in and of itself, and contributes to advancing the current struggle for memory, truth, and justice in Argentina.

Despite tremendous efforts to ensure that crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship will never again be repeated, attempts to undermine this process never ceased. With Argentina's current President Milei and Vice President Victoria Villaruel, this revisionist discourse has now reached the highest level of government and aims to undo decades of progress in human rights work.

Measures taken by the extreme right-wing government of Javier Milei

1 Argentine civil society fought to establish processes for memory, truth and justice even while the dictatorship was still in place. The continued translation of these demands into public policies has been a feature of Argentina's democracy for over 40 years. Many of these policies can only be carried out by the state: uncovering the identities of kidnapped children who are now adults; the judicial investigation of repressive structures; or the opening of intelligence agency archives. The suspension of these policies would cause damage that is difficult to calculate, while the legitimation of the state terrorism practiced under the dictatorship serves to enable repression in the here and now, the consequences of which could be disastrous.

Milei’s libertarian and extreme right-wing government and, above all, Vice President Villaruel, seek to reverse these policies based on human rights, in favor of those vindicating the crimes committed by the military. Since Milei’s election, the government has engaged in actions that publicly display its commitment to legitimizing the dictatorship: official speeches that vindicate clandestine and illegal repression; praise for the pardoning of military leaders; and visits to perpetrators convicted of torture and murder. These actions reinforce a revisionist project of denialism that seeks to frame the pursuit of memory, truth and justice as an affront to the perpetrators – namely convicted former military officers – and portray them as victims. In fact, survivors’ testimonies, documentation and other forms of evidence overwhelmingly demonstrate the cruelty and the seriousness of dictatorship crimes.

Impact of the current revisionist discourse and repression on the Argentine social movements

In 1999, some of the children of the mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo founded the organization H.I.J.O.S. (Hijas e Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio; HIJOS translates as “children”). As a political organization, it brings together the children of those disappeared, exiled, politically imprisoned, and killed during the military dictatorships installed in Latin American countries during the 1970s.

H.I.J.O.S. has branches in Europe, such as H.I.J.O.S. Germany, to which Ezequiel Monteros belongs. The organization estimates that roughly 500 children of “disappeared” women were secretly given up for adoption by the military. By now, 139 identities were recovered by collective effort. Today the search is at risk due to the denialist efforts of the Milei government.

The rise of the right and its impact on accountability efforts is not unique to Argentina. Right-wing parties across the globe are also interconnected – as the alarming ties between right-wing groups in Germany and Argentina illustrate. The shadowy connections between Germany and Argentina extend back almost 50 years and include economic and political actors. During the dictatorship, the German automobile enterprise Mercedes-Benz collaborated with the regime to forcibly disappear 18 of its workers. A case against a former Mercedes-Benz executive is still open in Argentina with hearings that are likely to start in 2025 (our partner CELS is one of the civil parties in the proceedings). This was not an isolated incident, as many private actors took advantage of the situation to suppress workers’ rights and increase their profits. 1

At the political level, efforts to change the narrative about crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship and “anti-subversion” discourses are not just Argentine efforts. In fact, Argentina’s far-right political movement has received direct sponsorship from political parties in the Global North, and in particular from Germany. 

While Argentine social movements and civil society have maintained strong connections with the international human rights movement over decades now, it is also important to examine the global reach of far-right actors and networks. By funding meetings and communication activities, for example, they have contributed significantly to the current backlash in Argentina. Recent research has begun to reveal the extent of this collaboration and the silent, yet long-lasting, effects of German right-wing actors on the deepening of right-wing extremism in Argentina.

Germany and Argentina: Continuities between old and new right

The growth of the ultra-right in Argentina is a multi-causal phenomenon: the crisis of traditional political parties, the failure of progressive governments, a fragmented and strained labor market, a young population still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, social conservatism with a new  post-feminist backlash, the digital circulation of hate speech, inflation and more inflation. However, one of the factors that remains less visible is the support that ultra-right parties receive from foreign political parties or associated foundations, which are directly opposed to the values of the transnational human rights movement. 1

Some examples include:

• The Hayek Society’s award to President Milei in June 2024 is a symbolic milestone in the long trajectory of German foundations seeking to influence the Argentine political scene. The Hayek Society is a think tank that has increasingly aligned itself with the rising German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). Important businessmen, representatives of the FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei, Germany's liberal party) left the Hayek Society in protest against its growing indistinction with the AfD.

• Milei also received prizes in 2024 from other neoliberal think tanks in Italy and Spain.

• Since 2016, the Naumann Foundation (associated with the FDP) and its Argentine allies promoted Milei and Villaruel, who later co-founded the political coalition “La Libertad Avanza.” That same year, the Naumann Foundation and the Federalism and Liberty Foundation (FyL for its acronym in Spanish) organized a book launch of Villaruel’s book and an economics workshop led by Milei.

• In 2017 and 2018 the Naumann Foundation facilitated Milei’s meetings with students in Asunción and his participation in conferences in Salta and Tucumán. In other big events in 2018, the Naumann Foundation brought together central figures in the current government, including Milei and current Defense Minister Patricia Bullrich.

• During the pandemic, the Naumann Foundation continued its support, mostly through social media and digital activities. By the beginning of 2021, the Naumann Foundation seemed to have a clear preference for Milei as a presidential candidate, reposting Milei’s popular YouTube video “Pandemic and Socialism. Quarantine as a crime against humanity.” This was the same year in which Milei created his La Libertad Avanza party and obtained a significant 17% of the vote in the 2021 elections, where he was elected as a congressman.

• Other German political foundations, including the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (tied to the conservative party Christian Democratic Union) and the Hanns Seidel Foundation (tied to the Bavarian conservative party Christian-Social Union), have also supported Milei and Villarruel. Although no concrete evidence of ties between the AfD and Milei’s government have been found, AfD Parliamentarian Stefan Keuter visited Argentina in September 2023, months before Milei’s election.

Argentina is currently undergoing a moment of rupture, which threatens decades of struggle for memory, truth and justice. The decision to cancel or weaken human rights policies and institutions is a vital part of the current government’s program. In addition, alliances with ultra-right political parties in Germany and other European countries have been instrumental to the formation of the country’s current political trajectory, in which economic interests take precedence over the protection of human rights and the environment. 

The government's attacks are also focused on the culture of human rights movements, as seen in the government’s  systematic non-compliance with its international commitments. Freedom of expression and assembly, along with various internationally recognized human rights are at serious risk. Those who defend memory, truth and justice are stigmatized, as peaceful protests are violently repressed – painfully evoking the restrictions imposed during the dictatorship.

The pursuit of memory, truth and justice is an established social, political and institutional achievement, which since 1983 has consolidated the commitment and support of national and international civil society, including CELS and ECCHR. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to strengthen existing alliances among human rights organizations and to further develop long-term strategies based on international solidarity and collective support.

Argentina’s lighthouse of truth, memory, and justice continues to bring us glimmers of hope. At the Latin American level, Argentine civil society is very well organized and continues to originate hopeful strategies for how to defend human rights policies or exit the global extractivist system that contributes to the perpetuation of colonial regimes and logics in Abya Yala (Latin America). Protecting democratic values in Argentina not only impacts Argentine society but can ripple to Abya Yala and beyond.