INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON ARCHIVES SECTION ON ARCHIVES AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Note of concern about the measures taken by the Argentine government concerning for the archives of the Ministry of Defense
The International Council on Archives (ICA) was created in 1948 as an international agency sponsored by UNESCO to strengthen and protect archives and to promote their use by societies in different countries of the world, in a spirit of cooperation and professional support among its members: national archives or bodies developing archival policies, professional associations, archival institutions and individual archivists. Its Archives and Human Rights Section (SAHR) promotes the role of archives as providers of evidence of human rights violations, monitors their loss, and advocates archival policies that guarantee their preservation and use by citizens for the construction and rebuilding of democratic societies.
Given this background, the ICA expresses its deep concern about the measures adopted by the authorities of the Ministry of Defense of Argentina, chaired by Luis Petri, which have interrupted access of specialized civilian personnel of the Survey and Analysis Teams to military documentation related to the serious violations of human rights committed during the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. The ICA therefore assesses negatively the announcement of the repeal of resolutions 308/2010 and 1573/2023 that established this policy and resolution 1131/2015 that regulates the System of Defense Archives.
These resolutions, as well as the actions derived from them, are the result of the practical application of archival policies developed in Argentina to assert the right to know the fate of missing persons and to know the truth about the atrocities committed in the years of the dictatorship and are framed, among other international instruments, in the Principles on Public Memory Policies in the Americas, approved by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (OAS), resolution 3/2019; in the Set of Updated Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through the Fight against Impunity endorsed by the Human Rights Council (UN), Document E/CN.4/2005/102/Add. 1; and in the ICA Principles on Access to Archives (2012). These policies also advocate the presentation of documentary evidence to the courts that have judged and continue to judge the human rights violations reported since the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws were repealed in Argentina.
The decision of the government of Javier Milei to repeal the resolutions mentioned above together with the cancellation of the contracts of most of the members of the Documentary Survey and Analysis Teams promoted in previous years by the Human Rights Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, constitutes an grave setback in obtaining truth and justice in Argentina, as its government consciously dispenses with the endorsement that the documents, as evidence, have in the Transitional Justice bodies created in the country in its political transition: objective knowledge of the truth about what happened, demand for responsibilities and punishment of perpetrators and reparation
Considering that the measures announced by the Government would have negative consequences for the democratic fabric of Argentine society, the ICA calls upon the Argentine government to uphold:
- The maintenance of the contracts of archivists, researchers and other members of the teams who survey and analyse official documentatio
- The maintenance of resolutions 308/2010, 1573/2023 and 1131/2015 and the effective implementation of the Defense Archives System
- The continuation of public archival policies aimed at reinforcing the role of public archives as essential tools to underpin the right to know the truth and to support citizens’ rights
