Description
Drawing on confidential Argentinian documents and memoranda, Behind the Disappearances documents a seven-year diplomatic war by one of the crucial twentieth century’s most brutal regimes. It relates how, starting in 1976, Argentina’s military government tried to cripple the UN’s human rights machinery so to prevent international condemnation of its policy of disappearances. To begin with this attempt succeeded, but in 1980—with encouragement from the Carter administration—UN officials regained the initiative and created a special working group on disappearances that rejuvenated the UN’s efforts. This progress used to be swiftly halted in 1981 when the Reagan administration sided with the Argentinian regime. The end result, claims the writer, not only undercut the UN’s actions against disappearances but additionally weakened its probabilities of playing a positive role in aiding Latin The us’s transition from dictatorship to democracy.