Word: alfonsin
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When President Raul Alfonsin peacefully quelled an army rebellion two weeks ago and 200,000 civilian supporters thronged the streets of Buenos Aires, some citizens began to chant, "Raul, friend, the country is with you!" Last week a gathering of 200 angry sympathizers with the military rebels had a different message for the Argentine leader. Their cry: "Death to Alfonsin! Long live the armed forces!" The defiant slogans neatly defined the crisis that now confronts Argentina's still fragile 40-month-old democracy. At issue are government efforts to prosecute some 400 military officers for their role in kidnaping, torturing...
...latest confrontation began when angry officers staged uprisings at a barracks near Cordoba, some 400 miles north of Buenos Aires, and at the Campo de Mayo army base just outside the capital. Their chief demand: amnesty from prosecution for human rights violations. Alfonsin personally intervened to end < the three-day rebellion at Campo de Mayo. With more than 1,000 loyal government soldiers approaching the base on Sunday, he helicoptered from the presidential palace for a face-to-face talk with Lieut. Colonel Aldo Rico, who led the uprising...
Confronting Rico, Alfonsin reportedly asked, "I want to know what you have to say to me." When Rico described the low state of military morale since the 1982 Falklands war, Alfonsin replied that he could not grant amnesty, and gave the rebels 30 minutes to surrender. The mutiny ended without a shot, but the rebels won an apparent concession in the resignation of Army Chief of Staff General Hector Rios Erenu, 56, who supported the trials. Alfonsin replaced Rios Erenu last week with former Inspector General Jose Segundo Dante Caridi, 56. The appointment, however, promptly led to renewed unrest...
...overhaul was only part of Alfonsin's efforts to meet the officers half way. In a judicial move, the Argentine Supreme Court last week suspended the trial of 19 naval officers charged with atrocities. The five-judge court said it will consider long-standing arguments that the defendants were merely following orders...
...While Alfonsin was naturally elated by his victory over the military rebels, he is well aware that he has scarcely brought the armed forces to heel. The disgruntled officers clearly hoped to unsettle the government, and they could try to do so again. Says an Argentine official: "If they could nominate officers and make decisions, they hoped to reassert what they see as a natural right. Then they'd say that such-and-such a minister was a Communist and had to go. Eventually, they may have been looking for a coup down the road." Alfonsin's task...