Explainer: The Impact of Argentina’s Chainsaw on Memory, Truth, and Justice Policies

Since its return to democracy in the early 1980s, Argentina has made major strides in addressing crimes against humanity committed during the 1976–1983 dictatorship. The challenge of confronting its brutal past while building a strong democracy has shaped political debates and become a defining aspect of the country’s identity and pride. The dictatorship era, which was marked by a plan to exterminate part of the population and included the use of kidnappings, torture, sexual violence, forced disappearances, and the kidnapping of babies born in captivity, has left behind deep scars. Ensuring that such atrocities will never happen again has driven several policy reforms over the years. 

Underpinning these reforms is Argentina’s post-dictatorship democratic pact, developed over the past forty years. This tacit pact is systematized and encapsulated in the Nunca Más ("Never Again")—the final report by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons—published in 1984. Its core principles are the recognition of the dictatorship's atrocities as crimes against humanity, the principle that the military should not intervene in political affairs, and the acknowledgment that over 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared by the regime. Even as successive administrations handled past dictatorship crimes with varying policies, these fundamental agreements remained unchallenged.

The Memory, Truth and Justice process, through which the government has sought to address ongoing demands for justice, has marked the recent past. However, since a new government took power in December 2023 with the promise of “taking a chainsaw” to public spending, many of these policies and programs have come under attack. Experts and human rights organizations are warning that these actions could threaten the progress achieved over decades of democracy and are driven by ideological motives rather than purely financial ones. 

How extensive have the recent investigations and prosecutions in connection with the dictatorship been?

Since the Supreme Court upheld a ruling overturning the country’s amnesty laws in 2005, Argentinean courts have prosecuted hundreds of individuals, including members of the military and police as well as civilians members of the clergy, judges, politicians, and businessmen who benefited from these crimes. According to a recent report by the Argentinian Public Prosecutor’s Office, 316 rulings have been issued from the beginning of the trials in 2006 until March 2024;  hundreds of cases are still under investigation.

The prosecuted crimes include kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and the kidnapping of over 500 babies from detained and disappeared mothers. The trials have served a dual role, delivering justice to survivors while also helping to uncover the truth and provide evidence of the crimes committed by the junta and its supporters.

What kinds of actions have been implemented by the new administration that could impact justice and memorial initiatives?

Since Milei’s presidential campaign in 2023, Argentina has seen the rise of dictatorship-denialist narratives, that have minimized past atrocities and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the associated trials. Further, it has framed all policies oriented towards restoring historical memory as ideologically-driven and biased. 

The government has also downplayed dictatorship crimes as outcomes of a war between the military and far-wing insurgent groups while recognizing some ‘excesses’ committed on both sides. It has also dismissed the figure of 30,000 disappeared as false and impossible to verify. Ironically, disappearances are difficult to verify precisely because they were designed to obstruct families and the justice system from accounting for the victims.

Additionally, the administration has cut funding for policies and programs that support investigations into dictatorship-era crimes and promote human rights narratives. These cuts include the dismissal of hundreds of employees from the Human Rights Secretariat and the Justice Ministry. In March 2024, Defence Minister Luis Petri disbanded a specialized team that handled judicial requests for Armed Forces archives in cases of crimes against humanity, drawing widespread criticism from the human rights community, who warned of its damaging impact on ongoing investigations. In August 2024, the government closed a unit within the National Comision for the Right of Identity (CONADI) that played a crucial role in identifying babies illegally taken during the dictatorship—work that had helped restore the identities of nearly 140 individuals to date. 

New policies include severe cuts to museums and memorials, known as “memory sites”. These cuts impact public education work and efforts for justice, as many of these sites house critical police and military archives and serve as key locations for ongoing investigations. Some also contain clandestine burial sites of disappeared victims. Additionally, due to budget constraints, several infrastructure and conservation projects at sites considered to be judicial evidence have been paused, along with archaeological excavations.

How do these measures threaten democracy?

By drastically reducing funding for gathering, analysing and preserving trial evidence, the administration’s budget cuts risk disrupting both ongoing and future judicial investigations. This degrades the public’s access to legal remedies to redress injustices, a fundamental democratic right. Furthermore, in a country still reckoning with its post-dictatorship past, exposing crimes committed by state officials is not only about justice and accountability but also about preventing their recurrence. This is particularly important in Argentina, where government officials once weaponized state resources to terrorize the population. 

Furthermore, by weakening Memory, Truth, and Justice initiatives and downplaying the severity of the regime’s crimes, the government risks weakening democratic resilience. By undermining its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and turning its back on the power of lessons learned, it loses the ability to build infrastructure to protect it in future crises. Without memorials and educational programs to preserve the memory of victims for future generations, the lessons from Argentina’s darkest period risk being forgotten or dismissed, potentially allowing history to repeat itself.

What should we expect for the future?

There have been strong reactions and widespread criticism of the new policies. On the anniversary of the military coup in 2024, hundreds of thousands across the country protested rising dictatorship denialism. Additionally, several legal actions are challenging these measures, aiming to prevent the dismissal of key workers and ensure the continued operation of vital research facilities and memory sites. The country has also witnessed a wave of actions in support of memory sites reaffirming a collective commitment to preserving historical truth. In this sense, there is reason to remain hopeful that many of the hard-won victories in the field of the Memoria, Verdad and Justicia process will not be undone by a single administration. However, as the new administration moves forward, staying attentive to developments in this area will be key.