Ricardo Gil Lavedra He is now a 74-year-old citizen who, in 1985, was one of the youngest judges to face the daunting task of being among the six lawyers who tried the Argentine Military Juntas.
In the photograph that illustrates the cover of the book that has just been published in Argentina and Spain (The Brotherhood of Astronauts. The trial of the Argentine Juntas from within, Debate) is that young man who poses as part of the court who had to be convinced Julio Strasserathe prosecutor who now goes down in history, too, for being the major protagonist of the film Argentina 1985 in which Ricardo Darin embodies him as a chain smoker and as a citizen who took on the impossible: to judge those who had been arrogant criminals who used power to subdue a people.
In that photo, that young Gil Lavedra, with a descending mustache, red and white striped tie, light-colored shirt, and dark suit, looks ahead as if waiting for a question. Cleared the answer at the end of sessions that were tense as a battle at sea, and years after everything was the end of a nightmare, he has written this book when he is already a man with a white beard, dressed as a gentleman who is on a trip and that in the course of it he answers questions about that immense task that, in the book, ends with a fraternity meal with his colleagues and with the prosecutors who had the mission, for example, to sentence the principal of those to the highest penalty. dictators, Jorge Rafael Videla. After the trial he was, among other positions or assignments, Minister of Justice of Raúl Alfonsín (of the Radical Civic Union). As a practicing lawyer he had, among other clients, Diego Armando Maradona. We spoke with him in a hotel in Madrid. He doesn’t shy away from any questions and looks at you like on the cover of the book, a young man waiting for questions.
Q. How did you live as a citizen, not as a judge, what we could say is the most recent black episode in Argentina?
R. Well, we had been accustomed to not looking at the past because that meant reopening wounds, and that we had to look forward: the past was trodden on, and that’s it. The logical thing was that President Raúl Alfonsín would have followed this trend, but he said that he had not and made a difficult decision: judge the military of the dictatorship.
Q. How did you get Argentina to be a dictatorship?
R. In the Cold War, insurgent groups were appearing throughout Latin America that committed attacks, kidnappings, assassinations… to destabilize the government and achieve power. I do not agree to claim those struggles, because it would be claiming violence. In Argentina, during the Perón government, the armed forces were given various powers to combat them, but within the law. Then, with the excuse of fighting terrorism, the military overthrew the Peronist government. What they wanted was political power, and from the pinnacle of political power, they instituted kidnapping any suspected terrorist, taking him to a place of detention, torturing him for information, and then imprisoning or murdering him. And all in the most absolute secrecy and lying to the relatives. They threw people into the sea or put them in mass graves. Terrible. How was it possible that the State, which was the Military Junta, could do that? very serious The judges asked the military if they had such or such a person and they answered no. And the judge suspected nothing. Relatives who were going to ask about their loved ones were made to go to the Ministry of the Interior and immersed in a lot of bureaucratic procedures that made them dizzy and were useless. In 1983, the political parties asked for a democratic solution and asked the Military Junta for the list of the disappeared. Just that, they didn’t want to judge them.
Q. Then Alfonsín did dare.
R. Yes. I don’t know why, but he dared. Alfonsín thought that democracy needed to solve that. But making a civilian trial of the military could jeopardize the Transition. So he said: judge yourselves. That was the first thing he proposed in Congress, but there, in Congress, things kept changing until they led to what we already know. It is that Alfonsín was a great democrat and for him it was inadmissible not to blame whoever caused all this.
Q. And is it all due to Alfonsín?
R. Well, I think it’s him who gave rise to the whole process.
Q. But now in the movie Argentina 1985 It turns out that Alfonsín does not appear.
R. It is that without Alfonsín there would have been no trial, and in the film everything is presented as if the process had only been a natural consequence. Oh, and that the sentence is sustained by the epic work of the prosecutors. In reality, the trial was the succession of many factors and events of which the prosecution is only a segment.
Q. In The Brotherhood of Astronauts account the climate, the decisions and the camaraderie between judges and prosecutors.
R. Yes. What I want to convey is that the trial can be explained by being the collective work of several men who took part in it. But… more than camaraderie, I would say that we all operated putting our own ideas, and we knew that we had to agree
Q. How did you experience the process and its end?
R. The trial was embedded in the Argentine Transition because it helped to form a consensus: never again a dictatorship, never more violence, yes to democracy. And that promoted the equality of all before the law. Even the most important people have to answer for their crimes before a judge.
Q. How did the defendants face the evidence of their heinous acts during the trial?
R. They had different attitudes. For example: Videla was very respectful of the Court, but he was unaware of its jurisdiction. He said that he could be tried, but by the military. There were others who were very defiant, who looked at you sardonically. Others were half provocative with their expressions. Others took notes. Oh, and Videla was reading a book: The seven words of Christ.
Q. Did you have any gesture of repentance?
R. No. It’s just… the torturer hurt the detainees and then came home, ate with the family and corrected their children’s homework. I think that, deep down, they thought that what they were doing was saving the country, saving Argentina from terrorism.
Q. Did the political power have any interference in the trial while it was taking place?
R. No. Part of the government wanted to maintain Alfonsín’s initial strategy. That’s true. As if above all they wanted to calm the military spirits. But that was only the opinion of some.
Q. But the film evokes a meeting with Alfonsín in which it is inferred that he wanted to tone it down…
R. No. That’s fiction. There was a meeting with Alfonsín before before the trial began. Alfonsín told Strassera: “I have nothing to entrust to him, only that he not go crazy.” And Strassera told him: “What a late president. I’m already crazy.”
Q. Well, that’s better than what’s in the movie!!
R. The film is good because it has brought all this to light. But they lacked historical accuracy. They didn’t need to invent anything, reality is better than what the writers invented.
Q. What role did Peronism play in resolving the conflict with the military?
R. Peronism had changing facets. Before the elections, what Peronism proposed was impunity. In Congress, Peronism supported the annulment of the Amnesty Law and the reforms to the military justice code. But he also refused to have a truth commission. After the trial, Peronism sided with Alfonsín. So it moved. But since Alfonsín had three military uprisings, well… well: it helped that they supported him. Because supporting Alfonsín was supporting democracy. But then, in Menem’s time, Peronism pardoned. He pardoned the processes that had been left open and pardoned the commanders. Later, with Kirchnerism, Peronism supported the reopening of the trials, which are still ending. They took down a painting by Videla from the Military College and they have changed the prologue to the Never more [el informe emitido por la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas durante la dictadura argentina] and they have wanted to take ownership of the subject.
Q. The Never more It was directed by Ernesto Sábato. What changes did you make to the prologue?
R. Vindicate the armed groups that were fought by the military. They presented them as acts of an idealistic youth. But the facts are the facts. Murders are murders. They said that in the previous prologue previous terrorism was equated with what the military did and of course it is not comparable. That of the military is State terrorism and the above is crime, yes. But…they weren’t just acts of idealistic youth either.
Q. Were you afraid during the trial?
R. No, I had no personal fear. No threats reached my house, for example. I didn’t want them to put escorts on me. They gave us a .45 pistol! They wanted us to take it with us. Of course not! No. The only fear I felt was that the trial would fail.
Q. When did you know that this would not happen?
R. After the first weeks of the trial. After the first month, let’s say, I realized that we had the reins. There I felt that it was possible. But the task was cyclopean, right?
Q. But then came that dinner that lasted beyond dawn with judges and prosecutors, after the trial…
R. That was the catharsis: releasing the tension accumulated for so many hours. We drank, we danced, we sang…
Q. And did they write the sentence in a pizzeria, as seen in the film?
R. Noooo! That’s Hollywood! What happened was that after hours of arguing and not agreeing, we went to eat at a pizzeria and the agreement already appeared. Of course: there we agreed. But nothing more.
Q. How was your career after that?
R. For a short time I was Vice Minister of the Interior. Later, when the Alfonsín government ended, I continued to practice as a lawyer. I was also on the United Nations Committee Against Torture. I was Minister of Justice. I was a deputy. But… I am a lawyer. I have always been a lawyer.
Q. And so you had Diego Armando Maradona as a client.
R. Well, among many others. Yes. Maradona was a good guy. Generous, smart. Very easy to communicate. Although… well: he was dragging the drug addiction. The character ended up crushing the person.
Q. You went with other colleagues of yours to tell colleagues in Oslo the story of the trial as a major element in the history of the defense of human rights in the 20th century.
R. We took the trial papers to Oslo, because it was feared they would be lost. We arrived and they gave us a great welcome, all the high authorities entertained us. They treated us like heroes. They suffered a lot from the Nazi occupation and are very sensitive to human rights. Well, they gave us the certification of the international impact we had had.
Q. In Spain, the film has revived the idea that here, too, a trial of Franco’s long dictatorship would have been necessary.
R. It is that each country seeks the best way to deal with its past. Should they have looked at the past or did what they did: look to the future? I don’t know. That can only be answered by the Spanish. All I’m saying is: the truth has a healing effect. The wounds are closed with the truth. Nothing more.
Q. Now in Argentina there is another trial, the one being carried out against Cristina Kirchner, widow of President Kirchner, former president herself and now vice president of the Argentine government. It is said to be a political persecution. How do you see it?
R. I don’t think there is a political persecution. Cristina, and any citizen who is tried, has the right to due process. If there is any alteration there, it has to be resolved. But you cannot say that when they judge you it is for political persecution and that when they judge others, it is not.