BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Military officers who committed human rights abuses during Argentina's 'dirty war' should be exempt from prosecution because they were only following orders, the nation's top prosecutor says.
If the country's supreme court approves the opinion of Attorney General Juan Guana, it would exempt the majority of an estimated 230 officers now facing prosecution for their role in the torture and execution of 9,000 political prisoners who disappeared during the previous military regime.
Gauna said Thursday the officers should not be prosecuted because Argentina's system of military law requires 'unrestricted obedience' to orders from superiors.
The opinion reflects the desires of leaders of the ruling Radical Civic Union Party to bring a quick end to the human rights trials that have provoked widespread discontent in the armed forces, threatening the stability of Argentina's 40-month-old democracy.
President Raul Alfonsin has supported the 'obedience' theory to exempt lower-ranking officers but the courts have resisted it so far.
Gauna's opinion would not affect the jail terms of five ex-military junta members now serving sentences ranging from 4 years to life for planning and issuing the orders that led to the abuse and disappearance of prisoners.
These officers would not qualify under Gauna's exemption because, as government leaders, they had top authority and issued the orders and made the plans brutally to repress leftist terrorist suspects in the 1970s during Argentina's 'dirty war.'
Nor does the proposed exemption apply to other high-ranking officers who had command and decision-making authority.
However, Gauna's opinion could affect the convictions of five subordinate officers -- including the 25-year sentence given last year to police commissary general Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz.
Once of Alfonsin's first acts after talking office Dec. 10, 1983, was to order an investigation into 'the disappeared.' A panel concluded 9,000 people who vanished were tortured and summarily executed by security forces acting under orders of the military regime that ruled from 1976 to 1983.
Military discontent over the subsequent human rights trials came to a head April 15 when an army major based in Cordoba refused a civilian court summons to answer questions about allegations he tortured prisoners.
Other army commanders refused to arrest him, provoking peaceful uprisings in three other garrisons. Alfonsin personally persuaded the dissident officers to accept his authority as commander in chief, then retired half his generals in an army shakeup.
