President Obama pledged Thursday to declassify the first military and intelligence records pertaining to Argentina’s military coup and “dirty war” after visiting Buenos Aires’ park memorializing its victims.
The U.S. released the first collection of diplomatic and other records in 2002. Argentine President Mauricio Macri asked Obama to release additional documents to further help his country reconcile with its authoritarian past.
Appearing with Macri, who was just elected last year, Obama said he was doing so “because I believe we have a responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency.”
Obama acknowledged that the United States’ policy “early in those dark days” of the Argentine military’s reign of terror roughly spanning from the early ’70s to the early ’80s is “controversial.”
The U.S “has to examine its own policies as well and its own past,” Obama said during his first trip to the South American nation, whose relationship with the U.S. was strained to the point of non-existence under Macri’s predecessor. “Democracies have to have the courage to acknowledge when we don’t live up to the ideals that we stand for, when we’ve been slow to speak out on human rights; and that was the case here,” he said.
“A memorial like this speaks to the responsibilities that all of us have. We cannot forget the past, but when we find the courage to confront, and we find the courage to change that past, that’s when we build a better future,” he added.
Obama’s visit coincides with the military coup’s 40th anniversary.
The First Family returns from its trip to Latin America on Friday.
