Members of the Ejército Guerrillero del Pueblo in Salta, 1964 | Revista El Sur
text (script) alone can have a positive effect on the acts of violence in which they had participated.
democracy and human rights. Indeed, certain texts Claudia Hilb was a former student militant who
(e.g., heroic or sadistic ones) can have the opposite confessed after she had become a professor at the
effect on their own. Instead, other elements of University of Buenos Aires. Ricardo Leis was a
the confessional performance – the perpetrators Montonero leader who confessed as a Philosophy
themselves (actor and acting), the political moment professor, living in Brazil since his exile there in
(timing), the space of the confession (stage), and the the 1970s. They both called for a reckoning of the
audience – can turn even these potentially harmful violations of human rights by the left to build a
confessions into positive outcomes. stronger democratic and human rights culture in
That positive effect is not a typical outcome for
Argentine politics. They both desired an end to the
armed left confessions, however. Instead, fearful of glorification of violence and the use of violence as
how the right-wing might exploit these confessions a legitimate political tool. They both called for a
to demonize the left, silencing and not contentious rejection of human rights violations by whoever
coexistence has resulted. Yet one factor that may engaged in them, regardless of perpetrators’
contribute to a positive outcome is timing. ideology. The response was silencing. The timing
This article considers timing as a factor shaping
or political moment was not propitious for debate
the impact of left confessions on democracy and about the leftist past. This was a time of heightened
human rights. It looks at two different historical political polarization in Argentina, a strong right-
moments in which the armed left confessed in wing ‘anti-Cristina’ mobilization, and an effort by
Argentina. The more recent set of confessions the right to attack the human rights trials underway
occurred during the presidency of Cristina Fernández in the country as one-sided. The confessions were
de Kirchner. Two former members of the armed left seen as either a call for “justice for all,” which would
made public written confessions, followed up by mean putting the left on trial after it had already
televised interviews, about their past, condemning been decimated through torture, disappearance,
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