UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON STATE TERRORISM IN ARGENTINA
October 21, 2026
Preamble
Considering that the abhorrent acts perpetrated by the Argentine Military Dictatorship constitute flagrant, widespread, and systematic violations of the norms of International Law, having breached the fundamental principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José, Costa Rica), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance;
Considering that tragic events unfolded in the Argentine Republic during the 1970s and 1980s, constituting one of the darkest pages in the history of humanity, marked by institutional breakdown and the establishment of Police State Terrorism;
Considering that the parapolice violence unleashed by the “Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A)” during the democratic government of Perón operated as the dress rehearsal for social destabilization and ideological persecution that preceded the coup d’état;
Considering that the systematic appropriation and theft of newborn babies, as well as the suppression of their identities, constituted one of the most abhorrent crimes of the regime, aiming to fracture the biological, cultural, and emotional continuity of persecuted families from the rest of society;
Considering that the implementation of enforced disappearance of persons was established as the central method of mass extermination, plunging a vast number of families not only into the indescribable pain of the absence of their loved ones, but also into the institutional denial of the Truth regarding whether the disappeared remained alive or were dead;
Considering that the clandestine center of detention, torture, and extermination operated at the Navy Petty Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA) symbolizes the cruelest engineering of horror, functioning as a concentration camp where, before being murdered, victims systematically suffered abhorrent physical and psychological torments, including prolonged sessions of electric cattle prods (picana eléctrica), mock executions, sexual violence, subjugation to inhuman conditions of captivity, and the deliberate shattering of human dignity;
Considering that the so-called “death flights” (vuelos de la muerte) represented the ultimate expression of dehumanization and the clandestine concealment of crimes, casting thousands of human beings into the void in a fruitless attempt to erase all traces of their existence;
Considering that the economic plan implemented by Martínez de Hoz—Minister of Economy of the Military Dictatorship—was not merely an adjustment policy, but a criminal project of regressive social transformation intended to destroy the industrial fabric, pulverize labor rights, concentrate wealth, and dismantle the community and solidarity foundations of the Argentine people through subjugation;
Considering that Operation Condor, developed by US intelligence, institutionalized a transnational criminal network of repressive coordination among multiple South American dictatorships, demonstrating that dictatorial terror transcended Argentina’s national borders to pursue, kidnap, and murder leftist political opponents throughout the continent;
Considering that the heroic resistance of the persecuted who were forced into exile wove indispensable networks of international solidarity to expose the lies of the Argentine regime and diplomatically corner the perpetrators through journalism and human rights organizations;
Considering that State Terrorism counted on the active complicity and financing of sectors of economic and corporate Power, shaping a true civic-military dictatorship;
Considering that following the advent of democracy under President Alfonsín’s government, the foundational work of the “National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP)” and the historic Nunca Más report broke the shroud of silence and impunity, revealing the institutional magnitude of the tragedy by gathering 8,960 documented cases of disappeared or extrajudicially murdered individuals, while expressly recognizing in the “Nunca Más” report the impossibility that the complaints reflected the entirety of the crimes perpetrated; wherefore the emblematic figure of 30,000 disappeared expresses the qualitative and quantitative magnitude of the systematic plan of extermination, standing as an open figure whose definitive clarification and documentary verification remain a duty of the State;
Considering that the trial and sentencing of the Military Juntas in 1985 constituted a pioneering jurisprudential milestone worldwide, serving as an example in international criminal justice and the prosecution of crimes against humanity by civil courts of a democratic State;
Considering that the enactment of the “Full Stop and Due Obedience” laws by President Alfonsín, along with the subsequent presidential pardons granted by President Menem in the early 1990s, represented an institutional attempt to enshrine impunity and block justice, which was patiently resisted by civil society and human rights organizations until their declaration of nullity;
Considering that the historic legislative annulment in 2003 by President Kirchner’s government, together with the subsequent declaration of unconstitutionality by the Supreme Court of Justice, set an international precedent by demonstrating that crimes against humanity are imprescriptible and do not admit amnesty, pardon, or forgiveness of any kind;
Considering that the highest ecclesiastical authorities of the Catholic Church were complicit in Genocide and Crimes against Humanity during the Military Dictatorship;
The Federation for Peace and Justice against the Surveillance State proclaims this “Universal Declaration on State Terrorism in Argentina”:
Article 1. Imprescriptibility of Crimes Against Humanity
The tireless work of the organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo) is recognized in seeking to investigate, prosecute, and punish the State Terrorism exercised in Argentina during the 1970s and 1980s, which under International Law constituted a Crime against Humanity, and under Argentine Criminal Law constituted Genocide.
Article 2. Principle of Non-Repetition Against New Authoritarianisms
The institutional violence of the Argentine police and intelligence services in December 2001 under President De La Rúa is condemned for disregarding human life and undermining constitutional democracy by carrying out violent ideological persecution of civilian protesters, killing dozens of people and leaving hundreds injured, causing the state terror of the past to reappear under a new institutional facade.
Article 3. Repudiation of Institutional Violence
The extrajudicial killings of unarmed civilian protesters Kosteki and Santillán in 2002 are repudiated, having suffered savage gunshots by the Argentine police, demonstrating once again that the old State Terrorism was still latent.
Article 4. Rights to Truth, Memory, and Restitution of Identity
The extraordinary humanitarian work of the organization Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo (Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo) is revalidated in striving to uncover the Truth regarding massive human rights violations, preserving historical archives and memory sites, and guaranteeing the search, identification, and restitution of the stolen identities of girls and boys who were appropriated during the State Terrorism of the Military Dictatorship, thereby helping to safeguard the historical continuity of families and the nation.
Article 5. Condemnation of New Disappearances or Extrajudicial Killings
It is affirmed that new disappearances under democracy are intolerable, noting that in 2006 this very event occurred to witness Jorge Julio López—a victim and survivor of the kidnappings and torture perpetrated during the Military Dictatorship—hours before Etchecolatz, former Director of Investigations of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police, was sentenced to prison.
Article 6. Manifesto Against Prison Torture
The situation of oppression and systematic violations of fundamental rights within the Argentine penitentiary system under President Macri is criticized, as widespread torture, cruel and degrading treatment, inhuman isolation, police abuse, and thousands of inmate deaths occurred, establishing patterns of institutional violence and extreme overcrowding that perpetuate repressive frameworks inherited from the Argentine Military Dictatorship, constituting new Crimes against Humanity.
Article 7. Statement on Persecution Against Indigenous Peoples
It is pointed out that the repressive actions of the Argentine State against the Mapuche indigenous community constitute a regression to the political violence and extrajudicial executions characteristic of the last military dictatorship, as demonstrated by the deaths of Santiago Maldonado and Rafael Nahuel during violent repressional operations by the National Gendarmerie, revealing a systematic pattern of militarization, stigmatization, state violence, and impunity that violate the human rights of tribal peoples.
Article 8. Analysis of Economic and Financial Complicity
It is revealed that the same economic policies of Martínez de Hoz have been repeated with Minister Caputo during the presidencies of Macri and Milei, exposing the existence of a criminal plan of industrial and labor destruction, state disinvestment, and excessive national indebtedness, subjecting the population to inhuman levels of poverty while simultaneously benefiting a small financial and corporate elite.
Article 9. Critique of Mass Surveillance
The illegal and unconstitutional actions of intelligence services carrying out clandestine espionage, intimidation, and persecution against hundreds of politicians, social leaders, journalists, judges, and human rights activists are proscribed; human rights to privacy, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression must be protected, and the Surveillance State and algorithmic control that erode fundamental liberties must be prohibited.
Article 10. Critique of Disproportionate Institutional Violence
Deep alarm is expressed over the escalation of police repression and the criminalization of the right to social protest during the presidencies of Macri and Milei, evidenced by arbitrary detentions, disproportionate use of force against public demonstrations, employment of toxic gases prohibited by International Law, and shootings at civilians and journalists—including physical assaults against opposition lawmakers, the elderly, disabled individuals, and students protesting peacefully—placing police repression at its closest point to the Military Dictatorship of the past.
Article 11. Legal Act on Lack of Judicial Protection
The social vulnerability generated by the arbitrariness of the Argentine judicial system is condemned for consolidating a structure of impunity for the benefit of rich and powerful elites, whereby judicial inefficiency and systemic corruption across state powers perpetuate police repression, torture, human rights abuses, and alliances with organized crime—such as human trafficking and sexual slavery involving thousands of women and children disappeared during democracy—depriving the civilian population of fundamental rights to peace and justice.
Article 12. Decree on Unconstitutional Mass Lockdown
Deep concern is expressed over the instrumentalization of the Covid-19 health emergency and the propagation of mass panic to establish a de facto Police State and a covert state of siege breaking the constitutional order; mandatory and unrestricted confinement was used as a pretext for suppressing fundamental civil liberties—such as free movement, work, education, religion, and association—resulting in millions of arbitrary detentions by state repressive forces, representing a grave violation of constitutional guarantees and an alarming regression toward the Crimes against Humanity committed by the Military Dictatorship in the past.
Article 13. Defense of Human Rights Activists
It is denounced that human rights specialist Gabriel Antonio Ponti suffered violent police attacks against his residence and attempted kidnappings of his partner, resulting in his forced displacement within Argentina; furthermore, for three and a half years he suffered constant surveillance, device espionage, face-to-face intimidation, burglaries, and death threats; and following the publication of books on human rights and genocide, he began receiving constant psychological torture, including the killing of his pet by the intelligence services of Argentine security forces.
Article 14. Support for Amnesty International
The report by the prestigious human rights organization Amnesty International is warmly welcomed, confirming the existence of a Surveillance State over the population in Argentina; furthermore, it is recorded that said report does not encompass the full complexity of human rights violations carried out by espionage, an issue deeply analyzed in the book “Critique of the Surveillance Empire” (Crítica al Imperio de Vigilancia) by Gabriel Antonio Ponti.
Article 15. Rejection of Negationism and Apology for State Terrorism
All denial or trivialization of Genocide, as well as any justification or apology for the crimes of State Terrorism, are peacefully combated as direct attacks on the dignity of victims that threaten peaceful coexistence by perpetuating impunity and reviving Police State authoritarianism.
Article 16. Intergenerational Transmission of History
The duty of institutions and States to transmit the historical memory of victims and survivors of the Police State or State Terrorism is declared, educating in human rights and the culture of peace to guarantee ethical consciousness in future generations, promoting that the world follow the Path of Respect for the dignity of life, and inspiring humanity to cry out forever: Never Again (Nunca Más).
