Nobel prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and activists had called on US president not to come to Buenos Aires on 24 March

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Barack Obama has rescheduled a trip to Buenos Aires following criticism over his planned presence in the Argentinian capital on 24 March, the 40th anniversary of the brutal 1976 coup that installed a military dictatorship, which the US initially supported.

The US president will now travel to the southern tourist resort of Bariloche, nearly 1,000 miles from Buenos Aires, on 24 March to play golf.

The shuffle came after human rights activists called on Obama to cancel ­or at least reschedule ­his visit. According to the new schedule, Obama will arrive in the capital on the night of 22 March, where he will meet President Mauricio Macri the next day, before leaving for Bariloche.

A military junta imposed martial law on 24 March 1976 and began the killing of thousands of mostly young opponents of a regime that continued until democracy was restored in 1983.

Pope's South American tour recalls a divided church – and a dirty war Read more

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who won the Nobel peace prize for his human rights work during the dictatorship, had warned that Obama’s arrival would coincide with huge marches in commemoration of the victims of the coup, and could even provoke confrontations.

“Obama represents a country that was responsible for various military coups in Latin America, including those in Chile and Argentina,” he told the Guardian.

Although the exact number of victims remains uncertain, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 mostly young, leftwing opponents were made to “disappear” during Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship.

Pérez Esquivel, who was tortured and held without trial for 14 months in the late 1970s, wrote an open letter to Obama asking the US president to postpone his visit.

“In 1976, while you were only 14 years old, we were starting the most tragic period of our history, with the implementation of a state terrorism which subjected our people to persecution, torture, death and the forced disappearance of persons,” Pérez Esquivel wrote. “I am writing as a survivor of that horror [which included] financing, training, and coordination by the United States.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jorge Videla, centre, is sworn in as president in Buenos Aires on 30 March 1976 after the coup. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The military regime’s actions remain the subject of fierce debate in Argentina.

While the former Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner maintained close, personal links with human rights associations, the new centre-right administration of Macri, who took office on 10 December, has shown less enthusiasm for activists.

Earlier this year, the Buenos Aires culture minister, Darío Lopérfido, caused anger by suggesting that the number of missing persons, or desaparecidos, had been inflated by those who sought to profit from government subsidies granted to victims’ families.

Kissinger approved Argentinian 'dirty war' Read more

“There weren’t 30,000 desaparecidos in Argentina. That was a lie made up around a table to get subsidies,” he said during a recent lecture.

The minister’s words inspired bitter debate and he was loudly booed at a recent concert in Buenos Aires by the musician Rufus Wainwright.

US support for military regimes during the 1970s remains a source of acrimony across Latin America. During the administration of Gerald Ford, the then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger gave thinly veiled approval to Argentina’s military for the use of violent measures against leftwing activists.

Declassified US documents describe two meetings in 1976 between Kissinger and the dictatorship’s foreign minister, César Guzzetti, who asked for “understanding and support” to defeat “terrorism”.

According to a memorandum of a conversation in Santiago, Chile, in June of that year, Kissinger told the minister: “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Henry Kissinger was US secretary of state under President Ford, left, at the time of the coup. Photograph: Rex Features

In a subsequent meeting in New York, Kissinger repeated his view that “the quicker you succeed, the better”.

His words undercut the efforts of the then US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill, to convince Argentina’s military to respect human rights.



“Guzzetti went to [the] US fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government’s human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation,” Hill reported to the State Department.



US tolerance of abuse by the Argentinian military came to an end when Jimmy Carter took office in 1977 and pledged to make human rights a cornerstone of his foreign policy.

The most contentious element of Obama’s itinerary is a proposed visit to the former Navy Mechanics school, which was once used as a secret detention centre and is now a memorial.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adolfo Pérez Esquivel said of Obama’s visit: ‘It’s a political decision.’ Photograph: Mariana Eliano/AP

Nora Cortiñas, one of the leaders of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who have battled for decades to locate and identify the remains of their missing sons and daughters, said: “It is an offence to the Argentinian people, to the victims and families, it is an offence and a provocation that this man should be here on 24 March.”

Some activists believe that the Macri government chose the date of the visit on purpose in order to use the US president as a distraction from his lukewarm pronouncements on human rights.

“It’s a political decision,” said Pérez Esquivel, before the rescheduling of Obama’s agenda. “He could go visit Patagonia, the south of Argentina, which is very beautiful, and then he could come back on the 25th.”