Emilio Fermín Mignone was an Argentinian writer, lawyer, professor, and human rights activist. He was a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights in Argentina and founder and first president of the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, an organisation responsible for the documentation and the denunciation of the human rights violations committed by the military dictatorship in Argentina from 1976-1983.
During the first years of the Peronist regime, he worked as part of the government for the Ministry of Justice. He had an important career in the field of education, working at the Organization of the American States (OAS) as a specialist in educational policy.
In 1973, three years before the coup that lead to the implementation of the dictatorship in Argentina, Emilio was the rector of the National University of Luján, the city where he was born. In the events that followed the military coup, he renounced his role at the university. In 1975 he assumed the role of director of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. (FLACSO). He passed away in 1998.
THE DISAPPEARED
From 1976 to 1983, Argentina was one of many countries in Latin America in which elected governments were overthrown by military juntas. The neighboring countries of Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Uruguay all followed the same path. These regimes were strongly repressive, and built upon State Terrorism. Political freedom of speech was constantly under threat.
Everyone who did not follow the strict path of the so called “revolution” was endangered. During this period, Argentina saw the emergence of the “desaparecidos”; dissidents who, after standing up against the regime, would end up “missing”. These enforced disappearances continue to haunt Argentina and it is issue that is still not concluded amidst revisionism around the Argentinian “Dirty War”.
Emilio’s daughter Monica was one of the many people disappeared under the military government. Monica was detained on the 14 May 1976 and was never seen again. After this event, Emilio was part of a campaign to find her and to prevent others going “missing” in a similar manner. His wife Angelica was one of the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organisation – during the military dictatorship, mothers of disappeared men and women would march on the streets of Buenos Aires claiming for justice and truth for their sons and daughters, raising awareness on the issue. Around 30,000 people are considered disappeared under the military regime in Argentina.
Mignone’s work had a substantial role in the success of the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Argentina in 1979. The report that followed stated the violations committed by the government during the military dictatorship and eventually led to the establishment of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Mignone was a catholic and had a fierce interest in the role of religion in society. But the Catholic Church held a prominent role during the military dictatorship in Argentina. The Church’s involvement and complicity with the serious human rights violations committed by the military dictatorship have long been a matter of issue in Argentina. Despite a distinct pattern of churches in the neighboring countries taking an important role against the military coups, the Catholic Church in Argentina is accused of doing the very opposite.
Mignone was one of the firsts to raise this matter. In his book “Witness to the Truth – the complicity of Church and Dictatorship in Argentina, 1976-1983”, first published in 1986, he detailed the role of the church and its relationship with the government’s atrocities. Most recently, the accusations on the compliance of the Pope Francis led to the decision of the Vatican to open its archive on the Argentinian “Dirty War”.
PRIZES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Emilio Mignone received many prizes and acknowledgements for his work in Argentina and his fight for the implementation of human rights. His awards include the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights award and the Human Rights Award of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
Perhaps his most notable contributions did not materialised as prizes. Emílio Mignone’s greatest accomplishments are in the work he did in the building of democracy and the establishment of human rights standards in Argentina. His constant fight against the military dictatorship and his support in the fight towards justice build the path to the construction of the truth in the aftermath of a violent and repressive military dictatorship.
Ana Luiza is a Social Science graduate from the University of Campinas. She is currently a Human Rights MA student at University College London (UCL). Her areas of interests are indigenous rights and conflict in socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe.