Roberto Eduardo Viola: Dead, Underground or Abroad

Giving his first personal interview to a U.S. publication, President Roberto Eduardo Viola, formerly Argentina’s army commander in chief, received TIME Caribbean Bureau Chief William McWhirter in his ornate office in the presidential mansion in Buenos Aires. Viola, a short, stocky man, answered questions in a brusque military fashion. Excerpts:

Q. How soon do you expect Argentina to be returned to democratic government?

A. We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people’s will, but nevertheless we still think we are within a democracy. We say so because we believe these two fundamental values of democracy, freedom and justice, are in force in our country. There are, it is true, several conditioning aspects as regards political or union activity, but individual freedom is nowhere infringed in an outstanding manner.

Q. Might this period of political suspension last as long as another ten years?

A. I’m not anticipating any fixed date on this subject. It’s impossible to do so under the present circumstances. The armed forces are not interested in retaining power longer than the required time when a political solution is reached that leads us to the desired democracy.

Q. But how will the government react when it becomes unable to solve a crisis, like its present economic problems?

A. The government is not living through a crisis. We cannot conceive in any manner that there may be difficulties of a political nature within any area truly representing our society.

Q. Do you think the government is responsible for the infringement of human rights and the fate of the “disappeared”?

A. We suffered a war and in order to defend what the whole Argentine nation wanted, the armed forces, together with the remainder of the country —as otherwise it would not have been possible—faced this struggle and won.

If you wish to identify responsible parties, they may have been the authorities of the armed forces who, during a great part of the ’70s, held power within the armed forces.

Q. Will it be possible to learn what happened to the people who disappeared?

A. I’m highly doubtful that an adequately correct list can be made, since we do not know exactly whether the persons included in certain lists as missing are really dead or have disappeared. For example, a few months ago, a so-called missing person re-entered the Argentine Republic, naturally to continue fighting against it.

Q. Would you accept that some persons were held in jail without their families having been notified?

A. There is not a single case like that.

You may be sure there are no hidden detainees in the Argentine Republic.

Q. Then, Mr. President, should people assume a more tragic conclusion—that something else has happened to them?

A. To take only three possibilities into account, they may be dead, underground or abroad.

Q. If dead, would that be the responsibility of those who arrested or detained them?

A. They must surely have died in direct fighting against the armed forces only, in the same manner that men at the service of the forces of order met their death.

Q. In other words, it is not possible that people were detained who carried no weapons and then were later killed while still in jail?

A. Of course not.