The Fort Worth Press - Oscar hopeful 'Argentina, 1985' offers lessons on democracy: prosecutor

USD -
AED 3.67296
AFN 68.974171
ALL 88.949633
AMD 387.803938
ANG 1.802384
AOA 927.768971
ARS 962.496699
AUD 1.46547
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.699493
BAM 1.75287
BBD 2.019269
BDT 119.512807
BGN 1.751505
BHD 0.376841
BIF 2899.201463
BMD 1
BND 1.29228
BOB 6.910923
BRL 5.427724
BSD 1.00009
BTN 83.589539
BWP 13.220111
BYN 3.272898
BYR 19600
BZD 2.015863
CAD 1.356245
CDF 2870.999955
CHF 0.8509
CLF 0.033646
CLP 928.396918
CNY 7.052298
CNH 7.053599
COP 4153.98
CRC 518.91485
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 98.82413
CZK 22.459503
DJF 178.087471
DKK 6.68486
DOP 60.029217
DZD 132.297892
EGP 48.548498
ERN 15
ETB 116.05311
EUR 0.89612
FJD 2.19835
FKP 0.761559
GBP 0.75115
GEL 2.730273
GGP 0.761559
GHS 15.722774
GIP 0.761559
GMD 68.501015
GNF 8640.476073
GTQ 7.730984
GYD 209.218746
HKD 7.78715
HNL 24.808432
HRK 6.799011
HTG 131.959724
HUF 352.39021
IDR 15211
ILS 3.77993
IMP 0.761559
INR 83.518012
IQD 1310.097285
IRR 42092.499893
ISK 136.309818
JEP 0.761559
JMD 157.126341
JOD 0.708702
JPY 144.136972
KES 129.009767
KGS 84.238499
KHR 4061.696197
KMF 441.349819
KPW 899.999433
KRW 1336.010346
KWD 0.304996
KYD 0.833397
KZT 479.48772
LAK 22083.904677
LBP 89557.985302
LKR 305.131836
LRD 200.023302
LSL 17.556978
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.749059
MAD 9.697518
MDL 17.451156
MGA 4523.212045
MKD 55.186096
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999955
MOP 8.027819
MRU 39.74386
MUR 45.688836
MVR 15.359983
MWK 1734.002509
MXN 19.389799
MYR 4.197487
MZN 63.850016
NAD 17.556899
NGN 1639.279859
NIO 36.807837
NOK 10.47384
NPR 133.741116
NZD 1.60163
OMR 0.384959
PAB 1.000117
PEN 3.748588
PGK 3.914715
PHP 55.772986
PKR 277.874888
PLN 3.82773
PYG 7802.473562
QAR 3.646182
RON 4.456204
RSD 104.916007
RUB 93.001281
RWF 1348.180678
SAR 3.7525
SBD 8.306937
SCR 13.004991
SDG 601.518945
SEK 10.173604
SGD 1.29112
SHP 0.761559
SLE 22.847303
SLL 20969.494858
SOS 571.523315
SRD 30.204957
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.750711
SYP 2512.529936
SZL 17.563183
THB 32.897124
TJS 10.631033
TMT 3.5
TND 3.030374
TOP 2.342104
TRY 34.113497
TTD 6.802416
TWD 32.06024
TZS 2725.718998
UAH 41.336171
UGX 3705.064664
UYU 41.324981
UZS 12726.352063
VEF 3622552.534434
VES 36.836772
VND 24591.5
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.797463
XAF 587.880445
XAG 0.032292
XAU 0.00038
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.741172
XOF 587.880445
XPF 106.88487
YER 250.325003
ZAR 17.409801
ZMK 9001.205244
ZMW 26.476967
ZWL 321.999592
  • JRI

    -0.0800

    13.32

    -0.6%

  • BCC

    -7.1900

    137.5

    -5.23%

  • NGG

    0.7200

    69.55

    +1.04%

  • RBGPF

    58.8300

    58.83

    +100%

  • BCE

    -0.1500

    35.04

    -0.43%

  • CMSC

    0.0300

    25.15

    +0.12%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    6.97

    +0.29%

  • RELX

    -0.1400

    47.99

    -0.29%

  • SCS

    -0.3900

    12.92

    -3.02%

  • CMSD

    0.0100

    25.02

    +0.04%

  • RIO

    -1.6100

    63.57

    -2.53%

  • GSK

    -0.8200

    40.8

    -2.01%

  • VOD

    -0.0500

    10.01

    -0.5%

  • BTI

    -0.1300

    37.44

    -0.35%

  • AZN

    -0.5200

    78.38

    -0.66%

  • BP

    -0.1200

    32.64

    -0.37%

Oscar hopeful 'Argentina, 1985' offers lessons on democracy: prosecutor
Oscar hopeful 'Argentina, 1985' offers lessons on democracy: prosecutor / Photo: © AFP

Oscar hopeful 'Argentina, 1985' offers lessons on democracy: prosecutor

Luis Moreno Ocampo was just 32 years old and had no trial experience when he was summoned to prosecute Argentina's generals in 1985 after a disastrous military dictatorship -- a story retold in an Oscar-nominated film.

Text size:

Moreno Ocampo, who went on to become the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, says "Argentina, 1985" can help teach global audiences about the risks of losing democracy -- and the importance of public opinion.

"You've got to win your case in court. But then it's a battle for the memory," the 70-year-old Ocampo told AFP in an interview in Malibu, California, where he currently lives.

"I won the battle... in 1985. But (with this movie), Santiago Mitre and Ricardo Darin are winning the battle for memory in 2023, and that's unique."

Mitre is the director of "Argentina, 1985," one of five nominees for the Academy Award for best international feature.

It tells the story of one of the most important trials in the country's history, and puts the focus on the tensions as the Latin American nation groped its way back to democracy after seven years of murderous military government from 1976 to 1983.

Moreno Ocampo (Peter Lanzani), who himself hailed from a traditional military family, is appointed by lead prosecutor Julio Strassera (Darin) to help try nine of the uniformed men who had ordered thousands of killings and disappearances.

The trial led to the convictions of six men including former dictator Jorge Videla and key junta member Emilio Massera, who were jailed for life.

The proceedings, compared to the Nuremberg trials after World War II, also sharply divided Argentines -- and even Moreno Ocampo's own family.

"The movie shows how my mother was against me," said Moreno Ocampo, who is now a visiting professor at the University of Southern California and a senior fellow at Harvard.

"My mother went to church with the dictator general Videla!"

But as one of the film's most painful scenes reveals, the harrowing first testimony of the trial -- that of a woman who is forced by her captors to give birth handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car -- changed her mind.

"The next day she called me... She told me: 'I still love General Videla, but you are right, he has to go to jail'."

- Torture -

"Argentina, 1985" shows how the military regime set up detention, torture and extermination camps, with people being thrown alive into the sea from airplanes, shot or detained indefinitely.

Some 30,000 Argentines disappeared, and it is estimated that hundreds of babies born in captivity were given to other families, including military families.

Moreno Ocampo says holding those responsible to account is vital if a country is to come to terms with its past and become a stable and secure democracy -- something he says Brazil, for example, did not do.

"They did not investigate the past... this has an impact. In Brazil, they feared that the military could get involved in a coup in the near future," he explained.

"The problem is not the military, because they follow orders. It's the elites -- if your elites support a coup, you have a problem," he says.

"It's something that Brazil, and even the United States, hasn't understood," he adds, referring to the 2021 assault on the US Capitol in the waning days of Donald Trump's presidency.

"When journalists ask me how to avoid coups d'etat... the issues are not those involved in the sedition, the issue is who was supporting them," he told AFP.

"The elite supporting civilian sedition, like in Washington -- they are the problem."

- 'Power of youth' -

Argentina has won two Oscars previously, both for films that tackled the years of military terror: "The Official Story" in 1986 and "The Secret in Their Eyes" in 2010.

Moreno Ocampo -- who will attend the Oscars on Sunday -- says he hopes that this year's offering, with its focus on the role young people played in achieving justice, will bring the four-decade-old story of Argentina's emergence from dictatorship to a new audience.

"My 23-year-old son didn't know what had happened. Now he's learning," he said.

"This film is about the risk of (losing) democracy. But it's also about the power of youth -- how young people are the ones who change the world and how you have to continue to battle for justice.

"Justice is a never-ending job."

G.Dominguez--TFWP