Meli died on Thursday morning at the age of 82. Having lost her husband to the Argentine military dictatorship in 1977 she brought up their three children alone and under conditions of state terror perfectly comparable to those of mid-century totalitarian regimes in Europe.
While she was doing this Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández were accumulating the beginnings of their fortune in the real estate business of Santa Cruz Province. When the dictatorship collapsed they supported the military’s self-amnesty. When Carlos Menem came to power they supported his amnesty of the jailed leaders of the military regime and dozens of other officers convicted of dreadful offences.
Shortly after he came to power in 2003 Néstor Kirchner began to speak about human rights and the legacy of the dictatorship, a topic in which he’d never previously displayed any particular interest. In due course the amnesties were annulled and investigations into the crimes of the dictatorship resumed.
Thus began a process, continued by his wife and successor Cristina Fernández, whereby kirchnerismo became completely identified in the public mind with the cause of human rights and in which, with rare exceptions, human rights activism in Argentina became a faction within kirchnerismo, itself the predominant sector of peronismo. The Kirchners' unexpected interest in the crimes of the dictatorship also served to deflect any criticism of other aspects of their governments. Anyone who raised their voice risked being accused of nostalgia for the military regime and if they were of sufficient age, of having participated in it.
Aware though she was of all this as well as the vast corruption of the presidential couple and despite having been deeply sceptical of peronismo all her life Meli still supported the first two kirchnerista governments. Not in the embarrassing, “Gracias, Néstor! Gracias, Cristina!” style of many who had suffered as she had but in the determinedly unostentatious way that characterised her.
Why?
Why support those who were such late and obviously cynical supporters of the cause of human rights and justice for the victims of the dictatorship?
It’s difficult to think of a reason. The only one that occurs to me is that while Alfonsín provided what justice he could in the circumstances in which he governed he had no interest in providing emotional satisfaction to the victims. Justice was to be served but the rights of the guilty were to be protected and there would be no public exulting about their fate.
In the infinitely easier circumstances in which Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández came to power they were able to offer something more than justice; catharsis. The surviving victims found their governments happy to lead a fist-pumping, slogan-chanting narrative of justice, *real* justice having arrived at last, and that in some sense the kirchnerista governments were theirs.
In the process, the globally unprecedented achievements in the area of human rights of the government of Raúl Alfonsín were minimised, derided and erased from public memory. The recent and highly praised film Argentina 1985 is a sign that this erasure continues today.
Meli was a remarkable and very tough woman. She survived appalling trauma and was sustained throughout her life by music and literature. I was lucky to get to know her.