Media Note
Today the Department of State is releasing documents related to human rights abuses committed in Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. These documents were hand-delivered to Argentine President Mauricio Macri this morning by President Donald J. Trump as another demonstration of the importance the United States places on its bilateral relations with Argentina. They are part of a comprehensive 18-month effort by U.S. Government agencies, begun at the request of President Macri, to search their archives for relevant documents and review them for public access.
This release comes in two parts: the first being a re-review of the 813 documents previously withheld in part or in full from the original Argentina Declassification Project carried out by the Department of State in 2002; the second being 119 documents selected for inclusion in the Argentina and Latin American Region chapters from the Foreign Relations of the United States volume on South America, 1977–80, to be released later this year with full annotation by the Office of the Historian.
The Department conducted a re-review of previously denied and redacted documents to determine if additional information was releasable. With the passage of time and with interagency coordination and support, the Department determined that the majority of the redacted documents were releasable either in full or in reduced form. These newly reviewed documents are available at https://foia.state.gov/Search/Collections.aspx.
The documents selected for the Argentina and Latin American Region chapters of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XXIV, South America, show high-level U.S. concern over human rights violations in Argentina and the Southern Cone during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Many of the documents are directly relevant to the Argentine Government’s request regarding information about this period. However, some documents were selected for inclusion in the Foreign Relations series because of their importance to other aspects of U.S. foreign policy toward Argentina or the entire Latin American region. The newly available documents for these two chapters are available at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/270391.pdf
The overall project is led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with support from the White House and involves the participation of more than 14 departments and agencies. Additional documents will be released in the Fall and Winter of 2017, including documents from intelligence and law enforcement archives, as well as archival repositories at the Departments of State and Defense. To learn more about this project, including previously declassified documents, visit https://icontherecord.tumblr.com. For further information on the Foreign Relations series contact the Historian’s Office at history@state.gov; all other inquiries should be directed to the Office of Press Relations at 202-647-2492.
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