00;00;00;21 00;00;37;06

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Law and Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films. Films, in turn, tell us a lot about the law. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

00;00;37;08 - 00;01;11;23

Jonathan Hafetz

And what does the film teach us about the law and the larger social and cultural context in which it operates? Our films today are Argentina 1985, a 2022 film directed by Santiago Metric and Renato. How to Nail a Dictator. A 2011 documentary by Pamela Yates, Argentina 1985, tells the story of the trial of Argentina's military leaders from its prior military government in 1985 to shortly after the restoration of democratic government in Argentina.

00;01;11;26 - 00;01;56;00

Jonathan Hafetz

It depicts the importance of the trial, some of the challenges and the convictions that were ultimately obtained, and the rocky path to overcoming impunity after a series of dramatic human rights violations. Benito, How to Nail a Dictator, which is Pamela Yates's follow up to her earlier documentary, When the Mountains Tremble from 1984, tells the story of the effort to hold accountable a friend, Rios Montt, the general and former military leader of Guatemala who was charged with being responsible for genocide and other atrocities in Argentina during a brutal scorched earth campaign over a long civil war that led ultimately to the deaths of over 200,000 people.

00;01;56;03 - 00;02;20;06

Jonathan Hafetz

Our guest today to discuss these films is Rachel Lopez. Rachel is an associate professor of law at the Thomas R Klein School of Law at Drexel University, and the director of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic. Rachel has also held visiting fellowships at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, the Law Center for International Law at the University of Cambridge, the Orville H.

00;02;20;06 - 00;02;44;07

Jonathan Hafetz

Schell Center for International Human Rights at the Yale Law School, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. This fall, she will be a fellow at Princeton University, where she will be researching and studying Guatemala, an area that she's an expert in and has spent many years researching. In 2016. Professor Lopez researched transitional justice in Guatemala and Spain as a Fulbright Scholar.

00;02;44;10 - 00;03;10;23

Jonathan Hafetz

She's also served as a commissioner on the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission, as an appointee of Governor Tom Wolfe. Rachel scholarship primarily focuses on state responsibility for mass abuse, transitional justice, and the carceral state. Her articles have appeared or forthcoming in numerous well-regarded journals. Her most recent piece, Redeeming Justice, coauthored with Terrell Carter and Campus Songster, won the 2022 Law and Society Association Article Prize.

00;03;10;27 - 00;03;34;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Her other articles have been widely praised, and she's a leading scholar in her field. Rachel has testified at hearings before the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Philadelphia City Council. Prior to joining Drexel Law School, Professor Lopez was a clinical teaching fellow and then an assistant clinical professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, where we both met and worked together on human rights in Guatemala and Haiti.

00;03;34;21 - 00;03;47;26

Jonathan Hafetz

It's an honor to have Rachel on law and film to discuss these two films, Argentina 1985 2022 and. How to Nail a Dictator from 2011. Welcome, Rachel.

00;03;47;29 - 00;04;05;03

Rachel López

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be with you. And also, as you acknowledge in many ways, a full circle experience of us both being together in Guatemala and now having the opportunity to reflect on that experience and what's happened since our human rights missions in Guatemala.

00;04;05;05 - 00;04;23;01

Jonathan Hafetz

You know, a lot's happened a lot before and a lot's happened since. So it's great to connect with you and to have you as a guest on the podcast. So let me start with a question regarding both films Argentina 1985 and Granado How to Nail a Dictator. Both addressed the topic of what's often referred to as transitional justice.

00;04;23;04 - 00;04;25;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you talk a little bit about this term?

00;04;25;28 - 00;04;51;29

Rachel López

Certainly. So I have to start by acknowledging that to some extent it's a contested term. More broadly, it's an idea of sort of the the justice or quasi judicial mechanisms that occur after a transition from a repressive air to a more democratic era. The term was first coined by Rudy Title in a seminal article on transitional justice that appeared in the Yale Law Journal.

00;04;52;06 - 00;05;19;10

Rachel López

She defined it as concepts of justice associated with periods of political change, characterized by legal responses to confront the wrongdoings of oppressive predecessor regimes. Now another scholar would find issue with that definition. So Naomi wrote Araiza, who was very involved in the Guatemalan trials, that we're going to talk about, really finds that definition to be unnecessarily legalistic and abstract.

00;05;19;12 - 00;06;02;03

Rachel López

She points out, right, that transitions are often not so clearly demarcated. So even the ruling title would characterize it as a transition from one regime to another. Often the way that this occurs and processes it's not so a clear line between past and present. Similarly, you know, part of I think, Naomi wrote arrow says critique is that really title over emphasizes the legal dimensions of transitional justice when we know that there are other, many other forms of transitional justice that are not so legalistic, such as truth and reconciliation commissions, memorials, and other types of things that are meant to address the past that don't so narrowly fall in the bucket of legal

00;06;02;10 - 00;06;04;19

Rachel López

processes or solutions.

00;06;04;22 - 00;06;44;08

Jonathan Hafetz

As you say, is a contested term and a term that is open to multiple interpretations and ultimately, there's one maybe common thread dealing with how do societies address atrocities that were committed in the past? In the case of the two films, they center on two countries Argentina for June 1995 and Guatemala for unito. But more broadly speaking, they cover a period from, say, the mid 70s to early 80s and even earlier in Guatemala, where you basically had right wing military governments, military dictatorships in Central and South America that brutally suppressed left wing movements or leftist movements.

00;06;44;10 - 00;07;02;14

Jonathan Hafetz

So let's start with Argentina, 1985. The film describes the period in Argentina known as the Dirty War, which lasted during the military dictatorship for the proceso de Organization Nacional from 1974 to 1983. Can you talk a little bit more about what happened in Argentina during this time?

00;07;02;16 - 00;07;24;04

Rachel López

Most certainly. So part of this is a need to kind of contextualize this in the time and moment of Argentina. So in part, there was a schism between the right and the left in Argentina as a result, in part of the area of one, Patton and his wife, who took over power when he passed away, Isabel Patton.

00;07;24;06 - 00;07;51;07

Rachel López

There was sort of dramatic fights between the right and the left that took often a violent turn. In terms of often what are seen by many Argentinians as the guerrilla groups that were engaging in violence. And so part of what was a tradition in Argentina was that when the elite class or the middle and ruling class would become apprehensive about the violence, a military coup would step in or the military government would step in.

00;07;51;08 - 00;08;29;00

Rachel López

So this is in part part of a long tradition in Argentina of the military stepping in at times of violence and that's what happened here. The term, dirty war, I think, is significant here, that you use John in the sense that that was the language that was used by the military junta when they took power. So even though the they were meant to quell the violence of the left, leftist groups, in fact, they employed extraordinarily violent measures of repression, including torture, extreme torture, kidnaping and disappearances.

00;08;29;02 - 00;09;01;09

Rachel López

And so the characterization of war is really the name used by the military junta to essentially legitimize their acts, to say these were as we saw in the film, where you're seeing the film, right, acts of war. And so these, extreme measures were needed as responses to that. And so I think that framework is really important when we think about what was a pretty, extraordinarily extreme reaction to violence, perhaps more extreme than even the violence that came before it.

00;09;01;12 - 00;09;08;01

Rachel López

So I think that we have to understand basically the broader history to really understand this term dirty war.

00;09;08;07 - 00;09;32;02

Jonathan Hafetz

And the film talks about the way they used the notion of war and the enemy and defining people within the country as the enemy. And and it was used quite broadly, not just individuals who were suspected of engaging in insurgent or terrorist activities, but also people who opposed the government, leftist students, union workers. So they cast the net quite broadly, right, in Argentina.

00;09;32;04 - 00;09;57;20

Rachel López

Yeah. And to make the connection to Guatemala, which we'll talk about momentarily, this wasn't just a narrative that was employed by the military junta, though it was developed by them. The broader public also bought into this narrative of, you know, the military is essentially saving us from the violence of the guerrilla, which created a veil of legitimacy that allowed these acts to happen both in Argentina and in Guatemala.

00;09;57;22 - 00;10;27;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, that's a great point. And the film, I think, does a good job with that dynamic that you mentioned, particularly through the character of the assistant prosecutor, Luis Moreno Campos mother, Pombo, who, as we'll talk about later, becomes the first chief prosecutor. The ICC, a couple decades later, is the assistant prosecutor to Julio Serra, Sarah, the head prosecutor in the trial that the film talks about and accomplice from a military family, attritional military family.

00;10;27;08 - 00;10;49;09

Jonathan Hafetz

And his mother had that bias towards the military, the hunter, that they were protecting the country. Perhaps they went too far in some respects, but they were basically doing a good job. And the key moment or some key moments in the film are her transition when she sees what happened and some of the tactics that the military use and she's no longer, supportive of them.

00;10;49;12 - 00;10;54;23

Jonathan Hafetz

But she always supported her son because he was her son, but she becomes really supportive of what he's doing in the trials.

00;10;54;28 - 00;11;16;27

Rachel López

Yeah, that that's such a key connection. There's sort of a key moment in the film when Luis Ocampo receives a call from her and is sort of incredulous about what the military, which is part of their family legacy and tradition. She's sort of aghast at the acts that they took that were much like Guatemala, broadcast on the radio and on television.

00;11;17;00 - 00;11;40;08

Jonathan Hafetz

The act in particular, I think that moves her most is there's testimony from a woman who was subjected to basically forced disappearance, which means you are literally disappeared. There's no legal process. You just vanish into the custody of the military government, and she's disappeared and she's forced to give birth in the back of a patrol car and afterwards is treated horribly.

00;11;40;09 - 00;11;53;12

Jonathan Hafetz

She's not permitted to hold her baby. And this resonates with great power in the film. This is a particular piece of testimony that the film uses to show how Ocampos mother turns against the military dictatorship.

00;11;53;15 - 00;12;17;23

Rachel López

Yeah, and this was a strategy that was used by the prosecution of trying to really elevate those that were seen as the most innocent victims and part as a way to delegitimize this characterization by the military of it being a dirty war. And indeed, like part of the state's theory around this case. Right, is that how could it be a war if we're targeting pregnant women and children?

00;12;17;23 - 00;12;28;03

Rachel López

And so this testimony, in many ways, was a landmark moment because it really underscored the sort of case theory of the prosecutors.

00;12;28;05 - 00;12;53;20

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it was very strategic in terms of how best to appeal to Argentinian society, to people like Bruno Campos mother, who had a sort of natural or preexisting disposition to favor of the military, who were seen as reestablishing order. You mentioned this, or you referred to this, that there were, in a sense, two audiences. There's the audience in the courtroom, and the film shows the testimony of some of the many victims who gave evidence about what happened to them.

00;12;53;25 - 00;13;11;12

Jonathan Hafetz

And then the other audience, which is the public, the broadcasting or reporting about the trials. This was before the internet and before cable TV, but all the news shows would talk about what was going on in the trials as a major event. So you had, in a sense, these two audiences, the judges in the courtroom, and then you have the larger public.

00;13;11;14 - 00;13;18;10

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you talk a little bit about that in the film and in what we can generally refer to as transitional justice or these types of trials?

00;13;18;12 - 00;13;49;18

Rachel López

I think what's so significant here, right, is going back to that definition of transitional justice and really kind of drawing from really title's definition, and why I think it has resonance to this day. Part of the goal of transitional justice is in part to create a demarcation between the past and the present. Even though I agree with, Naomi Rosa that oftentimes there is no clear demarcation, the purpose of transitional justice is really to create a dividing line.

00;13;49;18 - 00;14;09;27

Rachel López

We are no longer the repressive regime that engage in these atrocities. We want to move towards a more democratic and to some extent, liberal state that protects human rights. And so I think that one of the interesting things about transitional justice is, by its own definition, in nature, there's sort of a recognition that it has political objectives, right?

00;14;09;27 - 00;14;36;06

Rachel López

Like we can understand it as forwarding and a political objective of creating distance from the past. And that's part of what you see really reflected in the film in terms of its broader, broadcasting, which occurred, as I mentioned, both in Argentina and Guatemala, part of the prosecutors, both in Argentina and in Guatemala. Their goal is not just about securing convictions of past military officials.

00;14;36;14 - 00;15;09;27

Rachel López

It's about changing the narrative of how the public understands these trials. And so when you talk about to audiences, I think that we can kind of view them in parallel. Of course, there was the audience of judges that had to make the determination of guilt or innocence, but in part, there was a much broader goal here of changing how the public understands what the military did and to some extent, trying to decrease or minimize the power of the military going forward and what was meant to be in both situations, both countries more democratic governance.

00;15;09;29 - 00;15;25;29

Rachel López

And so both of these countries, Guatemala and Argentina, having strong tradition of military leadership, a piece of this is convincing the public that that's actually not the appropriate way or the most just or moral way to have a country be governed.

00;15;26;01 - 00;15;58;24

Jonathan Hafetz

And you see in the film, the president of Johnson, who just had been in office about two years since the end of the military dictatorship and supporting the trials which took place in civilian court, basically telling or signaling to Sarah, the prosecutor, how important it was that he needed to win over not just the judges, but he needed to win over a broader Argentinean society if this was going to stick and if this was going to be successful, and if it was going to avoid the backlash because there were death threats, actual attempts against the lives of the prosecutor.

00;15;58;24 - 00;16;11;29

Jonathan Hafetz

So there was a real risk and a real concern about backlash. Witnesses testified in fear. And as I said to one of the witnesses, we really can't protect you. So they needed to win for the judges, but they needed to win in the Argentinian public eye.

00;16;12;05 - 00;16;16;19

Rachel López

Absolutely. It was a critical, I think, outcome, a part of this stress.

00;16;16;20 - 00;16;37;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Sara, who's the lead prosecutor in the case, this film is told really through his eyes more than anyone else's. So he had been a federal prosecutor during the Dirty War or the military dictatorship, and he'd been criticized for not doing enough, for example, refusing to investigate habeas corpus inquiries that had been submitted on behalf of detained persons or detained suspects during this period.

00;16;38;00 - 00;16;49;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So he's a bit of a complex figure in a sense. He embodies some of the challenges and contradictions of the idea of transitional justice that you talked about. Can you talk a little bit about Sara and his role?

00;16;49;03 - 00;17;09;29

Rachel López

Yeah, absolutely. To answer you so well, sort of explain kind of his role during the Dirty War, he was indeed a federal prosecutor. And there's a key point in the movie, if you remember, where Luis Ocampo kind of challenges him in a very subtle way on this point of, you know, the prosecutors and judges not doing enough during the Dirty War to protect.

00;17;09;29 - 00;17;38;05

Rachel López

And it becomes very tense moment, both sort of, as you describe, John, like the complexities and the ties to the past and how that really complicates things in particular, because in transitioning societies, everyone to some extent is complicit in what happened in the prior air. And so really, I think that this shows the dynamic that sometimes even when you would want to do something as it appears, it's if, as I said, I want to do, you feel constrained by your environment.

00;17;38;10 - 00;18;00;21

Rachel López

And I think that the movie does a good job of depicting that. It's interesting, though, another part that the movie really underscored, which I think is so important, is how few people wanted to take up this cause, you know, we would think, like, as lawyers, Curtis would love, like, I'm sure you and I would like, love to be part of an incredible trial that has the chance to be historic.

00;18;00;27 - 00;18;27;00

Rachel López

But in fact, in Argentina, part of the reason why these two prosecutors end up in their roles is because no one else wants to take on this position. And so we see right there as well, like how complex this is in the current. And being in Argentina, it's easy to look back and imagine what you would do. But the movie does a good job of portraying the complexities of the decision to be a part of this, and the alienation that results.

00;18;27;02 - 00;18;52;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, absolutely. And they have those great scenes with their interviewing candidates to help out job, and they're all young, and they're not getting the top elite of the legal profession. Those lawyers are aligned with representing the defendants, actually. I mean, it reminds me a little bit that dynamic was a little of some of the Guantanamo work I did in the beginning, where it was very hard initially for people to get on board because of the sense of fear and anger over the terrorist attack.

00;18;52;27 - 00;19;18;01

Jonathan Hafetz

So the film does capture that dynamic. Well, I know components. One interesting thing and really like a you point out that tension between him and Strasser, they have different strategies and O'Connell is more critical or is critical, as you said, of Strasser, for not doing enough during the military junta. It's interesting, I think, and just occurred to me because, you know, Capote becomes the first chief prosecutor, the ICC, after the Rome Statute in 1988.

00;19;18;01 - 00;19;41;17

Jonathan Hafetz

The court set up early 2000. One of the critiques that was leveled at Ocampo was precisely in a sense that not being able to do enough in the face of some of the daunting political realities that the ICC faced in terms of U.S. opposition at points that other major powers Russia, China not joining. So it's kind of interesting to see these political realities play out.

00;19;41;17 - 00;19;45;11

Jonathan Hafetz

And a combo is in a different position a couple decades later.

00;19;45;13 - 00;20;10;16

Rachel López

Yes. As I prepared for this podcast, I watched a really interesting lecture by Ocampo that was organized, LLC, and he really reflected on the differences between his role as a prosecutor in the Hunter trials versus this role at the ICC. And in part, you know, I've been a critic of Ocampo and scholarship because he's sort of in the ICC projects, his role as being apolitical.

00;20;10;23 - 00;20;42;20

Rachel López

And I would make an argument that, you know, this work can never be truly apolitical. And it's interesting because in this lecture, he sort of admits that he basically says that you have to look at the trials in the context of the broader political movement that was happening in Argentina, and it really being the people and their election of Alphonse Sheen, who made a political campaign to prosecute these, military leaders as really sort of part and parcel of a broader political movement and campaign towards democracy.

00;20;42;27 - 00;21;03;03

Rachel López

And he describes how that's absent in his role at the ICC. And you sort of have to, in his words, like weigh the moment to see whether criminal prosecutions can be helpful. And so I saw that is to some extent a contradiction of his broader response, particularly in the context of critiques of the African bias at the ICC.

00;21;03;10 - 00;21;30;17

Rachel López

In other words, at the ICC, not even disproportionately, but almost exclusively targets leaders from Africa as being the result of his apolitical following of the rules. In this lecture, he really points out how some of the decision making was influenced by what he saw as the political possibilities. And maybe it's explained to some extent his choices not to pursue the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

00;21;30;20 - 00;22;00;13

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it really shows that the politically contingent, politically informed nature of these legal processes that seek accountability in the trial, not of the military officers who are tried before the civilian court. Five were convicted, including two of the most significant individuals, Vidal Videla, who was the military commander and head of the government for a couple of years during the junta, and Admiral Emilio Musharraf and they given life sentences for defendants, are acquitted of all the other defendants are given sentences, not life sentences.

00;22;00;19 - 00;22;15;05

Jonathan Hafetz

So this was not the complete victory that the prosecution was looking for, but a significant step forward. This is often referred to as the first major war crimes trial since Nuremberg. Can you talk a little bit about the significance of the trial?

00;22;15;08 - 00;22;38;08

Rachel López

It shows the power of organization and voice and how countries understand this. So even though many people refer to and characterizes trial as the first major war crime trial since Nuremberg, indeed, the movie says in its kind of ending credits that this is the first time a military dictatorship was convicted by civil courts. That's actually, not true.

00;22;38;11 - 00;23;03;25

Rachel López

So both, Amnesty International and a very famous transitional scholar named Catherine King and pointed out that both in Greece and Portugal, military leaders were convicted of torture, which is considered to be a war crime. In the mid 1970s, and domestic nonmilitary courts. So there's a question there, right? Why is Argentina widely understood to have been the first?

00;23;03;25 - 00;23;34;10

Rachel López

You know, the film is not unique in making that claim. I think Ocampo self has made that claim. And part of the answer to this is in part, how the citizens in Greece and Portugal understood the trials that occurred there, even though it's quite clear from the record that they were prosecuting torture. And both of these instances, the people really understood those trials as being kind of part of a longer transition of prosecution of political opponents or as being too little, too late.

00;23;34;16 - 00;24;06;27

Rachel López

They didn't really understand them as being as triumphant as, many people understand the trials in Argentina to be so, for example, Captain Sicking interviewed quite a few people in Greece about the trials that occurred there, and they really understood this as being really part of a tradition and legacy in Greece of leaders basically targeting political opponents from prior regimes, as opposed to being what they were in part, which is torture trials, trials meant to create accountability for torture.

00;24;06;29 - 00;24;35;04

Rachel López

And this is an another important point to. So in contrast, groups in Argentina really understood what they were doing to be part of a broader human rights campaign that linked to a transition to a transnational network of human rights activism. And it's also important, I think, to underscore that Argentina, many of its neighbors, were also undergoing transition and trying to figure out this dilemma of transitional justice.

00;24;35;04 - 00;24;58;26

Rachel López

And so advocates in Argentina, in part, were spreading the word about this in the hopes of influencing what might happen in neighboring countries. Because as we can discuss, right, all of this, particularly in South America, the repression through a program called Operation Condor were deeply connected. And so they saw themselves as part of a transnational movement for accountability in that way.

00;24;59;03 - 00;25;12;27

Rachel López

And so had the aim explicitly of exporting the tactics and innovations they were using there to other places. Which is why I think we had this narrative of Argentina being the first, war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg.

00;25;13;00 - 00;25;37;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Oh, it's fascinating history to fill in, in this important period in the human rights movement and international criminal law and responsibility for atrocities between Nuremberg and then the pick up on the international level in the early mid-nineties with the Yugoslav tribunal and the Rwanda tribunal. These important things that were going on in domestic courts and there's a lot of emphasis on there's always been historic emphasis on what happened in Argentina and other countries in Latin America.

00;25;37;20 - 00;25;54;13

Jonathan Hafetz

But it's really important to bring in this experience with recent Portugal. And it goes back to your point about it depends how you define what perspective you take on what is transitional justice. The film ends with the depiction of what happens to defendants. There's much more to this story, and we don't have time to get into it in too much detail.

00;25;54;15 - 00;26;20;09

Jonathan Hafetz

But there's some setbacks where there's a law that provides impunity. You then have presidential pardon by Menem president. And then it's not until some years later when the process kind of starts again. You have Supreme Court of Argentina declaring amnesty was unconstitutional, and you have other efforts by civil society to try to achieve accountability. And you start to get more trials.

00;26;20;10 - 00;26;37;09

Jonathan Hafetz

One of the key groups in this whole process is the Plaza de Mayo, the group of mothers of the disappeared who are depicted in the trial and who played such an important role so could you talk a little bit about what happens after the trial and also the role of the Madres and civil society?

00;26;37;11 - 00;27;07;12

Rachel López

Absolutely. And this is, you know, there's a lot to this question. I think that is important to discuss. So as a starting point, many of the advocates in Argentina were not unified in their belief that retribution or accountability through criminal trials was the right response. But one of the groups that did really press for this was the mothers, the Plaza de Mayo, who were mothers and in some instances, grandmothers of people who were disappeared during the Dirty War.

00;27;07;17 - 00;27;30;00

Rachel López

And so they were quite organized. They're known most markedly for wearing, white scarves over their head as a symbol of the diapers of the children that were disappeared as a part of this. And so way before the trials ever occurred, they were seen as critical figures and pushing towards justice, justice in the sense of retribution and accountability through criminal trials.

00;27;30;03 - 00;28;16;17

Rachel López

And so I think that's an important part to underscore for them. They also had a really important role in pressing for trials after, as you describe, the passing of amnesty laws in Argentina. So one of the pieces that is really critical to this is Alphonse Sene, who was seen as the political actor that really spurred the trials, later became, to some extent an obstacle to the trials because he supported a law of obedience in 1987, after the Hunter trials concluded, in part because he was fearful that if they went further than these nine individuals, it could create greater backlash and undermine the possibility of ongoing transition to democracy.

00;28;16;19 - 00;28;38;19

Rachel López

In part because there were threats and attempts at trying to undermine this in the wake of those trials. And so he passes this de obedience law that essentially says no more, you know, after this, we're not going to allow for any more trials to go forward, as you say, the present that follows, Carlos Menem also pardons those that were part of the Hunter trial.

00;28;38;22 - 00;29;06;20

Rachel López

So how then do we, later arrive at the possibility of more trials? Part of this story is the story of the Madres, who were able to kind of, through the ingenuity of their lawyers, start to chip away at the amnesty law. And they did this by saying, you know, initially that the kidnaping of minors and the changing of identities, which we haven't talked about quite as much, were not included by the amnesty.

00;29;06;25 - 00;29;33;18

Rachel López

And so they were able to continue to push these trials forward by saying that they didn't fall under the amnesty provisions. And so we're able to proceed with those trials. In part, this created a fissure almost pointing out the irony of this amnesty by allowing some trials to go forward and others not, which I think contributed to what you describe in terms of the Supreme Court saying that these laws are unconstitutional, these amnesty laws are unconstitutional.

00;29;33;20 - 00;29;51;21

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned those points. First of the headscarves, which the moderates wore. And there's that scene in the film when they're asked to take them off in court. I think it's Ocampo. Maybe it's just that I think it's Ocampo. It has to ask them kindly to please do it, because being required, the defense is being difficult in this, and they do that.

00;29;51;21 - 00;30;15;13

Jonathan Hafetz

But this was a part of the symbol, that they had. And they had embroidered the names within them of those who had disappeared. And I'm really glad you mentioned the point about the kidnaping of babies, which is what, for example, Videla, who was convicted in the first trial prior to the pardon. He's subsequently charged and convicted and sentenced for this crime of kidnaping babies and giving them to childless military couples during his regime.

00;30;15;13 - 00;30;26;28

Jonathan Hafetz

And that's ultimately what he's held accountable for. Fascinating. What crimes resonated with the public and even with the legal community within Argentina, a heavily Catholic country?

00;30;27;01 - 00;30;52;02

Rachel López

Yeah, absolutely. It just sort of underscore the brutality of what was happening. It's sort of harkening back to our discussion about the Dirty war, just even us now, thinking about it, thinking about kidnaping babies. It just seems so far and beyond what would happen in any sort of law of war context. Right. And really, I think helps to fuel the movement for accountability in Argentina.

00;30;52;05 - 00;31;12;24

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. And and completely corrupting to abusive, but also sort certain level of corruption and venality that goes along with it into taking someone's beating, giving it to someone else. If we can turn now to Brito, how to nail a dictator, this documentary by Pamela Yates about Guatemala. And this is an area that you're I've spent many years researching, as mentioned, the beginning.

00;31;12;24 - 00;31;36;19

Jonathan Hafetz

You've done the Fulbright scholarship. You did fieldwork in Guatemala and done human rights work there. This film similarly depicts abuses by the right wing military government during what was a very long civil war, lasted several decades. These abuses gave rise to claims of genocide during what was called the scorched earth policy, where up to around 200,000 indigenous Mayan people died.

00;31;36;20 - 00;31;40;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you talk about the crimes in this period that's depicted in Grenada?

00;31;41;02 - 00;32;14;24

Rachel López

Yeah, and I think it's important to make parallels to what was happening in Argentina in the broader narrative and actually historical context. So, as you mentioned, both of the atrocities that happened in Argentina and Guatemala are happening in a similar context. Part of this has to be understood in the context of the Cold War, where in particular the US government was fearful of more left wing governments in Latin America coming to power and for that reason were supportive of some of the most brutal military regimes in Latin America.

00;32;14;24 - 00;32;54;24

Rachel López

And we see that play out in very stark ways in both of these countries. And part of the challenge, I think, of both Guatemala and Argentina to these trials was the broader narrative that the military were acting to suppress guerrilla and communist forces that were threatening the national security of these governments. And so a piece of this, both of these trials and the movie granite, though, is to show really the horror of what happened in these countries, grew Nieto does a good job of demonstrating how the scorched earth campaign in the rural communities really targeted indigenous communities and sort of razed to the ground.

00;32;54;24 - 00;33;19;20

Rachel López

Many villages that existed in that time no longer exist anymore because of how widespread the murder and genocide of these populations were in the cities, there was something much different happening, which the film also depicts. It was more targeted disappearance. It more appeared like what was happening in Argentina in terms of targeted disappearances, where the military would come and take people away and they would never be heard from again.

00;33;19;24 - 00;33;37;28

Rachel López

But it wasn't quite as visible to the public, say in Guatemala City, who didn't really understand or at least were willfully blind, perhaps, to what was happening in the countryside. And the film really does a good job, I think, of illustrating those two parallel methodologies that the military was using.

00;33;38;00 - 00;34;10;02

Jonathan Hafetz

The central focus Cornado is on the long, continuing attempts to hold accountable leaders of the military government, in particular General Efrain Rios Montée, who was in charge during some of the worst atrocities in 1982 1983. And one of the challenges that's depicted in the film is that of connecting Rios Montt and other senior officials to the crimes. Just goes to your point also about what was the city versus the rural area where many of the atrocities were occurring and the challenge of trying to prove command responsibility?

00;34;10;09 - 00;34;34;05

Jonathan Hafetz

And the footage from Pamela Yates's first documentary, When the Mountains Tremble in 1984, which depicted this period in the Civil War, where she interviewed several key military officials, was used at the trial to help prove defendants either ordered the action by Guatemalan death squads, or knew what the death squads had done and permitted it. So this is all part of the film's depiction, as its title suggests, of how to nail a dictator.

00;34;34;07 - 00;34;38;14

Jonathan Hafetz

What are the challenges of nailing a dictator and its idea of command responsibility?

00;34;38;17 - 00;35;08;16

Rachel López

Yes, a part of at least the public narrative around some of the defense of the military. And I, when I was in Guatemala as a Fulbright scholar, was able to attend some of these trials while I was there that are ongoing. So the movie really focuses narrowly, as you mentioned, on the trial of Efrain Rios Montt. This is sort of like one of the things that I hope to underscore is that we view the Hunter trials as being so historical, but what happened in Guatemala, in many ways, is also historical.

00;35;08;16 - 00;35;38;04

Rachel López

It was the first time that a former head of government basically was convicted of genocide in a domestic court, and so in that way, it has really big significance to human rights and transitional justice. The challenge that you mentioned, I think, is so fundamental here and showing or countering the defense that all of these defendants not just apprehended Osman, but others like Benedicto Lucas Garcia, who's also depicted in the film, of them basically saying, like, we didn't know what was happening.

00;35;38;04 - 00;36;07;12

Rachel López

This was low level officials. And in fact, many of the cases that I studied, depict that. So we see cases of massacres that occurred in the countryside, depicted in the court decisions as being the acts of rogue soldiers are rogue farmers, even. And so that was part of the defense that was built in. The challenge that you do discuss of nailing a dictator is proving that the highest level officials not only knew, but actually ordered this genocide in essence.

00;36;07;12 - 00;36;35;20

Rachel López

Right. And so one of the key pieces from Yates's documentary, When the Mountains Tremble, that was used both in the Spanish universal jurisdiction case, which hopefully we can talk about as well. And in the domestic trial of Rios Montt was this interview of Pamela Yates when she was very young journalist in Ottumwa, asking this question about sort of what level of control does he have over low level soldiers?

00;36;35;20 - 00;36;54;24

Rachel López

And he basically says in a way that it's used in a condemning way in these trials. If I don't have control over these soldiers, what the heck am I even doing in this position? Right. That's sort of the the English translation of what he's saying, sort of saying that I have absolute control over the entire military apparatus.

00;36;54;26 - 00;37;09;20

Rachel López

And so this is then used to show that basically he did know what was going on and in fact, was in complete control over these sort of civilian patrols and other folks who were engaging in the scorched earth campaign in the countryside.

00;37;09;22 - 00;37;34;12

Jonathan Hafetz

So interesting how the film captures that moment. And then it also depicts how Pamela Yates goes back to her outtakes from the interviews, kind of searching through when she sees there's an entirely different, albeit related, purpose that this footage can be used for. But you're right. I mean, very young at the time. Young journalist, she actually gets into a plane with either one of, Rios monitor, or maybe it was another that wasn't.

00;37;34;12 - 00;37;55;25

Jonathan Hafetz

It was another general. And it was the case. Garcia. She gets into a plane on a helicopter with them. When they're out on reconnaissance. It gets shot down. She fortunately survives, but she was very kind of young at the time. And then later on, as as this process, this this transitional process, down ability process picks up the footage becomes used as part of the story that she had been depicting.

00;37;55;28 - 00;38;22;01

Jonathan Hafetz

You mentioned the universal jurisdiction case in Spain. I want to talk a little bit about that. Basically the idea that after there are roadblocks to accountability in Guatemala, lawyers file petitions or actions in Spanish national courts seeking accountability for atrocities in Guatemala. Can you talk about the concept of universal jurisdiction and the role of Spain? Spanish courts in Guatemala?

00;38;22;03 - 00;38;44;18

Rachel López

Yeah, I'd love to talk about that. This was also part of my research as a Fulbright scholar. I look both at the Spanish universal jurisdiction cases and at the Guatemalan proceedings. And so I'm very interested to sort of talk further about that. But I also maybe want to contextualize this and bring it back to something that's important in Argentina, which is this idea, this conception.

00;38;44;20 - 00;39;26;06

Rachel López

Catherine the King calls it the boomerang effect. Naomi Rosario calls it the Pinochet effect, which is this idea of the use of domestic human rights advocates using international or foreign proceedings to put pressure on their domestic actors to move forward with convictions. And that's exactly what happened with this universal jurisdiction case in Spain. So Rigoberta menchu, who is an indigenous woman who lost most of her family during the genocide, takes a case to Spain, a case of genocide against the leaders in mostly in the 80s, including Afra and Rios Montt, alleging that they were involved in genocide.

00;39;26;08 - 00;39;52;24

Rachel López

And these proceedings, move forward to the investigative stage. Ultimately, they are road blocked by Guatemala, which refuses to extradite the defendants. But as part of this boomerang effect that is described by other scholars, we see pressure put on Guatemala to proceed with the cases that have been languishing in Guatemala, in courts and in Guatemalan prosecutors offices for decades.

00;39;52;25 - 00;40;15;11

Rachel López

And so that's part of the significance and the importance of international and foreign courts being involved. Now, John, if you'll let me, I want to quickly mention something of how this relates to Argentina. I have several critiques of the movie, but one of them is that they don't really portray the role of international law in this movement.

00;40;15;11 - 00;40;53;29

Rachel López

So just to give you a sense. So there's this international commission called the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It's part of the Organization of American States. And it, along with the Inter-American court and human rights are legal, like judicial and quasi judicial bodies that hold states accountable for their human rights violations. Now, what's significant about this is that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was the first official body to recommend criminal prosecution in Argentina, and this put pressure on Argentina to move forward with these trials similarly.

00;40;53;29 - 00;41;22;28

Rachel López

Right. You know, wasn't that this was happening in a vacuum? Argentine and human rights defenders were pushing for these entities to make these declarations. Similarly, the Inter-American system also engaged in this process, not just in Argentina, but more broadly of declaring Amnesty's of crimes against humanity in violation of human rights. And that was part of what was used by the Argentine Supreme Court to nullify the amnesty laws that existed in Argentina.

00;41;23;00 - 00;41;36;22

Rachel López

You see, basically, in both of these situations how advocates are able to engage in transnational judicial processes to put pressure on the domestic organs, to move forward with the prosecutions.

00;41;36;25 - 00;41;59;28

Jonathan Hafetz

It's such an interesting and important piece that's not depicted of the Argentine process and an important part of the Guatemala process, because it does focus extensively on Spain. You know, about the boomerang effect, which illustrates how these processes are not purely domestic and international, is also probably for another podcast. But the way they interact and the way the international process can put pressure on the domestic process.

00;42;00;04 - 00;42;22;03

Jonathan Hafetz

Now, we talked about the importance of the Rosemont prosecution, as you mentioned, the first time that a domestic court had held a leader responsible or accountable for genocide. But the conviction is undone. And there's another twist and turn in the Guatemalan national process. Can you talk about what happened to Rios Montt and the Guatemalan national proceedings?

00;42;22;05 - 00;42;45;17

Rachel López

It was so incredible to see Rios Montt convicted of genocide, and deeply heartbreaking when that trial was reversed by the Constitutional Court in Guatemala. And just to give a little bit of personal background to this, I just graduated from college and I spent a year in Guatemala researching the genocide that occurred there. And at the time, Rios Montt was the head of the Congress and had announced his candidacy for president.

00;42;45;19 - 00;43;08;24

Rachel López

And it was hard for me, as an aspiring human rights attorney, to understand how that was possible. And so in some ways, it felt deeply vindicating to see him finally held to account in Guatemala, in what's called the high risk court. That was the tribunal that he was convicted in the Constitutional Court later reverses on basically procedural technicality.

00;43;08;24 - 00;43;35;13

Rachel López

So there's this point in the trial when Rios Montt essentially fires his defense counsel. And he is allowed to proceed by himself. So on that basis, the Constitutional Court reverses. And they didn't sort of dismiss the case. The case was meant to proceed and go forward again. They basically paused the proceedings at the point when his attorneys were no longer representing him in court, and they were supposed to reconvene at that moment.

00;43;35;16 - 00;43;57;07

Rachel López

The challenge basically is, is that Rios Montt then becomes very ill and dies very shortly after this occurs. And so the trial is never able to reconvene. And so we're left in this sort of legal limbo of not knowing whether he would have been convicted on retrial. And so this is part of the challenge both depicted in Argentina and Guatemala.

00;43;57;09 - 00;44;20;11

Rachel López

You know, one step forward, two steps back sometimes. And it's a continual fight for justice in the sense of retribution in these countries. And I think that we can see, tragically, how oftentimes people that come forward don't always see the justice that they would like to see, at least in terms of retribution.

00;44;20;14 - 00;44;46;00

Jonathan Hafetz

There's so many challenges to nailing a dictator, as the film puts it, challenges of proof, challenges to political will. And then you finally have the temporal challenge, right? At some point time you run out. Something similar happened with Pinochet. I mean, happened with Milosevic in the Yugoslav court. So the arc of universe bends towards justice. It may, but you also have a finite amount of time if you're going to try to convict a leader responsible for egregious human rights violations.

00;44;46;00 - 00;44;54;09

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's unfortunate that that did happen in Guatemala. But would you say that the trial and the proceedings have had an important domestic effect in Guatemala?

00;44;54;11 - 00;45;29;27

Rachel López

This is such an important question. I mentioned that I have some critiques about maybe both films, but in particular the Argentina 1985 case. So I think in general, and this gets to critiques by Karen Angle and others of the anti impunity turn of the human rights movement. In other words, the extreme and heavy focus in human rights on criminal trials as the end all be all in terms of human rights success and everything kind of hanging on the success of a trial, which, as we've already discussed, you know, can be very tenuous in terms of outcomes.

00;45;30;00 - 00;45;56;00

Rachel López

And I think we see by contrasting these two films in these two contexts, the risk of putting too much weight on trials and overemphasizing, I think to some extent they're important. So Francisco Quintana has made this critique of this movie in particular, right, that it sort of in some ways glorifies the role of the prosecutors in this trial, in the transition to democracy of Argentina.

00;45;56;02 - 00;46;18;28

Rachel López

I don't mean to diminish their work, but I think that there's a risk in over glorifying trials as the one solution to transition, when in fact we can see by the example of Guatemala, which in many ways has been very successful, we can talk about the other cases that have proceeded as well. You know, Rios Mann, of course, it's complicated because it was partially reversed.

00;46;18;28 - 00;46;55;22

Rachel López

But there are other trials that have been very successful, including the first domestic court to announce that rape is a form of torture, and amounts to crimes against humanity that occurred in Guatemala as well. The largest case of enforced disappearances is moving forward in Guatemala. And even despite these successes in Guatemala. Just to give you a snippet of why we can't rely solely on trials as a means of democratic transition, the two front running candidates for president Guatemala, one of them is the daughter of Efrain Rios Montt.

00;46;55;24 - 00;47;18;00

Rachel López

And so even though the goal of the trials was to change the narrative, to expose the public about what was happening in the rural areas, the genocide and the brutality of the military government, it has not been as successful in changing the narrative and really the goal of the human rights defenders in depleting the political power of the military elite in Guatemala.

00;47;18;02 - 00;47;47;23

Rachel López

And so I think that contrasting these two countries is important, because if you look at both of them, part of the difference, I don't think, can be attributed to the success or failure of the trials, but rather the broader political context of these countries. So in Argentina, there was what Catherine the King would describe as a rupture transition, meaning it was more of a clear transition from the prior military regime to a democratic governance structure.

00;47;48;00 - 00;48;17;10

Rachel López

Whereas in Guatemala, the military elite continue even to this day to have extraordinary power, sometimes explicitly, sometimes clandestinely, in controlling the country. And to me, I think that is more significant to the current situation of both countries. Then, the outcomes of either of these two trials. And so part of the risk, I think, for us as borrowers, right, we want to see these movies and believe that we can have a role in creating a more just world.

00;48;17;10 - 00;48;34;16

Rachel López

And I'm not saying that that's not true. I just think that you can't divorce that from the broader political work and context that needs to be understood, and also the organizing that needs to occur in order for really true democracy to take root. And transitioning countries.

00;48;34;19 - 00;49;02;02

Jonathan Hafetz

Trial is just a piece of a larger puzzle, and you can't see it in isolation. I think it's a challenge for lawyers, but it's also a challenge for filmmakers. There's a tendency to focus on the trial because it has a built in narrative. It has a outcome, there's a drama that goes along with it. But I think, as you're suggesting, you have to be very careful if you're a filmmaker in not overemphasizing the result of a trial.

00;49;02;03 - 00;49;31;24

Jonathan Hafetz

I think a film that actually does quite a good job with this, which examined in an earlier episode, is Judgment Nuremberg, not just in with a later military to one of the later military trials in Nuremberg, where the film shows how highly contextualized politically these trials are. Different political dynamics. But the very point you're making, one of the other interesting things about this process in Guatemala, in the accountability process, is the role of investigators and evidence.

00;49;31;24 - 00;49;59;06

Jonathan Hafetz

And this is not just inside the courtroom, but outside as well. It highlights the work of Freddie Corelli, the executive director of the Guatemalan forensic anthropology Foundation, who has led the search for the excavation of remains of many of the victims of atrocities. And Kate Doyle, a senior analyst at National Security Archive who helped uncover formerly secret documents regarding US knowledge of and involvement in the notorious massacre by the Guatemalan military in 1982.

00;49;59;06 - 00;50;22;12

Jonathan Hafetz

At those hours, and the film mentions and describes it, one of the key developments in Guatemala was the accidental discovery in 2005, and an abandoned police building of the records of the National Police, which document the forced disappearance, and it proved vital in the ability of family members of victims to learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones and to obtain justice.

00;50;22;12 - 00;50;45;18

Jonathan Hafetz

And it talks about one of the lawyers who was able to obtain justice against the police officials who disappeared her father. And when we went to Guatemala, one of the most powerful things was visiting this archive and seeing this, which has been turned into kind of a site of conscience or a museum, you talk a little bit about the police archives and the role of investigations in the accountability process, and in coming to terms with the past in Guatemala.

00;50;45;21 - 00;51;05;22

Rachel López

Yeah. And I was also thinking back on that time when we were there together with some students, learning about the police archives and the story of the archives is kind of incredible in many ways, because it was believed that there were no police archives, that they were destroyed. And ultimately that's discovered because someone calls in basically a fire.

00;51;05;22 - 00;51;26;01

Rachel López

They say, there's a fire at this old thing. It's an old abandoned high school or something. And they find these police archives that really draw the thread in terms of what was happening, not in the countryside, but the disappearances that were happening in Guatemala City, and how these individuals were targeted and even held in secret prisons in Guatemala City.

00;51;26;06 - 00;51;51;10

Rachel López

And so it was a key piece of the evidence related to the disappearances that were occurring in the cities. This also speaks to some of the backs lighting that's happening in Guatemala, because the government essentially removed funding for that archive. And last I heard, they were struggling to keep open, in part because of the backlash that's happening in Guatemala against people that had pursued justice in criminal trials.

00;51;51;10 - 00;52;12;26

Rachel López

And so that's, I think, an important thing to note as well. But in terms of investigations, part of the challenge, but also I think the importance of criminal trials is that they require evidence, as we were describing before, with, when the mountains tremble, you need to be able to connect up the highest level officials down to those that were actually committing the atrocities on the ground.

00;52;13;02 - 00;52;34;05

Rachel López

The same thing can be said as true of the police archives, because it draw the line between those that were ultimately responsible at the highest levels, to the people that were engaging in disappearances and torture in the city, on the ground. And so in this way, the archives in many ways are an incredible blueprint of how this actually happens on the ground.

00;52;34;05 - 00;53;03;18

Rachel López

And there's, I think, so much to be learned from them. And thankfully, even despite the backlash in Guatemala, my alma mater, the University of Texas, has played a key role in digitizing many of these archives. So many of them are available in, digitized archive available through the University of Texas. And so there are investigations that are ongoing related to disappearances that have been documented in those archives.

00;53;03;21 - 00;53;27;25

Jonathan Hafetz

That's so important that that's preserved for the future. And it's such an important piece in Guatemala's history, is at risk of going under because of lack of support due to the backsliding, which prompted me to ask you, I mean, in Guatemala, a lot of the focus has moved on. Concerns now tend to focus more on high levels of violence, drug trafficking, corruption, which are, of course, related to migration questions which place a problem in the United States.

00;53;27;27 - 00;53;36;29

Jonathan Hafetz

To what extent is reckoning with the past trial or non trial, or both connected to those issues and the challenges Guatemala faces today?

00;53;37;01 - 00;54;02;22

Rachel López

I think that Guatemala is such a powerful example of if you don't fully reckon with the past, that the crimes will continue in other forms. And so even though we can say the Guatemalan government is not engaging in genocide, the same actors or network of actors are involved in corruption and they're involved in narco trafficking. Right. I'll give you sort of a powerful illustration of this.

00;54;02;24 - 00;54;34;18

Rachel López

There was, I think actually might have been president when we were down there. John Perez Molina Otto Perez Molina was the president at the time. And while the Rios Montt trial was going on, they basically had to shut down the trial because one of the witnesses essentially made reference to Perez Molina's role in the genocide. He was a general in the countryside and someone made reference to his role basically tying him to the genocide because he was present at the time they shut down the trial at or paused it temporarily.

00;54;34;21 - 00;54;57;25

Rachel López

And later, just to connect this up to your question, he was indicted by, there's a UN hybrid commission there that investigates corruption. They're not investigating at all. Their mandate is not to investigate the atrocities of the Civil war, but they were able to uncover, basically his role in engaging in all sorts of corrupt practices while president and ultimately, now he's behind bars for those acts.

00;54;58;01 - 00;55;31;16

Rachel López

This is just an illustration of the thread that exists between individuals who are involved in human rights violations and atrocities, continuing to use their power to essentially raid the coffers of Guatemala. And so I think that you can see a direct line between the past and the present. One thing that's been documented by, Vola, the Washington office on Latin America, is also how, after the Civil War, many of the military powers, even though they're not in power as a matter of law, they're not sort of official leaders of the government.

00;55;31;20 - 00;55;57;19

Rachel López

They're pulling the strings through these clandestine networks behind the scenes and, perhaps more alarmingly, have now partnered with narco traffickers and are engaging in extreme violence. In that instance, they may not have the same face or features as the genocide, but nonetheless engaging in extraordinarily brutality all through the service of financial gain.

00;55;57;21 - 00;56;21;24

Jonathan Hafetz

That's so important to confront and deal with the past and has these ramifications. And I have to say, another troubling aspect of this is the role that the US played in Guatemala heavy role going back decades and decades, as well as in Argentina, with forms of neo colonialism and also support of the right wing government, training of torture and various other aspects.

00;56;21;24 - 00;56;37;00

Jonathan Hafetz

And so, you know, now, especially where there's this response to the the high levels of migration coming from Central America. I mean, the U.S certainly has some role in destabilizing the region, in Latin America together. I mean, we can't let the US off the hook here.

00;56;37;02 - 00;57;06;07

Rachel López

As you mentioned, Cato's research really showed that the US government knew exactly what was happening and continued to provide, military aid and technical support and training to the very individuals that are engaging in genocide. The kind of irony now is, you know, when I interviewed people in Guatemala, they attribute the success of those trials in large part to the support by the US government, which was then rescinded during the Trump administration and really created some extraordinarily risk for those involved.

00;57;06;07 - 00;57;33;15

Rachel López

And indeed, the UN Hybrid Commission that I mentioned has now been kicked out of the country, in part because, the Trump administration no longer decided to actively support it. And so we see the role of the US can be a force for good. But as you describe, particularly during this period of the Dirty War and the genocide in Guatemala, we actually were facilitating, essentially aiding and abetting these atrocities that were occurring.

00;57;33;15 - 00;57;51;25

Rachel López

And they weren't doing so because they didn't know what was happening. They were doing so because it was part of a broader political agenda to ensure that, so-called communist governments, even if they weren't actually communists, were not allowed to gain power during the Cold War.

00;57;51;27 - 00;58;17;23

Jonathan Hafetz

And it's important, the role that you mentioned, the National Archives played in Kate Doyle, in getting access to many secret documents which had significant effects in the transitional justice process and within those countries. So those secret documents that were finally declassified, to wrap up, just talk about you can the legacy of the process in Argentina, the process in Guatemala, and comment on the moment that we're at now.

00;58;17;23 - 00;58;37;01

Jonathan Hafetz

You mentioned the Trump administration in terms of rescinding support for trials and for accountability process. But in a sense, we're at our own accountability moment. You talk a little about the legacy of the films and maybe what they can teach us. And if we thought the United States was above this type of process, transitional justice experience.

00;58;37;03 - 00;59;12;04

Rachel López

I believe in accountability for, of course, the election corruption of the Trump administration and many of his other illegal acts. I think the challenge of this really is reflected in how I understand both trials in Argentina and Guatemala. I think that there is a cautionary tale to be learned from the trials in Argentina and Guatemala, to the extent that, my critique of them, right, is that we cannot, as a society, rely exclusively on trials to ensure the existence of democracy.

00;59;12;10 - 00;59;42;19

Rachel López

We can see the differences in how those trials played out in terms of ensuring enduring democracy, particularly in Guatemala, where, unfortunately, despite some important successes, it has not secured the future of Guatemalan democracy. Maybe a lesson for us is holding Trump and other officials accountable via criminal trials alone will not be enough to ensure the future of our democracy.

00;59;42;22 - 01;00;09;28

Rachel López

I believe in accountability for the wrongdoing and illegal acts of Trump that we need to be cautious about understanding them as the panacea for our future. I don't think that they will ever be that really, what is needed is a broader political strategy to ensure that we continue to uphold the importance of the rule of law and democratic principles in ways that stretch far beyond what happens in criminal courts.

01;00;10;00 - 01;00;32;16

Rachel López

What is most important in my mind, is political organization and trying to counter some of the narrative that are ongoing, right. So even if it's not Trump, it may be DeSantis, for example, who will continue to pose a threat to democracy in the US. And I don't think that that threat will be curtailed by criminal prosecutions.

01;00;32;18 - 01;00;57;16

Jonathan Hafetz

That's a great point. It kind of goes back to we're saying earlier on about narrative and the different audiences you have, what happens in the courtroom and what happens in the larger society in the latter is as if not more important. Well, Rachel, it's been so great to have you on, law on film. So appreciative of your sharing your expertise, transitional justice or accountability, these concepts, as well as on Argentina and on Guatemala where you've done such important work.

01;00;57;23 - 01;01;20;09

Jonathan Hafetz

So thank you again. And I would recommend that people see those films Argentina 1985 from 2022, which was widely acclaimed and was nominated for a foreign language Oscar. And then Benito, I don't know, a dictator from 2011 by Pamela Yates, which is a really important documentary to give people more information into Guatemala. I just feel people don't know enough about it.

01;01;20;11 - 01;01;21;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Thank you so much, Rachel.

01;01;21;28 - 01;01;27;19

Rachel López

It's been such a pleasure and so great to connect with you again and reminisce about our time in Guatemala.