Argentina and the "Disappeared"

In connection with the Fifth Amendment, I mentioned the period when Argentina was ruled by a military junta.

The singer Mercedes Sosa came to my attention since she just passed away.

Her favorite idea was:

Dictators come, dictators go. We in the United States pray that the Fifth Amendment not go away.

Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, (July 9, 1935 — October 4, 2009) was an Argentine singer who was and remains immensely popular throughout Latin America and internationally. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by both Brazilians and Cubans. She was best known as the "voice of the voiceless ones."

After the military junta of Jorge Videla came to power in 1976, the atmosphere in Argentina grew increasingly oppressive. At a concert in La Plata, Argentina, in 1979, the late Mercedes Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, along with the attending crowd. Their release came about through international intervention. Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid.

From Wikipedia, "Mercedes Sosa", accessed October 7, 2009.

"The climate changes over the years. The pastor changes his flock. And just as everything, everything changes, it's not strange that I have changed."
Cambia el clima con los años. Cambia el pastor su rebaño. Y así como todo cambia. Que yo cambié no es extraño.

Cambia, todo cambia.
Change, everything changes.

Amendment V

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;
nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

Comments by Nate Segal

The Fifth Amendment contains three clauses that restrain Federal powers:

1. A citizen is entitled to public processes before entering court if they are accused of a crime.

   In tyrannies of all sorts, a citizen may be hauled away from their home in the midst of night and disappear. Only if the government wishes, it lets it be known that the citizen has been arrested for a serious crime and may face trial.

   Often, these governments remain silent about the whereabouts of the person and rebuff inquiries from the public.

   Some states have used this approach to suppress political dissent. Think of Iran today, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the former Soviet Union, and the period of the military junta in Argentina.

   The English Crown was known to spirit away landowners because the Crown coveted land. No sooner was the landowner gone than the Crown took possession of his land.

   The colonists were probably aware of what an absolute monarch could and did do. If the landed gentry were not safe on their land, how much more so the ordinary citizen?

2. A citizen need not defend his or her innocence. The burden of proof falls on the government.

   If the Federal government fails to prove its case in the first trial, this amendment forbids the government from trying the citizen again.

   A common strategy in totalitarian regimes is to "discover" new evidence which is actually manufactured. For example, the government threatens another citizen to bear false witness or suffer dire consequences.

3. The Federal government may exercise eminent domain for a public purpose in a public way. Also, when the property owner is compensated, the government has no power to keep the amount of compensation a secret.

   Recent disturbing rulings concerning taking private property for so-called public use seem to have given local jurisdictions unprecedented powers. New Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled in a Connecticut case that a local jurisdiction could condemn private business and residential land to resell this land to a private developer for redevelopment at a profit.