On Innocent Victims and Demons in Argentina (1983-1985)

LUCAS MARTÍN

African Yearbook of Rhetoric

Centre for Rhetoric Studies ? University of Cape Town

Lugar: Ciudad del Cabo; Año: 2012 vol. 3 p. 65 - 75

2220-2188

When the las Argentina´s dictatorship came to an end in 1983, a year after the country?s defeat in the Falklands/Malvinas War, the crimes committed during the Proceso became public. In this context of democratic transition two forms of acknowledging the traumatic past took shape: the discourse of blame and innocence and the so-called ?theory of the two demons?. The aim of this article is to examine how these particular discourses crystalised: as they developed, they obstructed important aspects of the past which, had they been considered, would have recognised a certain degree of responsibility on the Argentine society?s part and contributed to a better understanding of this traumatic period. In this sense, I will point out an occluded distinction between the victim of repression and the victim of deception in order to discuss the critical importance of the social dilemma of truth under dictatorship.