Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
officer now remained in prison for their roles in the Dirty War. The mili-
tary remained unrepentant, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo still
mounted protest marches each Thursday in Buenos Aires's main square.
The Fitful Start of Economic Reform
Perhaps the struggle to establish justice through accountability for
human rights crimes would have been more successful if economic
problems had not undermined the Alfonsín government and diverted
attention. Inflation proved unmanageable, and the foreign debt was
impossible to pay down. President Alfonsín did try the orthodox, IMF-
approved fiscal remedies, but politically he could not afford to take
bolder measures such as reduction of the bureaucracy and privatiza-
tion of state industries. Budget deficits still equaled 15 percent of the
gross domestic product. The government owed $3.2 million in back
a heavy glass cover, bolted down by 12 triple-combination locks, still
protected Perón's handless corpse.
The saga of Evita Perón is the most famous case of the country's
politicization of the deceased. After her death in 1952, President
Perón hired a Spanish forensic doctor to prepare her body for
immortality in a year-long process of embalming. Thereafter, the body
came to rest in an open-casket at the headquarters of the General
Labor Confederation (CGT). After ousting Perón from power, the
military removed Evita's body in 1955 for a secret burial in Italy. Her
remains did not return to Argentina until the Montoneros first killed
the man responsible for her body's disappearance, General Aramburu,
and later stole his corpse, too. Evita and Aramburu both reached their
final resting places in 1974.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara shared similar controversy and tribulation
after his death in 1967. Bolivian military officers snapped a famous pho-
tograph of the corpse shortly after they executed the man who had
attempted to start a revolution in their country. They later removed
his hands in order to provide fingerprints that would confirm Che's
identity. The body then disappeared. Finally, in 1998, Fidel Castro
obtained the Bolivian government's cooperation in locating Guevara's
body, buried beneath the tarmac of a military airfield. Guevara's corpse
returned to Cuba for a hero's funeral. He lies at rest in a magnificent
tomb located at the base of the mountain out of which Che had led a
victorious column of revolutionary guerrillas.
