Vatican, Argentine church to open ‘dirty war’ archives
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican and Argentina’s bishops have finished cataloguing their archives from the country’s “dirty war” and will soon make them available to victims and their relatives who have long accused church members of complicity with the military dictatorship. The 3,000 files being released, though, are a fraction of the documentation believed to be in the possession of the Argentine church.
A joint statement Tuesday by the Vatican and the Argentine bishops’ conference said the process of digitizing the archives had been completed and that procedures to access the information would be forthcoming. No date was set, and the opening for now is restricted to victims, detainees, their relatives and the religious superiors of victims who were priests or nuns.
Official estimates say between 7,600-13,000 people were killed or disappeared in a government-sponsored crackdown on leftist dissidents during Argentina’s 1976-1983 “dirty war.” Human rights activists believe the real number was as high as 30,000.
Many senior clerics were close to Argentina’s military rulers at the time and human rights groups have accused them of complicity with the regime.