The U.S. press, which has recently publicized the confessions of Argentine military leaders who reported the dropping from planes into the ocean of hundreds of the "disappeared," has largely covered up the role of the pope, the Argentine bishops, and the papal nuncio, Pio Laghi. The March-April 1989 Human Quest carried this writer's full-length review of a book by a Catholic layman, Emilio F. Mignone, Witness to the Truth: The Complicity of Church and Dictatorship.

In it the author quotes Argentine bishops who endorsed and supported the actions of the armed forces. He also reported that Pio Laghi "spoke with the commanders and officers in the army post at Tucman and gave them a papal blessing."

From ............HUMAN QUEST

Sept-Oct, 1995

page 7

The culture of violence is supported by prominent public figures such as former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick who defended dictators in Argentina's "dirty war" where those killed and "disappeared" were well over 13,000. She referred to them and other right wing dictators as "authoritarian regimes" in contrast to left wing "totalitarian" ones. She excused the raping and killing of American nuns in El Salvador because they were "not just nuns" but "were political activists." Similarly Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes of The New Republic played along with the Reagan administration's anti-communist intervention in Central America and covered up or whitewashed atrocities.

The U.S. press, which has recently publicized the confessions of Argentine military leaders who reported the dropping from planes into the ocean of hundreds of the "disappeared," has largely covered up the role of the pope, the Argentine bishops, and the papal nuncio, Pio Laghi.

The March-April 1989 Human Quest carried this writer's full-length review of a book by a Catholic layman, Emilio F. Mignone, Witness to the Truth: The Complicity of Church and Dictatorship.

In it the author quotes Argentine bishops who endorsed and supported the actions of the armed forces. He also reported that Pio Laghi "spoke with the commanders and officers in the army post at Tucman and gave them a papal blessing." The pope, who visited Argentina during this period, made no public statement against the atrocities, in marked contrast to his public disapproval of less brutal events in other countries such as Poland and Nicaragua.

The culture of violence is not simply an immediate phenomenon. It was nourished by the Cold War and anti-communism, supported by many newspapers and media commentators, and even now by numerous members of Congress who do not oppose right-wing paramilitary movements or the promotion of gun ownership by the N.R.A.

It is the culture of violence evident not only in the availability of guns and official killing and injuries, but in the violence of poverty, unemployment and hopelessness that leads so many to intimidate, threaten, rob and kill, or simply take vengeance on those who stand in their way. Although they are few in number, those who are committed to non-violent action and conflict resolution play an essential role, along with those advocating gun control, in providing both an alternative movement and hope for a better future. However, they must act, teach, preach, and organize against violence. Silent opposition is of little use.

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