US President Barack Obama said his administration will start declassifying documents related to Argentina’s “dirty war”, between 1976 and 1983, during which over 20,000 citizens disappeared. 

These “missing” Marxists, labour union leaders, human rights activists and leftist opponents were secretly detained, tortured and murdered, and their bodies were never recovered. It is a blemish on the country that history will forever recall.

Obama made this statement during his recent visit to Buenos Aires for talks with Argentinean President Mauricio Macri; it coincided with the 40th anniversary of the military coup (March 24, 1976) that ushered in the rule of terror and grave human rights violations.

During his stay in the Argentinean capital, Obama, who visited a memorial park dedicated to the victims of the military dictatorship rule and laid a wreath at the monument bearing the names of the 20,000 “desaparecidos”, admitted that his country was simply too slow in condemning the human rights atrocities during that era.

He, however, stopped short of apologising for the US’ inaction or involvement — of which it is accused; a more prominent US administration member bearing such accusations is Henry Kissinger, who denied them.

“There has been controversy about policies of the US in those dark days,” Obama admitted.

“Democracies have to have the courage when we don’t live up to the ideals that we stand for. And we have been slow to speak out for human rights and that was the case here,” the US president said at the monument dedicated to the victims of state terrorism. Obama arrived in Argentina upon the conclusion of his state visit to Havana where he also hoped to start a new page in US-Cuban relations after 59 years of hostilities that once brought the US and then USSR to the brink of a nuclear war.

Obama, now in his final year at the White House, seems to wish to correct past wrong US policies across the globe.

After Cuba and Argentina, one would expect the US to offer apology to Japan for dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, and express some remorse over the military involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

And then, maybe, just maybe, the US will think of expressing regret for its disastrous policies in Iraq, his failed policies in the Palestinian and Syrian conflicts, and to the Libyans, laying the groundwork for a new US attitude towards the Middle East, as well as vis-à-vis other countries in the world.