Obama fails to apologize for US-backed 1976 Argentine coup

President Barack Obama has admitted the United States was "slow to speak out for human rights" after Argentina’s US-backed military coup that brought the dictators to power, but stopped short of apologizing for Washington’s support for the military dictatorship.

Obama made the remarks on Thursday, speaking at a ceremony at Remembrance Park in Buenos Aires to mark the 40th anniversary of the coup.

He honored some 30,000 people who were killed or went missing during the 1976-1983 military regime, which declassified documents have showed was supported by Washington.

"There's been controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days, and the United States, when it reflects on what happened here, has to examine its own policies as well, and its own past,” he said.

"Democracies have to have the courage to acknowledge when we don't live up to the ideals that we stand for; when we've been slow to speak out for human rights. And that was the case here,” Obama said.

Obama and Argentinean President Mauricio Macri threw white flowers into the brown waters of the Río de la Plata, or River Plate, to remember thousands of victims of Argentina’s US-backed dictatorship.

Many of the victims were made to “disappear” by being pushed alive from military planes into the waters of the River Plate and of the South Atlantic Ocean.

Several of prominent Argentina’s human rights groups, including the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo association, boycotted the memorial ceremony.

“First the US encouraged the killing, then they scolded Argentina for carrying it out,” said 86-year-old Nora Cortinas, whose son was “disappeared” under the military dictatorship. “There’s no way we would go meet Obama.”

A large number of protesters burned US flags and held up signs reading “Obama go home” during a massive demonstration on the Plaza de Mayo, the main square located in front of the presidential palace.

“The US played a part in the crimes against human rights crimes committed in the region,” said Estela Carlotto, leader of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

“Now the president of the US has announced, 40 years after the fact, that they will declassify archives of the dictatorship, we hope he keeps the promise,” he stated.

According to US diplomatic documents declassified in 2002, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a key role in the 1976 Argentine coup d'état against the government of President Isabel Martínez de Perón.

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