Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

rights from them. However, the threat of a military coup on the still precarious democracy of Argentina impeded further adjudication of perpetrators and made the release of captured military dictators inevitable. Nestor Kirchner’s act of public plea for forgiveness on behalf of the state introduces us into a new concept that permeates both internal conflicts, the one of Argentina and of South Africa – the concept of “dignity” . As the legal and institutional system failed to satisfy justice sought by the families, friends and compatriots of the murdered and deceased, but also by the victims that survived torture, the public act of “restoring face” on behalf of the state and military was performed by the President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, who publicly asked for forgiveness. If dignity refers to the sole individual, and honor is linked to institutional roles , then the public acts of dignity of individuals helped restore the honor of institutional bodies. The honor of the church, shaken by the involvement of a chaplain in crimes against humanity, was partially restored by sentencing him to life in prison, therefore using legal power in the process of restoration of dignity of both the state and the church actors. The public plea for forgiveness by one of the church representatives, for being alongside the crucifiers instead of the crucified, was greeted with ovations from the audience in the court room. Genuine pleas for forgiveness seemed to have come to fruition.…

This became the worst economic, social, and political crisis in Argentina’s history. The President at the time, Adolfo Rodriguez, declared a default on the government 's foreign debt in December of that year, and abruptly resigned only a few days after taking office. His successor, Eduardo Duhalde, announced an end to the peso 's decade-long 1-to-1 peg to the US dollar in early 2002. The economy bottomed out that year, with real GDP 18% smaller than in 1998 and almost 60% of the country was…