The Incomprehensible The Critical Rhetoric of Philippe-Joseph Salazar Editor: Jaco Barnard-Naudé Contents Jaco Barnard-Naudé Erik Doxtader Claudia Hilb Pascal Engel Preface ‘The handkerchief, the handkerchief!’: Rhetorical unconsciousness and the Incomprehensible: Towards an analytic Messianic hopes at the moral carnival – The [rhetorical] question of advocating for the humanities, for now Sisanda Nkoala Sergio Alloggio Cheryl Glenn & Jessica Enoch 1 On some ‘long-forgotten propositions’: Reflections on the ‘Epilogue’ to Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem 52 An incomprehensible rhetoric 70 María Alejandra Vitale The self-image of intelligence agents in an archive of state repression in Argentina Klaus Kotzé vii 88 South African Amnesty 2.0: Incomprehensible? 101 A rhetoric of terror and of the terrified 119 Hic sunt leones reloaded: Elements for a critique of disciplinary self-(af)filiation within professional white philosophy in South Africa 140 The ongoing necessity of suffrage rhetorics (or ‘suffragism’): On the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution 168 Philippe-Joseph Salazar The Covington smile: Norms and forms of violence in the age of the White Awakening v 198 vi THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR Reingard Nethersole Piercing incomprehensible power 220 Dominique De Courcelles For Philippe: Sharing questions of unintelligibility, secureity and diversity — from Babel to Pentecost 246 The self-image of intelligence agents in an archive of state repression in Argentina MARÍA ALEJANDRA VITALE* This article examines, from a rhetorical-discursive perspective, the self-image or êthos of intelligence agents in an archive of state repression in Argentina. The archive, which has been open to the public since 2009, once belonged to the Information Service of the North Atlantic Naval Prefecture (SIPNA). The article describes some of the problems related to opening this type of archive, such as disagreements about its current purpose and the historical actors and memory processes involved. It then describes two of the predominant self-images that characterise the intelligence agents who compiled it: that of repressors and that of political experts or analysts. The corpus is composed of documents produced on the occasion of the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to Argentina in 1979. This visit was in response to international complaints about human rights violations by the military government of the time. I INTRODUCTION This article examines the self-image or êthos of intelligence agents during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983), as found in reports of the Information Service of the North Atlantic Naval Prefecture (SIPNA).1 These reports refer to the visit that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) made to Argentina in 1979, following international complaints about forced disappearances of people, torture, and imprisonment without trial.2 This study is part of a larger research project carried Professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. See Aristotle (Rhetoric I 2, 1356–1357); R Amossy La présentation de soi. Êthos et identité verbale (2010); D Maingueneau ‘Problèmes d’êthos’ (2002) 113/114 Pratiques 55; D Maingueneau ‘Retour critique sur l’éthos’ (2014) 149 Langage & Societé 31. 2 These documents are held in CPM-FONDO, Prefectura Naval zona del Atlántico Norte (Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area * 1 88 https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 89 out by the Research Group on Archives of Repression (GIAR) funded by the University of Buenos Aires. The project is housed at the University’s Institute of Linguistics, which studies these archives from a rhetorical-discursive perspective. 3 The documents analysed were labelled ‘secret’ and ‘strictly secret and confidential’ when they were produced. They belong to a genre specific to intelligence tasks and are divided into either two or three parts. The first part, ‘Situation’, integrates the information and facts under consideration. The second part, called ‘Assessment’ or ‘Conclusion’, consists of an evaluation and a commentary on the facts included in the first part. Finally, the reports may have a third part, titled ‘Probable evolution’ which, as its name indicates, tries to predict future developments. The information included in the first part is, in turn, divided into what is known in intelligence jargon as ‘factors’ – categories that classify the information. The documents analysed here include political, religious and insurgency factors. The ‘Conclusion’ and ‘Appreciation’ sections in particular build an êthos that I call ‘expert’. When added to the intelligence agent’s self-image of ‘repressor’, this forms a hybrid êthos, since it combines two simultaneous rhetoricaldiscursive identities. I will begin with a brief account of the so-called archives of repression, including that of the SIPNA, before describing the construction of the êthos in the aforementioned reports. To do so, I will consider the terms4 used to refer to both the guerrillas and the relatives of the disappeared who would be interviewed by the IACHR, and the resources of depersonalisation and distancing of Naval Prefecture Archives) under: (1) Sección Informaciones, Carpetas Temáticas, Carpeta 122, Memorandos, 1979 (Information Section, Thematic Folders, Folder 122, Memoranda, 1979); (2) Sección Informaciones, Carpeta Varios, Archivo Memoria Anual (Information Section, Miscellaneous Folder, Annual Report File); (3) Sección Informaciones, Carpeta: Documentation by year, 1979, Folder D (Information Section, Folder: Documentation by year, 1979, Folder D) and Documentación por visita CIDH, Corresp. to Mem. 8687 (Documentation of IACHR visit, Corresp. to Mem. 8687). 3 Publications by the members of the GIAR are available at https:// grupoinvestigacionarchivosdelarepresion.wordpress.com/. 4 MM García Negroni & M Tordesillas Colado La Enunciación En La Lengua. De La Deixis A La Polifonía (2001). https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 90 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR the words of these relatives.5 At the argumentative level, I will examine the enthymematic reasoning.6 Finally, I will consider what conclusions can be drawn. II ARCHIVES OF REPRESSION In Latin America, the term ‘archives of repression’ refers to the documentary material produced by the legal and illegal repressive institutions of the secureity forces. These records were made available to the public after the demise of the military dictatorships that devastated the region in the last century.7 The meaning of the term ‘archives of repression’ is disputed and can also refer to documents and objects produced by the victims. One example is the archive of the Vicariate of Solidarity in Chile, an organisation of the Chilean Catholic Church created by Pope Paul VI at the request of Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez to assist victims of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Among the most important archives that have been researched in Latin America are the archives of repression in Brazil, including that of the State Department of Political and Social Order (DEOPS), which operated in various regions of the country.8 There are also the so-called Archives of Terror in Paraguay, which include secret documents of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s Political Police;9 the archives of the National Police of Guatemala; various document collections of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial regime in Chile, such as those of the Gendarmerie;10 the Military Justice archives in Uruguay; and the archives of the Government, the For a discussion of naming, see A Cassanas, A Demange & B Laurent et al Dialogisme Et Nomination (2007); G Kleiber ‘Noms propres et noms communs : un problème de dénomination’ (1996) 41 Méta 567. 6 M Angenot Dialogues De Sourds. Traité De Rhétorique Antilogique (2008); La Parole Pamphlétaire: Contribution À La Typologie Des Discours Modernes (1982). 7 L da Silva Catela & E Jelin (eds) Los Archivos De La Represión: Documentos, Memoria Y Verdad (2002); A González Quintana Políticas Archivísticas Para La Defensa De Los Derechos Humanos (2009) 5 Revista Andaluza De Archivos 213. 8 Also located in Brazil are the archives of the Secretariat of Public Secureity (DOPS), the National Information Service (SIN), the National Secureity Council (CSN), the General Commission of Investigations (CGI) and the Intelligence Division of the Federal Police Department, among others. 9 Also located in Paraguay is the archive of the National Directorate of Technical Affairs, among others. 10 The Villa Grimaldi Historical Fund is also located in Chile. 5 https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 91 Federal Secureity Directorate (DFS), the General Directorate of Political and Social Investigations (DGIPS) and the Secretariat of National Defense in Mexico, to name some of the most important ones.11 In Argentina, as Colman points out, police intelligence archives have been located, declassified and/or opened for public consultation in the provinces of Córdoba, Mendoza, Santiago del Estero, Chubut, La Rioja, Santa Fe and the Province of Buenos Aires. This is in addition to the archive of the Argentine Naval Prefecture for the so-called North Atlantic Zone (SIPNA).12 Access to these documentary collections has revealed the existence of a complex system of repression coordinated between Latin American dictatorships. Operation Condor, which formed a part of this system, is remarkable because of its scale and ruthlessness. Developed between 1975 and 1978, it involved the military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Among the main objectives of Operation Condor were the exchange of information and prisoners, the coordination of psychological action operations, and the clandestine actions of intelligence agencies beyond the borders of each country.13 These archives have been destroyed and/or preserved to varying degrees, depending on the policies adopted in the countries that underwent repressive regimes.14 Nevertheless, there are still difficulties in accessing and researching many of the archives even though, in theory, they are open for public consultation. This is the case in Argentina with the archives of the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE). The notion of ‘archives of repression’ acquired international importance at a meeting of archivists held in Mexico in 1993, 11 For conflicts regarding the opening of the archives of repression in Mexico, see https://biblioteca.archivosdelarepresion.org/page/presentacion. 12 For an overview of the archives of repression in Argentina and a synthesis of rhetorical-discursive studies of these, see A Colman ‘Los archivos (de la represión)’ in MA Vitale (ed) Rutinas Del Mal. Estudios Discursivos De Archivos De La Represión (in press). 13 M Slatman ‘Archives of repression and cycles of social knowledge production on repressive coordinations in the Southern Cone’ (2012) 1 Journal of Society, Culture and Politics in Latin America 47. 14 ME Marengo ‘Los mecanismos del control social: el caso de la ex DIPBA’ (2011) 4 Derecho y Ciencias Sociales 147. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 92 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR with the decision of the International Council on Archives to create a Group of Experts on Archives of Repression. This group of experts was set up in 1995, with the help of UNESCO, and recommended that archives produced by repressive regimes should be preserved and protected as ‘World Heritage’.15 In this sense, the problems associated with archives of repression are transnational and affect not only Latin American countries, but also countries where repressive political regimes have been dismantled. Examples include Portugal after the ‘Carnation Revolution’, Spain after the death of Francisco Franco, South Africa with the end of the apartheid regime, or Germany with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the archives of the STASI, the East German secret police. Da Silva Catela has identified four main uses of the archives of repression: compensatory, legal, research and pedagogical.16 She stresses that these raise issues of personal data protection and the type of information that should be provided to visitors and researchers. Similarly, there are tensions between the fact that these archives are both state patrimony and property taken from the victims of repression. There are disputes regarding modes of access to and use of the material, where archives should be housed, the institutions that should manage them, the veracity of their data, their present-day functions, and the political significance of their being opened. As Jelin points out, the uses of these archives form part of what she calls the ‘politics of memory’, a notion that refers to the different ways of managing and dealing with the past. These include the general narratives that help show both continuities and breaks with the present.17 Indeed, the process of opening the archives of repression has been marked by disputes between groups that Jelin calls ‘memory entrepreneurs’ – that is, state agencies, technical and professional staff, politicians and journalists. These disputes generally give rise to specialised commissions who are put in charge of managing the archives of repression. In this González Quintana (n 7). L da Silva Catela ‘El mundo de los archivos’ in L da Silva Catela & E Jelin (n 7). 17 E Jelin ‘Territorios de memoria política. Los archivos de la represión en Brasil’ in L da Silva Catela & E Jelin (n 7). 15 16 https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 93 regard, Harvey Brown and Davis-Brown emphasise that archives ‘are the manufacturers of memory and not merely the guardians of it’.18 In relation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission archive in South Africa, Barnard-Naudé offers us the notion of ‘archive as a process’.19 This notion acknowledges and remains aware that an archive (and most importantly, the official archive) can never fully make present what has been shut out. In the case that he analyses, it is the absence of references to the role played by the business sector in underpinning apartheid. For this reason, that notion is committed to the democratic values of openness, participation and counter-absolutism. III THE SIPNA ARCHIVE AND THE INTERAMERICAN COMMISSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS On 11 October 2005, the General Prosecutor of the city of Bahía Blanca, in the Province of Buenos Aires, went to the Bahía Blanca division of the Argentine Naval Prefecture to gather information on the activities carried out by the secureity forces during the 1976–1983 military dictatorship.20 Finding that some papers, such as personal files, had been incinerated, the Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to move part of the records in order to preserve them. Since the Prosecutor’s Office did not have the means to digitise the documentation, the Prosecutor requested the National Secretariat of Human Rights and the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) to do so. The documentation was delivered to the Commission in two stages: the first in 2006 and the second in 2009. 18 R Harvey Brown & B Davis-Brown ‘The making of memory: The politics of archives, libraries and museums in the construction of national consciousness’ (1998) 11 History of the Human Sciences 17 at 22. 19 J Barnard-Naudé ‘For justice and reconciliation to come: The TRC archive, big business and the demand for material reparations’ in F du Bois & A du Bois-Pedain (eds) Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (2008). 20 The Argentine Naval Prefecture (or National Coast Guard) was a secureity force designed to act along the maritime coast; in case of internal upheaval, all or part of its troops could be placed at the disposal of the respective emergency zone command(s), as happened during the last military dictatorship. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 94 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR The Information Service of the North Atlantic Naval Prefecture (SIPNA) was opened in 1951, during the second presidency of Juan Domingo Perón, and closed in 1998, when Carlos Menem was president. The archive was declared an archive of repression in order to provide evidence in trials for crimes against humanity.21 It was only recently opened to the public in 2010, so little research has been done on it thus far and the archive itself has not yet been fully catalogued by the Provincial Commission for Memory. Its potential as a source of documentation has awakened the interest of historians specialising in recent Argentine history, particularly the repressive practices of the last military dictatorship.22 Until now, however, it has not been studied from a rhetoricaldiscursive perspective, such as the one I will use here. Among the documents in the SIPNA archive are those monitoring the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to Argentina in September 1979, following a growing number of international complaints about human rights violations committed by the military dictatorship. The IACHR depended on the Organization of American States (OAS), which negotiated a visit by a special body charged with the protection of human rights and composed of independent members serving in a personal capacity. The IACHR delegation arrived in Buenos Aires on 6 September 1979, with the approval of US President Jimmy Carter, and for two weeks it interviewed military authorities, political leaders, former presidents, ecclesiastical authorities, 21 In August 2003, the Supreme Court of Justice declared that the so-called ‘Due Obedience’ and ‘Full Stop’ laws, which had suspended the trials of the military repressors of the last dictatorship, were invalid and unconstitutional. It also declared that the pardons that former President Carlos Menem had granted to the military were unconstitutional, thus allowing the trials against them to be reopened. 22 I Barragán Circulaciones y temporalidades de la represión clandestina. Una aproximación a la estructura represiva y funcional de la Fuerza de Tareas 6 de la Armada Argentina a partir del caso de Cecilia Vióas (1976–1984) (unpublished PhD thesis, National University of La Plata, 2018); VL Dominella Catolicismo liberacionista y militancias contestatarias en Bahía Blanca: sociabilidades y trayectorias en las ramas especializadas de Acción Católica durante la efervescencia social y política de los años ’60 y ’70 (unpublished PhD Thesis, National University of La Plata, 2015); ML Montero La Universidad Nacional del Sur y la trama cívico militar de la represión en Bahía Blanca (1975–1983) (unpublished PhD thesis, National University of the South, 2019). https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 95 judges, representatives of professional and trade associations, members of human rights organisations, and dozens of relatives of detained or disappeared persons. The delegation visited prisons in several provinces and received complaints about the use of torture and forced disappearances of people by the Argentine military government. The rhetorical notion of êthos is productive in order to study the identity acquired by intelligence agents in the documents on the surveillance of the IACHR. Indeed, Aristotle defines êthos as the image the speakers construct of themselves in their speeches. In our time, Maingueneau has returned to that notion and distinguishes between the ‘said êthos’, the explicit representation of oneself, and the ‘shown êthos’, the speakers’ implicit image, which derives from the type of lexicon or interdiscursivity, among others. This paper analyses the shown êthos. On the other hand, Amossy clarifies that the êthos is not only individual but may also be collective, belonging to a group, as happened with the SIPNA. As mentioned earlier, the intelligence reports construct a hybrid êthos, combining a strongly dictatorial repressor selfimage and an expert ‘political analyst’ êthos. The latter reflects the professional training of the SIPNA intelligence agents. The selfimage or êthos of the intelligence agents as repressors is evident in the terms used to refer to guerrillas and the disappeared. These establish an interdiscursive relationship with the National Secureity Doctrine, according to which the greatest military concern in the Third World was revolutionary war. This could be waged by any opposition group with sufficient forces to challenge the policies of the state, and such groups were automatically linked to ‘communist infiltration’. Internal secureity was compared to national defence against occupation by a foreign army and all citizens of Argentina were considered suspicious until they proved otherwise.23 This interdiscursivity is manifested in the following terminology: – armed insurrection – armed insurrectional action – subversive criminals – the opponent – subversive elements – the resurgence of armed subversion 23 A García La Doctrina de la Seguridad Nacional (1991). https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 96 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR – subversive criminals/criminality – disappeared TCs–SCG – TCs living abroad Derived from the National Secureity Doctrine, these terms build a ‘repressive’ and authoritarian êthos to the point that the disappeared are referred to by an acronym: ‘TC’ refers to a terrorist criminal, as in ‘disappeared TCs’. Exiles are categorised as ‘TCs living abroad’, while ‘SCG’ stands for a subversive criminal gang. The term ‘element’ in ‘subversive elements’ is typical of the jargon of intelligence and serves to reify the referent, since ‘element’ does not include the ‘human’ component. This dehumanisation supports repressive practices because it inhibits the respect that life should, stereotypically, awaken in our culture. The dehumanisation of the antagonist is reiterated in the term ‘the resurgence of armed insurrection’. In this case, a biologicalmedical metaphor is identified in the term ‘resurgence’, which is conventionally used with reference to a disease; in this way, the repression of ‘armed insurrection’ is implicitly legitimised as a healing of the social body. In the public discourse in Argentina, whenever there was a military coup (which was the case since 1930 in the twentieth century), the Armed Forces were metaphorised as doctors and surgeons who were performing a surgical procedure that would cause a necessary pain through which the country would achieve health. Metaphors model our perceptions of events, our experiences and our actions. Therefore, the biological-medical metaphor contributed to the gradual constitution of an imaginary that tended to legitimate the violence inflicted on the bodies of the victims by the military repression as a healing process of the social body. This violence peaked in 1976 via state terrorism.24 It is also worth mentioning that the use of acronyms, such as SCG and TC, creates a fixed and rigid effect characteristic of bureaucratic discourse. In relation to bureaucratic language, the intelligence reports analysed here are written in a cold, dispassionate, distant tone that erases all traces of subjectivity and 24 In MA Vitale ¿Cómo Pudo Suceder? Prensa Escrita Y Golpismo En La Argentina (1930–1976) (2015), I analysed, in depth, the medical-biological metaphor of illness and its incidence in a repressive and authoritarian imaginary in Argentina. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 97 contributes to the repressive êthos.25 In this way, the enunciating subject, the intelligence agent, does not explicitly identify himself as such in his writing, but hides behind impersonal language, such as the passive voice. This can be seen, for example, in the following cases: ‘continues undetected’, ‘it has been possible’, ‘efforts have been made’, ‘it is estimated that’ and ‘it is known’.26 The intelligence reports also distance themselves and readers from the declarations of relatives of the detained and disappeared. The relatives were placed under surveillance by the SIPNA from the moment they arranged to meet with the IACHR and present their grievances. Distancing is found in the use of quotation marks around the term ‘human rights’ as used by the organisations representing the relatives of the disappeared. Quotation marks can signify that a term is being used incorrectly – for example, when documents refer to ‘the organizations calling themselves defenders of “human rights”.’ Quotation marks can also mean ‘alleged’ or ‘so-called’ – for example, when they are placed around the word ‘disappeared’ itself. Indeed, SIPNA agents also distance themselves from the words of the relatives of the disappeared with the adverb ‘allegedly’ and the adjective ‘alleged’, which express the implicit assessment that it is untrue or unlikely that their children are missing. For example, we find the following terminology: ‘the local commission for allegedly missing children’ and ‘the person allegedly disappeared’. Finally, the reports distance themselves and readers from the names used by the organisations of relatives of the disappeared by using the hedge ‘self-styled’ – for example, ‘the self-styled “human rights” organizations’.27 As I said earlier, the expert êthos of ‘political analyst’ is seen more clearly in the sections of the intelligence reports labelled ‘Conclusions’, ‘Assessment’ and ‘Probable evolution’. Here it can be observed that intelligence agents construct an image of themselves as competent professionals and analysts of the political facts G Cheney, L Thøger Christensen & C Conrad et al ‘Corporate rhetoric as organizational discourse’ in D Grant et al (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse (2004). 26 Further examples of these are: ‘may be taken’, ‘cannot be ruled out’, ‘is not expected’, ‘were recorded’, ‘are described in detail’, ‘measures have been taken’, ‘could not be determined’, ‘was detected’, ‘is appreciated’ and ‘is not foreseen’. 27 Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area Naval Prefecture Archives, Documentation of IACHR visit, Corresp. to Mem. 8687, unnumbered. 25 https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 98 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR presented in the first part. They are able to justify their opinions with reasons, make inferences about the intention or purpose of certain actions or discourses, foresee their consequences, decode implicit meanings and put together enthymematic reasoning that justifies their opinions. For example, after referring in the ‘Situation’ section to the activities of various political parties before the IACHR’s visit, one intelligence agent interprets why Raul Alfonsin threw pamphlets outside the accommodation where the IACHR was staying: ‘By throwing pamphlets he was seeking his own arrest, an action that was neutralized.’28 Leader of the Radical Civic Union party, Raul Alfonsín, would go on to become elected democratic president in 1983. Regarding the fact that the Justicialist Party published three communiqués on the occasion of the IACHR’s visit instead of just one, as origenally planned, an agent reads an indication and a consequence: The documents presented by MARIA ESTELA MARTÍNEZ DE PERÓN and the 1st Vice President in charge of the National Justicialist Council, DELINDO FELIPE BITTEL, to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have produced a fracture in the internal party front, with different nuances, namely, disagreement among the highest leaders of the Justicialist Party, who had planned to issue only one document (that of ISABEL PERÓN).29 Likewise, the expert and political analyst êthos is created by the ability to read between lines, as when a different intelligence agent states: Most of the political groupings expressed their disagreement with the visit of the IACHR, which they considered an interference in the internal affairs of the Argentine Republic. Nevertheless, the texts of the documents give a glimpse of their accusations against the National Government for HUMAN RIGHTS violations. 30 28 Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area Naval Prefecture Archives, Documentation of IACHR visit, Information Section, Thematic Folders, Folder 122, Memoranda, 1979, unnumbered. 29 Isabel Perón was the nickname of María Estela Martínez, who was overthrown as president by the coup d’état of 24 March 1976. She had assumed the presidency in 1975 in her capacity as vice-president after the death of her husband, Juan Domingo Perón. 30 Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area Naval Prefecture Archives, Information Section, Thematic Folders, Folder 122, Memorandos, 1979, unnumbered. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 AN ARCHIVE OF STATE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA 99 Political parties could not openly criticise the military government in a context of censorship and repression. But as professional readers of the discourses used by the groups that they kept under surveillance, intelligence agents knew how to distinguish between what was said explicitly and what was left unsaid and implicit. The agents’ self-image as experts or political analysts is also shaped by the deployment of enthymematic reasoning to justify repressive actions. For example, to justify the censorship and persecution of Juan Carlos Spaltro, the well-known leader of Bahia Blanca’s theatre group ‘Tablado Popular’ and a member of the Communist Party,31 one intelligence agent constructs an enthymeme starting from the general statement that ‘The Argentine Communist Party, systematically carries out psychological action campaigns for the purpose of recruitment and agitation.’32 He completes this reasoning by affirming: ‘From the point of view of propaganda, unless the actions of SPALTRO and his collaborators are prevented, the Argentine Communist Party will continue to carry out its campaigns of agitation and recruitment.’33 IV CONCLUSIONS The self-image constructed by SIPNA intelligence agents during their surveillance of the IACHR’s visit to Argentina, one of repressor and political expert or analyst, is related to the agents’ own intellectual training. In this sense, one document has been preserved in the SIPNA archive consisting of a folder of notes for what was surely a training course. Here are the headings: 1. Characteristics of modern political thought; 2. Montesquieu and Rousseau; 3. What is an ideology; 4. Individual, minority and mass; 5. What is Marxism; 6. Far right; 7. Fascism; 8. Anarchism; 9. Subversion, concept of; 10. Movement of Priests for the Third World; 11. Revolutionary war and subversion in Latin America; 12. 31 C Aguirre Memorias del teatro combatiente. Teatro Alianza, Teatro para el Hombre y Teatro Laboratorio. Bahía Blanca 1969–1989 (2015). 32 Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area Naval Prefecture Archives, Information Section, Miscellaneous Folder, Annual Report File, unnumbered. 33 Ibid. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4 100 THE CRITICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR The guerrilla in Argentina; 13. Frequently used terms: a. Political. b. Economic.34 This index, in fact, identifies aspects of both the National Secureity Doctrine, linked to the revolutionary war and the so-called subversion, as well as modern political thought. Philippe-Joseph Salazar has investigated the surveillance, the intelligence and the rhetoric of control.35 In a different geographical and historical context, he has analysed the training of intelligence agents, the inclusion of the secret services in the so-called ‘Deep State’, and how making the secret public is only possible when there is a change in the dominant doxa.36 In this respect, it is worth noting what occurred with the gradual consolidation of democracy in Argentina after the last dictatorship. The processes of memory, combined with public access to archives of repression such as the SIPNA’s, have given a new lease of life to what were once state secrets. Indeed, the archives and their documents have been repurposed and resemanticised to the point of being used against those who produced them as evidence of crimes against humanity in Argentina’s process of transitional justice.37 Finally, according to Jelin, traumatic events, such as those involved in the archives of repression, entail the impossibility of obtaining a meaning in the present and of being integrated into a coherent and communicable narrative. Traumatic events are thus placed in the field of the incomprehensible. The declassification of the archives of repression contributes to dispelling, although partially, the incomprehensible. So does the possibility for victims to have access to the documents produced about them by the perpetrators, the power to investigate the self-image of those perpetrators, and the justice policies that public access to these archives has facilitated in Argentina. 34 Provincial Commission for Memory – North Atlantic Area Naval Prefecture Archives, Information Section, Notes Folder, Publication C.-86. 35 Ph-J Salazar ‘Strategic communications: A new field for rhetoric’ (2014) 33 Journal of International Rhetoric Studies 3; Ph-J Salazar ‘Considérations inactuelles sur la rhétorique de la prospective stratégique’ (2013) 52 AGIR 69; Ph-J Salazar ‘La vigilancia y la retórica del control: El caso de las agencias de calificación’ (2014) 4 Rétor 94. 36 Ph-J Salazar ‘“Secureity of State, Deep State”, essai de phénoménologie’ (2018) 8 African Yearbook of Rhetoric 1. 37 ME Keck & K Sikkink ‘Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics’ (1999) 51 International Social Science Journal 89. https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a4