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…