Impunity's psychological effects: its ethical consequences.

During the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-83) a most fierce political repression developed which led to one of the blackest periods of the history of our nation and left thousands of dead, disappeared and exiled. Physical and psychiatric torture was systematically implemented and applied on every prisoner. As a consequence of this repression, characterised as terrorism of the state, a new legal category appeared: the disappeared-detainee. We have already discussed, in other papers, how the political repression and the forced disappearance of people affects the community as a whole, the victims themselves, and their families, in a psychological and sociological sense. It is our aim now to deal with the psychological and sociological effects as well as the ethical implications of impunity, particularly in our professional field. During the time of the dictatorship several psychological-inducement campaigns were developed based on three elements: