Louise Mallinder and Tom Hadden at the Transitional Justice Institute. Countries Afghanistan Afghanistan has adopted a law precluding prosecution for war crimes committed in conflicts in previous decades. The Afghan government adopted the Action Plan for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation in December 2005, and hotly debated the plan's focus on criminal accountability. Later, Parliament adopted a bill that provided a nearly blanket amnesty for all those involved in the Afghan conflict. The drafting of the amnesty bill was pioneered by some of the former commanders known to have committed human rights abuses and who felt threatened by the sudden emphasis on accountability. Although this bill was never formally recognized as law, it has had major political significance, serving as a clear signal of some human rights violators’ continuing power. Algeria A decree by the President in 2006 makes prosecution impossible for human rights abuses, and even muzzle open debate by criminalizing public discussion about the nation's decade-long conflict. Argentina The National Commission for Forced Disappearances (CONADEP), led by writer Ernesto Sabato, was created in 1983. Two years later, the Juicio a las Juntas (Trial of the Juntas) largely succeeded in proving the crimes of the various juntas which had formed the self-styled National Reorganization Process. Most of the top officers who were tried were sentenced to life imprisonment: Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Raúl Agosti, Rubén Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri, Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo. However, Raúl Alfonsín's government voted two amnesty laws to avoid the escalation of trials against militaries involved in human rights abuses: the 1986 Ley de Punto Final and the 1987 Ley de Obediencia Debida. President Carlos Menem then pardoned the leaders of the junta and the surviving commanders of the armed leftist guerrilla organizations in 1989–1990. Following persistent activism by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other associations, the amnesty laws were overturned by the Argentine Supreme Court nearly twenty years later, in June 2005. However, the ruling wasn't applied to the guerrilla leaders, who remained at large. Benin In the 1980s, incompetent economic management and ballooning domestic graft, including the draining of funds from parastatals, combined with a continent-wide economic crisis, effectively bankrupted the economy. The government turned to the Bretton Woods institutions for support, which required the implementation of unpopular economic austerity measures. In 1988, when France refused to meet the budgetary shortfall, the three