[News] Argentina Revisits Dictatorship: A Year of Human Rights Trials

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Argentina Revisits Dictatorship: A Year of Human Rights Trials

By <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/marietrigona>Marie Trigona

Source: <http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1906/1/>Toward Freedom
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1906/1/
Wednesday, April 07, 2010

"With regular jails overflowing, you (the 
military) turned the principle garrisons in the 
country into virtual concentration camps, where 
no judge, lawyer, journalist or international 
observer enters. The military keeping the 
proceedings as secret, invoked as the need for 
interrogation, has transformed most detentions 
into kidnappings that allow you to torture 
limitlessly and execute prisoners with no 
trial."  -- Rodolfo Walsh, political writer 
disappeared after he penned the text, "Open 
Letter to the Military Junta" published on March 
24, 1977, the first anniversary of the coup.



Tens of thousands in Argentina recently marked 
the 34th anniversary of the nation’s bloody 
military dictatorship, flooding into the historic 
Plaza de Mayo with cries of nunca más, or never 
again. On March 24, 1976 the military ceased 
power and instituted one of Latin America’s 
darkest chapters of terror. During the 1976-1983 
junta, the military disappeared more than 30,000 people.

Since the 30th anniversary of the coup, in 2006, 
protests to repudiate the military coup have 
grown in size and political importance; at this 
year’s protest more than 25,000 people overflowed 
the Plaza de Mayo while major human rights trials 
are underway. The Mothers and Grandmothers of 
Plaza de Mayo led the march carrying a banner 
with photos of the disappeared. The black and 
white portraits extended for blocks, with 
thousands of photos of unionists, students, 
artists, intellectuals, workers, lawyers, 
mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and compañeros, 
many of whom were only in their 20s when commando 
groups kidnapped them to take them to clandestine 
detention centers, torture and later disappear 
this generation which dreamt of a better world. 
This generation was reflected in the outpouring 
on March 24, 2010, and in the collective screams 
of "30,000 disappeared­present! Now and Forever!"

Open door to justice

Nearly 27 years after Argentina’s return to 
democratic rule, the country is revisiting its 
painful past with human rights trials. Many have 
called 2010 the year of the human rights trials. 
More than eight high-profile trials are underway, 
prosecuting dozens of military, police and 
civilians accused of torture, murder, kidnapping 
and disappearances. The recent release of 
classified military files may also lead to more 
prosecutions and answers as to what happened to Argentina’s 30,000 disappeared.

Until 2003, amnesty laws foreclosed any 
successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for 
human rights crimes by the courts. Even when 
prosecution was impossible, human rights groups 
continued to gather information as to the 
whereabouts of the disappeared, collect evidence 
and testimonies, and to demand justice and an end 
to impunity. However, a 2003 Supreme Court order 
overruled the Due Obedience and Full Stop laws 
passed in the early 1990’s which protected 
officers from the possibility of facing charges.

The dimension of the crimes of those prosecuted 
is unimaginable. And the number of prosecuted and 
facing criminal proceedings falls short 
considering the complex system of kidnapping, 
torture, murder and disappearance that ensued 
during the dark years of the dictatorship. The 
most painful component for many is the 
significance of disappearances, and the open 
wounds left behind by not knowing exactly what 
happened to the victims and their bodies. 
Disappearances, a cornerstone in the lexicon of 
terror devised by the military dictatorship, 
persist as a social stigma and an uncomfortable void of the recent past.

ESMA trial

"March 24 not only compels us to reflect on the 
past, but also to reflect on our future and 
current challenges," says Victoria Donda, a 
national deputy whose parents were disappeared at 
the same detention center where her mother gave 
birth. Donda was born at the ESMA Navy Mechanics 
School while her mother was in captivity at the 
clandestine detention center. She lived most of 
her life with appropriators, who never told her 
about her past. She recuperated her identity in 
2003 at the age of 26. More than 500 children 
were kidnapped by the dictatorship and raised 
with false identities. The human rights group 
Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, has strived to 
find all of the children, so far they have 
recuperated the identity of 101 children, who are now in their 30’s.

The ESMA trial, one of the largest human rights 
trials in Latin America’s history opened in 
December 2009. In total, 19 officers who worked 
at the ESMA face charges of kidnapping, torture 
and murder of 86 people. However, it is estimated 
that nearly 5,000 were disappeared inside the 
ESMA barracks, as the largest clandestine 
detention center that operated during the 
dictatorship. Donda will testify in the trial, 
and says, "We are living in a country where the 
people who participated in the crimes during the 
dictatorship are being tried, [but] these are not 
the type of trials that we want, nor are they as 
fast as we’d like, nor are all the people 
involved in the abuses on trial; however, these 
are the trials that we have and they are progressing."

Surviving testimonies

More than 300 clandestine detention centers 
operated during the dictatorship, shedding light 
on the magnitude of state terrorism carried out 
from 1976-1983. Many of the victims in Buenos 
Aires and surrounding neighborhoods were thrown 
from planes into the sea after being drugged.

Aside from the ESMA, other clandestine torture 
centers operated in the nation’s capital. Inside 
the Atlético, Banco and Olimpo, three separate 
secret detention sites, thousands were tortured 
and disappeared. Ramiro Poce’s father was 
disappeared from the Garage Olimpo, one of the 
clandestine detention centers in a trial of the 
Buenos Aires circuit of clandestine detention 
centers. "The Due Obedience and Full Stop laws 
prohibited the proceedings against military. 
Thanks to the reversal of those laws we are able 
to slowly begin the trials," says Poce. He will 
testify in the trial, to give testimony of his 
father’s kidnapping by a commando group. Some 17 
military and police are being prosecuted in this 
trial. For many, the trials mark a new chapter in 
Argentina’s history. "Each time the trials began, 
it is a step towards building a true democracy 
and prosecuting those who staged a coup against 
the nation and the entire population."

Military officers have begun to testify in their 
defense, failing to provide information or 
confess; on the contrary some defend their 
actions as following military orders to "fight a 
war against subversion." For the first time, 
Rafael Videla appeared in court in March; however 
hundreds of police protected the former dictator from news cameras.

Slow justice

During this year’s massive march for the 
commemoration of Argentina’s 30,000 disappeared, 
protestors and human rights groups expressed 
immediate concerns about delays in legal 
proceedings and resistant judges contributing to 
delays in the human rights trials. "Only a few 
who formed part of this genocide are being tried 
in the justice system. There are still a lot left 
to be charged," said Estela Carlotta, president 
of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, reading from a 
document written by human rights groups on March 
24. Organizers from this year’s march demanded, 
"the political decision to give more resources to 
the Justice system, in larger court rooms and 
truly public trials. Society has already 
condemned the murders and we won’t allow for 
forgiveness, amnesty or reconciliation for those responsible."

The government official Victoria Donda admits 
that the judicial system has been slow to reform 
and is filled with accomplices from the 
dictatorship who still have not been prosecuted 
for their actions. A recent article in the 
national daily Pagina/12 revealed that several 
judges are being investigated in the province of 
Mendoza for human rights abuses committed during 
the dictatorship. Other irregularities have 
surfaced such as the same judge overseeing trial 
proceedings in two different provinces, which has 
delayed another major human rights trial of the 
Massacre of Margarita Belen for over a year and a 
half. The higher courts have also agreed to 
change judges, following the defendants’ request, 
all with the purpose of tying up proceedings. "In 
the provinces of Salta and Jujuy they do not have 
an adequate space to hold the trials. And they 
purposefully held the ESMA trial in a court room 
so small [that] space for observers, media and 
activists from attending all the court sessions has been limited," says Donda.

Breaking the wall of impunity

This year’s massive march reflects the passionate 
cries for the trials to continue, and that all 
military and accomplices involved in the brutal 
terror be brought to justice. But protestors came 
out not to close the dark chapter of history, but 
to turn the pages in the construction of a new 
future that values democracy and human rights.

March 24 is now considered a national holiday, "a 
national day of memory for justice and truth," a 
day on which schools and public offices are 
closed. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner 
has supported the trials, but has also polarized 
the human rights movement. The president turned 
the official commemorations into a rally for the 
President, while creating tensions between human 
rights groups critical of the government’s 
economic policies and failure to provide the 
judicial system with enough resources to carry 
out the trial. While the president released an 
important document with the names of 4,300 people 
who worked in the armed force battalion 601, one 
of the largest intelligence agencies of the Armed 
Forces, more documents remain to be disclosed. 
The agency was used to collect information on 
activists which led to their disappearances, 
among the ranks of the thousands of names of 
people now in their 50s and 60s are not only 
military but civilians, professionals who have 
yet to be tried for their participation in the 
dictatorship. Human rights groups report that 
intelligence officers continue to infiltrate 
social movements and political organizations.

Among those demanding justice are the Mothers and 
Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, which for over 30 
years have used pacifist tactics to demand 
justice and truth about what happened. For Latin 
America, these groups have exemplified the 
regional struggle for democracy and sovereignty, 
in a hemisphere plagued by dictatorships in the 
1970s and 1980s which disappeared over 90,000 
people according to The Latin American Federation 
of Associations for Relatives of the 
Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM). Argentina, thanks 
to the endless work of human rights groups, is 
paving the way for other countries to revisit 
their painful past. Without justice for crimes 
committed in the past, the military and 
repressive forces in the region will have the 
power to act with impunity as we are seeing with 
an active coup in Honduras, military in the 
streets of Chile and U.S. military bases in 
Colombia. Militarization remains a risk for the 
region, and with long-standing impunity for 
military crimes Latin America could lose another 
generation. However, a new generation of human 
rights advocates in Argentina is trying to break 
this wall of impunity through the legal system for long-standing justice.
Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and 
translator based in Argentina. She can be reached 
through her blog 
<http://www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com/>www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com 
All photos by Marie Trigona




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20100407/6cd365db/attachment.htm>