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</a>Torture victims honoured<br>
25/03/2004 11:19 - (SA) <br><br>
<br>
Buenos Aires - On the 28th anniversary of a coup that inaugurated one of
South America's bloodiest dictatorships, Argentine President Nestor
Kirchner on Wednesday turned an infamous former torture centre into a
museum focusing on regime victims. <br><br>
The controversial decision was opposed by some members of the military,
and resulted in a split with a handful of governors from Kirchner's own
Peronist party. <br><br>
An estimated 15 000 to 30 000 people, mostly regime opponents, were
killed during the dictatorship. Most were kidnapped and their bodies
never recovered, often because they were thrown from planes into the
Atlantic. <br><br>
About 5 000 people were tortured at the Navy Mechanical School, better
known by its acronym ESMA. Only a handful survived. The site will now be
turned into a "Museum of Memory." <br><br>
Top dictatorship officials are "murderers repudiated by the
Argentine people that put in action a sinister and macabre plan,"
Kirchner told a crowd of some 40 000 gathered outside the ESMA site.
<br><br>
"I apologise in the name of the state for the shame of having
remained silent about these atrocities over 20 years of democracy,"
Kirchner added. <br><br>
Grieving relatives hung hundreds of victims' photographs on the ESMA
perimeter fence. <br><br>
<b>Popular songs</b> <br><br>
The crowd joined performers singing popular period songs, and an actress
read a poem written by a torture victim who managed to smuggle her work
out before dying. <br><br>
Some former torture victims in the crowd cried openly. Kirchner, his
wife, Senator Cristina Fernandez, and some members of his cabinet also
shed tears. <br><br>
Earlier Kirchner, flanked by the head of the army, Roberto Bendini,
removed the portraits of former junta generals Jorge Videla and Reynaldo
Bignone from the army's military academy, where they had been commanders.
<br><br>
The symbolic act was to show that the country wants to bring closure
"to this regrettable period" of Argentina's history, Kirchner
told cadets and officers assembled at the academy. <br><br>
Videla was one of the original coup leaders and the country's dictator at
the height of the repression. Bignone was the regime's last president.
Both are under house arrest for stealing babies from regime victims.
<br><br>
Democracy in Argentina has been "definitely consolidated, and state
terrorism has been banished," Kirchner added. <br><br>
According to the daily La Nacion, at least four top generals were so
angry about the portrait removal that they requested retirement.
<br><br>
A truth commission set up at the end of the military rule found that the
military was responsible for the abductions and presumed killing of at
least 10 000 people during their "dirty war" against
"subversion" and terrorism. Human rights groups put the figure
at about 30 000. <br><br>
Amnesties introduced in 1986 and 1987 blocked prosecutions for all crimes
committed during the military rule era except the theft of babies born to
detained mothers. <br><br>
In August the Argentine Congress approved a measure to annul the amnesty
laws. The Supreme Court now has the final say in the matter. <br><br>
<i>Edited by Trisha Shannon<br><br>
<br><br>
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