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<h1><font size=4><b>Argentina Revisits Dictatorship: A Year of Human
Rights Trials</b></font></h1><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/marietrigona">Marie
Trigona</a><br><br>
Source:
<a href="http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1906/1/">Toward
Freedom</a><br>
<a href="http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1906/1/" eudora="autourl">
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1906/1/<br>
</a>Wednesday, April 07, 2010<br><br>
</font><font size=2><i>"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."</i> -- 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.<br><br>
</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font size=2>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.<br><br>
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!"<br><br>
<b>Open door to justice<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>ESMA trial<br><br>
</b>"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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
<b>Surviving testimonies<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>Slow justice<br><br>
</b>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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>Breaking the wall of impunity<br><br>
</b>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.<br><br>
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.</font><font size=3> </font><font size=2>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.<br><br>
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.<br>
<i>Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and translator based in
Argentina. She can be reached through her blog
<a href="http://www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com/">
www.mujereslibres.blogspot.com</a> All photos by Marie
Trigona</i></font><font size=3> <br><br>
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