April 25, 1995
Cashiered Soldier in Argentina Tells of Death Flights by Army
A former sergeant became the first member of the Argentine Army to describe, in an interview published today, how the army killed political detainees by throwing them alive into the ocean.
Sgt. Victor Ibanez's interview in the newspaper La Prensa follows a naval officer's account last month of similar death flights by the navy. The officer's account story reopened a national debate about the military juntas' "dirty war" on leftists in the late 1970's.
Official estimates say 10,000 people disappeared, on top of 4,000 confirmed dead, during military rule from 1976 to 1983. Human rights groups say the number could be much higher.
Sergeant Ibanez, who was cashiered last year, was a guard at a clandestine torture center in the Campo de Mayo barracks, which he called "a hell" where 2,000 to 2,300 people were held from 1976 to 1978.
"When there were too many we had to 'evacuate' them," he said. The secret flights in plane or helicopter took off three or four times a month, he said, flying so low he could see sharks following the aircraft.
As with the navy flights, prisoners were made unconscious with drugs beforehand. They were told they were being vaccinated before being handed over to the courts.
"But a lot realized the end was near," he said. "Some panicked; others challenged the task force men, telling them not to lie to them, daring them to kill them there and then."
Sergeant Ibanez said he needed to repent publicly as he had already done to God. He does not risk jail. All "dirty war" crimes were pardoned by President Carlos Menem in 1990.
~snip~
The sergeant, who says he was so mentally disturbed by his time at Campo de Mayo that he was never again promoted, bore witness in detail to the torturers' barbarity.
"I saw how one man died on the 'barbecue' without them getting anything out of him," he said. "If they didn't say anything it's because they didn't know anything."
More:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE4DF1438F936A15757C0A963958260~~~~~~~~~~~~
Argentina: Waves from the past
TIME Domestic
March 27, 1995 Volume 145, No. 13
italiano
A former naval officer confesses
to throwing prisoners into the ocean
during the dirty war
BY PAUL GRAY"They were unconscious. we stripped them, and when the flight commander gave the order, we opened the door and threw them out, naked, one by one. That is the story, and nobody can deny it." With these words, former Argentine navy Captain Adolfo Francisco Scilingo, 48, spilled one of the dirtiest secrets of the "dirty war" that raged in his country from the mid-1970s through the early '80s. Human-rights workers and relatives of at least 9,000 Argentines who "disappeared" under military rule have long contended that the missing were systematically murdered by troops acting on orders from the ruling generals. But Scilingo is the first ex-officer to echo these charges in public.
Even Argentines inured to the perfidies of the dictatorial period were shocked by the confession that first appeared in El Vuelo (The Flight), a book based on a series of taped conversations with investigative reporter Horacio Verbitsky. Over the past two weeks, Scilingo has repeated his story in newspaper and television interviews. As a 28-year-old lieutenant, he was stationed in Buenos Aires at the Naval School of Mechanics in 1977; Scilingo says his post, already a notorious detention center for those rounded up on charges of disloyalty, soon became a way station to death.
More:
http://www.yendor.com/vanished/junta/scilingo.html~~~~~~~~~~~~
ARGENTINE MILITARY BELIEVED U.S. GAVE GO-AHEAD FOR DIRTY WAR
New State Department documents show conflict between Washington and US Embassy in Buenos Aires over signals to the military dictatorship at height of repression in 1976
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part II
Edited by Carlos OsorioWashington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were "euphoric" over signals from high-ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Embassy reported to Washington that after Mr. Kissinger's 10 June 1976 meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti, the Argentine government dismissed the Embassy's human rights approaches and referred to Kissinger's "understanding" of the situation. The current State Department collection does not include a minute of Kissinger's and Guzetti's conversation in Santiago, Chile.
On 20 September 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill reported that Guzzetti said "When he had seen SECY of State Kissinger in Santiago, the latter had said he 'hoped the Argentine Govt could get the terrorist problem under control as quickly as possible.' Guzzetti said that he had reported this to President Videla and to the cabinet, and that their impression had been that the USG's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that GOA 'get it over quickly'."
After a second meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in Washington, on 19 October 1976, Ambassador Robert Hill wrote "a sour note" from Buenos Aires complaining that he could hardly carry human rights demarches if the Argentine Foreign Minister did not hear the same message from the Secretary of State. "Guzzetti went to U.S. fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warnings on his government's human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation, convinced that there is no real problem with the USG over that issue," wrote Hill.
More:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~Don't Cry for Bush, Argentina
News: George W. may not recall the names of world leaders, but when it comes to foreign affairs, he knows the value of his own family's name.
By Louis Dubose and Carmen Coiro
March/April 2000 Issue
Texans watched with interest last winter as Governor George W. Bush was home-schooled on international affairs by former Secretary of State George Shultz and other veterans of his father's foreign-policy team. Even Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden, was brought in for a tutorial at the governor's mansion, in the hope that his recent U.N. experience in the Balkans could help Bush understand that Kosovars are not "Kosavarians" and that Greeks are not "Grecians."
But no one had to prepare a prompt card to remind him who stepped down as president of Argentina in December. Shortly before Bush announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he contented himself with riding along as the former president and Menem played a round of golf.
The capitol press corps trailed along, dutifully recording the governor's cordial relationship with a visiting head of state. Unknown to the assembled reporters, however, was the story of how Bush and his family became immersed in Argentine politics. The little-known tale begins with George W. making a phone call to secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline company -- a deal that provoked a political firestorm in Argentina, drawing scrutiny from legislators and a special prosecutor. The episode marked one of George W.'s first ventures into foreign affairs, demonstrating the fundamental rule by which the Texas governor and his family conduct business: Always know that the Bush name is a marketable commodity.
Bush first made his presence felt in Argentina in 1988, shortly after his father was elected president. At the time, the junior Bush's political career was just beginning -- and the political career of Raúl Alfonsín, who was approaching the end of his term as president of Argentina, was ending. Alfonsín had returned his country to civilian rule, prosecuted those responsible for human rights abuses during Argentina's rule by a military junta, and struggled to manage an economy that seemed to defy management. Determined to complete one major private-sector industrial program, he pushed for the development of a "gasoducto" that would connect Argentine gas fields with domestic and foreign markets. And he appointed his minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno, to oversee the pipeline project.
More:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/03/argentina.html
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