Former Argentina dictator to go on trial in rights abuse case

Source: CNN

Former Argentina dictator to go on trial in rights abuse case
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 30, 2010 -- Updated 1709 GMT (0109 HKT)

http://i.cdn.turner.com.nyud.net:8090/cnn/2010/WORLD/americas/06/30/argentina.human.rights.trials/story.bignone.afp.gi.jpg

Former Argentine dictator Gen. Reynaldo Benito
Bignone has one conviction and faces new charges

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- A former Argentinian dictator and an ex-army chief are scheduled to go on trial this week on charges of human rights abuses during the nation's right-wing rule from 1976-83, the government's Judicial Information Center said.

Jorge Rafael Videla was among the coup leaders who overthrew then-President Isabela Martinez de Peron in March 1976. He ruled as dictator until 1981. Also scheduled to go on trial this week in a separate proceeding will be Luciano Benjamin Menendez, former head of the Third Army Corps. He is accused of violating the human rights of four people.

~snip~
Another former dictator, Gen. Reynaldo Benito Bignone, was sentenced in April to 25 years in prison for kidnapping and torturing 56 people. He ruled Argentina from June 1982 until the nation's return to democracy in December 1983. Bignone, 82, faces two other trials: in the abduction and disappearance of doctors and nurses at the Hospital Posada and of two soldiers when he was head of the Military College.

Up to 30,000 students, labor leaders, intellectuals and leftists who ran afoul of the dictatorship because of their political views disappeared or were held in secret jails and torture centers during the nation's eight-year "Dirty War."

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/06/30/argentina.human.rights.trials/index.html?fbid=q1U2OJnT7yd

There is no justice!

will there ever be justice for Bush/Cheney crimes. Can't you just *look forward, not back* as we have been instructed to do?

http://ladb.unm.edu/notisur/sample-feature.php3

In This Issue:

REGION: FORMER MILITARY THROUGHOUT REGION
IMPLICATED IN OPERATION CONDOR CRIMES
* Brazil had a head start on torture
* Argentine military accused of stealing babies
* Chile's Pinochet accused of ordering bombings
* Uruguay's new president willing to confront nation's past
* Bolivia's Banzer unable to shake image of dictator
* Stroessner could be indicted
* Paraguay's Terror Archives
* US complicity questioned
____________________________________________________________

*********************
GENERAL
*********************

REGION: FORMER MILITARY THROUGHOUT REGION
IMPLICATED IN OPERATION CONDOR CRIMES

After nearly two decades, the specter of accountability
is threatening many present and former leaders of the military
regimes that controlled the Southern Cone countries of Latin
America in the 1970s and 1980s. More documentation is coming
to light about the criminal activities of Operation Condor,
the coordinated effort by the military in the various
countries to eliminate their political enemies (see NotiSur,
1998-10-30).
Between 1954--when Alfredo Stroessner took power in
Paraguay--and 1990--when Augusto Pinochet stepped aside in
Chile--de facto regimes ruled the Southern Cone nations
(Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) for
varying periods.
Repression against opponents was most brutal in
Argentina, where official figures list 9,000 victims of the
"dirty war," and human rights groups say 30,000 people were
killed or disappeared by the military government. Hundreds of
political activists, union leaders, and human-rights workers
died in Brazil, more than 3,000 were killed in Chile, and
hundreds more were eliminated in Bolivia, Paraguay, and
Uruguay.
New information is appearing almost daily regarding the
bloody chapter in the region's history, which its military
leaders thought had been closed by the various amnesty laws
and pardons passed as the de facto regimes gave way to
civilian governments.
Documents indicate that Operation Condor was set up in
1975 at the instigation of Pinochet (1973-1990), who two years
earlier had overthrown democratically elected President
Salvador Allende (1970-1973).
Secret files discovered several years ago outside the
Paraguayan capital of Asuncion, which have become known as the
Terror Archives, and files of the Brazilian military could
also shed new light on what US intelligence agencies,
diplomats, and military knew about what went on in the dirty
wars in the region (see NotiSur, 1993-02-16, 1993-09-03).
Many leaders of the military regimes were trained at the US
School of the Americas, then in Panama.
A number of prominent US officials, including former
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief and former President
George Bush, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and
officials in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan
administrations could be drawn into several investigations now
being conducted in Latin America if evidence surfaces of their
knowledge or complicity.

...more...

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm

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 Osorio

Assisted by

Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance
Florence Segura, research assistance
of the National Security Archive

Natalia Federman, research assistance and Spanish translation
of CELS
Washington, 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.

The U.S. Embassy also disagreed with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence 19 July 1976 assessment that there was a "murderous three-cornered battle going on in Argentina amongst left-wing terrorists, government security personnel and right wing goon squads." On 23 July 1976, Deputy Chief of Mission Maxwell Chaplin cabled Washington that "The battle is a two-sided affair, not tri-cornered" since "the only 'right-wing assassins' operating in Argentina at this point, however, are members of the GOA security forces."