Thirty Two Years Later, Argentines Still Seeking Disappeared

Thirty Two Years Later, Argentines Still Seeking Disappeared
Written by Marie Trigona
Thursday, 27 March 2008



{Demonstrations marked the 32nd anniversary of the 1976 military coup. All photos: Marie Trigona}

Argentina marked the 32nd anniversary of the nation’s 1976 military coup on March 24. An estimated 30,000 were disappeared during the so called dirty war. Thirty two years later, the bodies of the disappeared still remain to be found and identified. Since 1984, a team of anthropologists, The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, has investigated human rights violations committed by bloody military junta.
Open wounds

In the offices of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, Pedro Cerviño overlooks the remains of his sister who was kidnapped by the military in 1976. María Teresa Cerviño was murdered and buried in a cemetery in a Buenos Aires suburb. Cerviño and an anthropologist touch the bones laid out on a table as if they were transported 30 years into the past

The Anthropologist gives the gruesome details of María Teresa’s death. The hands and feet of the skeleton are missing. She says that it was common for the military to cut the hands off of the disappeared before burying them in unmarked graves in cemeteries. From the marks on the skull it is apparent that before her death she received several injuries to the head.

"With the disappearance there’s a perverse feeling of not knowing. Not knowing what happened, if the person is dead or alive," says Luis Fondebrinder. Luis Fondebrider has worked as a forensic anthropologist with the The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) since its founding. The EAAF has identified the remains of 300 disappeared since 1984.

More:
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1264/1/

Kissinger approved Argentinian 'dirty war'
Declassified US files expose 1970s backing for junta

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles The Guardian, Saturday December 6 2003

This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday December 06 2003 . It was last updated at 02:20 on December 06 2003.

Henry Kissinger gave his approval to the "dirty war" in Argentina in the 1970s in which up to 30,000 people were killed, according to newly declassified US state department documents.

Mr Kissinger, who was America's secretary of state, is shown to have urged the Argentinian military regime to act before the US Congress resumed session, and told it that Washington would not cause it "unnecessary difficulties".

The revelations are likely to further damage Mr Kissinger's reputation. He has already been implicated in war crimes committed during his term in office, notably in connection with the 1973 Chilean coup.

The material, obtained by the Washington-based National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act, consists of two memorandums of conversations that took place in October 1976 with the visiting Argentinian foreign minister, Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti. At the time the US Congress, concerned about allegations of widespread human rights abuses, was poised to approve sanctions against the military regime.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/06/argentina.usa