Argentines try probing crimes of Franco's Spain

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Apr 14, 2:32 PM EDT
Argentines try probing crimes of Franco's Spain
By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine human rights groups turned the tables on Spain Wednesday, asking for a local judicial probe of murders and disappearances as well as alleged genocide committed during Spain's Civil War and Gen. Francisco Franco's long dictatorship.

Relatives of three Spaniards and an Argentine killed during the 1936-39 war presented their complaint in federal court, and their lawyers said they hoped to add many more cases in the months to come.

Such cross-border human rights probes have long been the specialty of Spain's crusading investigative judge Baltasar Garzon, whose case against Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1998 helped lead to the undoing of amnesties that had protected Latin America's dictators.

But Garzon himself now faces a potentially career-ending trial on charges of abusing his authority by opening an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Franco's Spain.

So Garzon's supporters hope to launch the same investigation - citing the same principles of international law - from Buenos Aires.



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_ARGENTINA_SPAIN_HUMAN_RIGHTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-04-14-14-32-43

[GreenStormCloud]

1. Are any defendents still alive? That was 71 years ago. N/T

[Liberation Angel]

2. The real issue is to get at the truth

I doubt many in their 90's (who would have been in their late teens and twenties) will be held responsible for Franco's crimes (altho mass killers are still mass killers even if they are 90 or older).

My guess is that this is an effort to show that such investigations are legitimate under international law and that there are no statutes of limitation on crimes against humanity and genocide.

It is also legitimate to show the world that more recent crime investigations across international borders are legit and should be supported.

Imagine that it may well take 50 years for the Bush crimes to get prosecuted or the assassination of JFK, RFK and/or MLK to finally be heard in a criminal court with members of the BFEE in the dock.

Families of the dead deserve a prosecution ---especially when fascist are the perps.

It might take this long to get some small justice (even if jailing a 90 year old is not the result - or even if it is if the crimes are heinous enough).

It is a great idea so

K&R

[GreenStormCloud]

3. How far back do you go?

Anybody in a leadership position for those crimes would have to be 100+ by now, and almost certainly dead. Sorry but I just don't see any point in it.

At some point the past has to be buried. After all, we aren't doing an investigation into the war crimes and corrupt government of Alexander the Great.

[Liberation Angel]

6. Some of the victims are still alive and due justice. Bury the past? Just forget crimes"

Crimes against humanity and genocide?

In terms of history and the life of modern humans, sixty or seventy years is nothing.

Armenians and Turks are STILL arguing over whether there was genocide in that region.

Trials and prosecutions and refusing to EVER allow such crimes to go unpunished as long as victims and perps are living is an important way, if not the only way, for justice to be possible.

But on TOP of this there were CORPORATE entities and families who benefitted from these crimes and were the beneficiairies of fascist criminal enterprises. These corporate entities and families are STILL benefitting from crimes many decades or more ago and the vicitims and the families are still deprived and injured by these crimes.

Those comapnies that backed Hitler and the Holocaust like IBM, Ford, GM, Standard Oil (exxon), the Bush Banking operations (Union Bank,etc), the Rockefeller enterprises, Morgan, Dulleses, Harrimans, Walkers etc ALL should be held accountable and punished or made to compensate victims for the losses from their profits.

The same is true of Spain and other nations.

Many corporations from the US have backed fascism and participated in murder.

Should Kissinger be held responsoble for Allende and Letelier's murders? Bush I (He was head of the CIA)?)

How long is too long for justice to be done to the vicitims and those who profitted from the crimes to be held accountable.

Your crack about Alexander is unseemly and denigrates the lives of those who suffered and their families during OUR lifetimes and many alive today.

Jeez.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Great post, Liberation Angel. Argentina is pursuing the interests of an Argentinian citizen,

concerning his own victimized relative.

Spain has also pursued the torture and murder of Spanish citizens by the US-supported military junta in Argentina some time ago, as well it should.

It would certainly be pure stupidity, and moral blindness for others to suggest this is NOT appropriate.

Bloodbaths, savagery toward human beings should NEVER be swept under the rug, no matter HOW many other fascists stamp their cloven hooves and insist people are being petty to want to see barbaric sins against the human race exposed, laid bare, condemned in the strongest possible terms.

Ignoring them, pushing them aside only benefits the ones who gained from the in the first place.

[Liberation Angel]

7. thx

these are issues close to my heart.

I have family and friends who were victims in Argentina and the crimes in Franco's Spain affected my family as well.

If we only could get Obama and/or the UN to create real Truth and Reconciliation Commissions MAYBE humanity would have peace and justice in the future. As long as fascist killers like the Bushes and corporate fascists are allowed to skate from justice by "pragmatic" politicians - the world will remain a victim and target of more and more brutal fascism in the future.

We can never be safe when brutal fascists can get away with their crimes against ALL humanity wherever they want.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Franco-Era Crimes Reach Courts in Argentina

Franco-Era Crimes Reach Courts in Argentina
By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 14, 2010 (IPS) - Invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, the relatives of two Spanish mayors who were executed during that country's 1936-1939 civil war filed genocide charges in Argentina Wednesday.

The lawsuit is a response by human rights groups from Argentina and Spain to legal charges against Spain's famous investigative Judge Baltasar Garzón, who has been accused of overreaching his judicial powers by starting to investigate atrocities committed during Spain's civil war and the 1939-1975 dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco.

~snip~
By filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs backed Garzón's determination to apply the principle of universal justice when he launched, from Spain, judicial probes of Argentine human rights abusers in the late 1990s, while they continued to enjoy impunity in their own country under amnesty laws and presidential pardons.

But Garzón is best known for issuing the international warrant that brought about the 1998 arrest of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), who was held under house arrest in London for 18 months before he was released by the British government on humanitarian grounds in 2000.

Garzón unsuccessfully sought Pinochet's extradition to Spain, to try him for crimes against humanity in relation to the deaths of Spanish citizens during the Chilean dictatorship. The former dictator died in 2006 without ever being convicted.

In 1998, the Spanish magistrate sought the extradition of 46 former military and civilian officials from Argentina, including former junta members Jorge Rafael Videla and Emilio Massera. But the extradition request was turned down by then President Carlos Menem (1989-1999) - who had pardoned the dictators - and by his successor Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001).

However, Garzón had more success in prosecuting former Argentine naval captain Adolfo Scilingo, who confessed to some 30 crimes committed during the dictatorship but was protected by the amnesty laws in Argentina

In 2005, Scilingo was sentenced to 640 years in prison in Spain.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51047

[Liberation Angel]

8. this needs a kick

really important imho

4 recs?

c'mon

(my family was in Spain and Argentina during this sh-t and friends of the family died and were victims)