Argentina: Wave of threats follow disappearance of human rights witness

[struggle4progress]

November 24, 2006

Human rights groups rallied throughout Argentina over the weekend for the safe return of a missing witness whose gripping testimony of torture helped convict a former police officer of crimes committed during Argentina's military dictatorship. After two months of searching, there are still no signs of the 77-year-old witness and former political prisoner.

"We demand from the national government for Julio Lopez to be found alive right away! And punishment for those guilty!" Thousands marched to Plaza de Mayo to demand an end to the recent wave of threats against torture survivors and grass roots activists leading the ongoing trials of former members of the dictatorship. Julio Lopez, a key witness in the trial of a landmark human rights case, went missing on the eve of the September 19 conviction of a former police investigator who was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Liliana Downes read the central document at this weekend's rally, pointing to police with ties to the 1976-1983 military dictatorship for kidnapping the witness. "As we said from the first day on, the government should look among the Buenos Aires provincial police, the repressive apparatus and fascist right wing who rally in San Martin to justify torture and death. This is where the threats are coming from: threats against journalists, detention of grass roots activists like Pablo Francello in La Plata, the torture Maria and Ariel Montes received in a Buenos Aires police precinct and the kidnapping of Romiro Gonzales. All of these acts are expressions of the repressive apparatus that continues to act with impunity. Not only have the intimidating phone calls and death threats not been investigated, the government's response has been silence. President Nestor Kirchner has political responsibility for the safe return of Julio Lopez."

Several activists have been attacked in the midst of mobilizations for Lopez's safe return. In La Plata, Pablo Francello, the boyfriend of an organizer from the human rights group H.I.J.O.S. (Children for Identity Justice and Against Silence and Oblivion) was attacked by three men with ski masks. They cut his arms and warned him to distance himself from human rights activities ...

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=42&ItemID=11472

[Judi Lynn]

1. Horrifying facts coming to the surface! So it appears that although Argentina has a great

President who is a man who was tortured, himself, during the Dirty War years, by the military junta, many of the country's local police are still very stubbornly the very same people they were under the right-wing monsters who tortured and slaughtered so many, many of their country men and women.

That right-wing network of individual idiots is operating like a shadow government, it seems. I had no idea of this, although I had seen so many articles on the missing witness, threats, etc., etc. Makes me wonder how much of our own tax money is being slipped to these right-wing idiots, since we supported the right-wing military coup and all the vile, bloodthirsty actions to suppress dissent they inflicted upon the country then, thanks to Nixon, Kissinger, Ford, etc.

It's very important these trials continue. You may remember the _Bush family friend, the notorious former Argentinian pResident Carlos Saul Menem pardoned the fiendish coup generals, and other Dirty War officials, and froze investigations, etc. during his pResidency.

Kirchner reopened them, although proper legal charges against the Generals can never take place. What a damnable shame. Grieving Argentinian loved ones of the victems all have the _Bush family's golfing buddy to thank for this.

Hoping the RIGHT people win this struggle, not the right-wing people.