Ex-Argentine military leaders face 25 years prison

[Judi Lynn]

Ex-Argentine military leaders face 25 years prison
Agence France-Presse
February 5, 2010 3:03

BUENOS AIRES - Argentine prosecutors have called for 25 years in prison for former military dictator Reynaldo Bignone and five other generals for rights violations during a 1976-83 "dirty war," judicial sources said Friday.

The six are accused of 25 forced disappearances, dozens of abuses, illegal searches and theft committed in the Campo de Mayo military base, one of the former regime's secret detention centers on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Ciro Annichiarico, a lawyer with the state Human Rights Secretariate, asked for the sentences at the close of the state's case in a federal court here.

The Argentine military ruled the country from 1976 to 1983, waging a ferocious campaign against the left in which an estimated 30,000 people went missing.

More:
http://www.dose.ca/news/story.html?id=2527470

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Published on Thursday, December 4, 2003
by the Miami Herald
Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'Dirty War'
New evidence suggests that Henry Kissinger gave the Argentine military 'a green light' in its 1970s-80s campaign against leftists.

by Daniel A. Grech

BUENOS AIRES - At the height of the Argentine military junta's bloody ''dirty war'' against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ''we would like you to succeed,'' a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.

The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta's harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ''disappearance'' of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.

The document is also certain to further complicate Kissinger's legacy, which has been questioned in recent years as new evidence has emerged on his connection to human-rights violations around the world -- including in Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Kissinger and several top deputies have repeatedly denied condoning human-rights abuses in Argentina.

DIPLOMATIC CABLES

Among the 4,667 U.S. documents declassified by the State Department last year were diplomatic cables showing that the Argentine military believed it had Kissinger's approval. The information was requested by the families of the junta's victims and human-rights groups.

A transcript of the 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting was declassified recently under a Freedom of Information Request by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington. The document was made available to The Herald on Wednesday and will be presented at a conference on U.S.-Argentine relations during the dirty war today in Buenos Aires.

''Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed,'' Kissinger reassured Guzzetti in the seven-page transcript, marked SECRET. ``I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed, the better.''

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1204-01.htm

[rabs]

1. Across the Rio de la Plata in Montevideo, two more go down

-- Uruguayan justice imposes 25-year sentences against two former military officers.

-- The pair were found guilty of transferring Uruguayans from Buenos Aires to Montevideo and the torture and deaths of 28.

-- Both were intelligence officers involved in Operation Condor.

-- Six other former military officers and two ex police received sentences of from 20 to 25 years in March 2009 for similar crimes.

Article from Journal do Brazil published today, for those who read or want to brush up on their Brazilian Portuguese. :)

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Uruguai: Justiça impõe sentença a ex-militares por crimes da ditadura

JB Online


MONTEVIDÉU - A Justiça do Uruguai confirmou hoje a condenação a 25 anos de prisão dos ex-militares José Gavazzo e Ricardo Arab, considerados culpados pela morte de 28 uruguaios transferidos ilegalmente da Argentina em 1976, quando as duas nações estavam sob regimes ditatoriais.

A transferência dos detidos foi possível devido ao Plano Condor -- estratégia de repressão coordenada pelos governos militares do Cone Sul nas décadas de 1970 e 1980. A condenação foi emitida hoje pelo Tribunal Penal de Apelações de segunda instância.

Gavazzo e Arab eram integrantes do Serviço de Informação e Defesa da ditadura que governou o Uruguai entre 1973 e 1985. A defesa dos réus anunciou que recorrerá à Suprema Corte de Justiça do país.

A sentença emitida hoje pelos ministros Alfredo Gómez Tedeschi, José Balcaldi e William Corujo se fundamentou nas provas apresentadas pela promotoria e em casos de jurisprudência.

Um dos processos tomados como base para a decisão de hoje foi a condenação a penas entre 20 e 25 anos de reclusão emitida em março de 2009 contra seis ex-militares e dois ex-policiais. A sentença foi proferida pelo juiz Luis Charles, o mesmo que havia condenado Gavazzo e Arab em primeira instância.

Os oito oficiais condenados no ano passado foram considerados culpados pela morte de 28 pessoas, inclusive a de Adalberto Soba e Alberto Mechoso, ex-militantes do Partido pela Vitória do Povo.

Os dois tinham desaparecido em Buenos Aires, em 1976, no primeiro ano da ditadura daquele país, que se estenderia até 1983.


19:05 - 05/02/2010