Thousands of people led by human rights activists and leftist groups marched in a nighttime demonstration appealing for the safe return of a key "Dirty War" prosecution witness missing for more than a week.
The rally, led by activists who are still searching for loved ones missing from a 1976-83 dictatorship, made its way peacefully from Congress to the offices of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner late on Wednesday.
The group lofted banners calling on the government to use all means possible to locate Jorge Julio Lopez, a former torture victim who testified recently at a human rights trial. Some fear his disappearance could be an attempt to intimidate other witnesses, though no one has yet established why he went missing.
Lopez, 77, vanished on the eve of the Sept. 19 conviction of former police investigator Miguel Etchecolatz, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the disappearances of six people during the dictatorship.
A former construction worker, Lopez testified that Etchecolatz was among those who tortured him in a clandestine center during the rule of the right-wing generals.
"Today, Julio is once again among the missing," said human rights activist Hilda Eloy, who herself was detained during what prosecutors say was a state crackdown on dissent, known as the "Dirty War."
The protesters also demanded that Kirchner's center-left government immediately suspend any active service members of the armed forces or police officers suspected of rights abuses.
Earlier on Wednesday, police searched a widening area outside Lopez's home near La Plata -- 55km southeast of Buenos Aires -- crisscrossing fields and woodlands with trained dogs, as they have done for days.
Leaflets with Lopez's photograph were widely distributed, and his image was broadcast on television. Kirchner also appealed to Argentines for any information about Lopez's whereabouts.
"The president has issued a call to civil society for assistance," Anibal Fernandez said on the radio. "God willing, we will find him in good condition."
Kirchner, who successfully lobbied the Supreme Court last year to overturn a pair of 1980s amnesty laws protecting former state security agents, said on Tuesday he had ordered all efforts in the nationwide manhunt.
"I am tremendously concerned," Kirchner said, noting that Lopez's testimony was critical to Etchecolatz's conviction.
The trial was the first of its kind since the high court annulled the amnesty laws.
A second trial, involving former police officer Julio Simon, ended last month, also with a conviction. Dozens of former police and state security agents are facing probable prosecution.
Lopez's son went to pick up his father to attend the final trial statements, but he was not at home. Authorities said on Wednesday they still could not explain the disappearance. Family members say he may have gone into hiding after receiving threats -- or may have been seized anew.
On Wednesday, leading Argentine daily Clarin reported in its online edition that the president of the federal tribunal that convicted Etchecolatz received an anonymous death threat.
Clarin said that Carlos Rozanski confirmed receiving the threat, and that he had lodged a formal complaint with the federal court in La Plata.
Also on Wednesday, Emilio Ferrer, a federal prosecutor in central Tucuman Province investigating disappearances blamed on Argentina's Third Army Corps during the dictatorship, told the local Diarios y Noticias news agency that he had received a letter warning him to halt his work.
He said the unsigned letter told him "not to comply" with efforts by Kirchner's government to prosecute human rights violations. Some eight former military officers are under scrutiny in cases in Tucuman dating to the junta era.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion