The last military president in Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship went on trial on Monday in a makeshift courtroom in a sports arena on charges of kidnapping, torture and murder of 56 people in a concentration camp.
Frail-looking Reynaldo Bignone, 81, a former general who ruled Argentina in 1982-1983, and seven other former military and police officers faced a three-judge panel on charges including the ordering of beatings, waterboardings and electrocutions at the Campo de Mayo army base.
Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that is widely considered to be torture.
PHOTO: EPA
Hundreds of people, including numerous relatives of the victims, turned out for the start of the trial, held in an indoor soccer arena in a Buenos Aires suburb because the local courthouse was not big enough to house the large number of people who wanted to attend the proceedings.
According to a government report, more than 11,000 people died or disappeared during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” a crackdown on leftists and other opponents of the military regime. Human rights groups say the number is closer to 30,000.
“This is a historic trial in the search for truth for the all of those who disappeared,” Alcira Rios, a lawyer for relatives of one of the victims, told Reuters. “We have to say no to impunity. We owe it to our Argentine society.”
Bignone rocked back and forth in his chair as the charges against him were read in court. He and the other defendants could face up to life in prison if convicted in a trial that could last up to five months.
More than 130 witnesses are expected to be called to testify against the elderly defendants, starting next week.
Also standing trial are former generals Santiago Omar Riveros, Eugenio Guanabens Perello and Fernando Exequiel Verplaetsen and former colonels Jorge Osvaldo Garcia, Carlos Alberto Tepedino and Eduardo Alfredo Esposito. Former police officer German Montenegro also went on trial.
During the trial’s opening day, Verplaetsen was removed from the proceedings because of illness.
The accused “look like old men but they have committed genocide,” Taty Almeida, a member of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group, said in an interview in the courtroom during a break in the proceedings.
Almeida’s son, Alejandro Martinez, was a 20-year-old medical student in 1975 when he was kidnapped and murdered by the military.
“When I see them there I feel repulsed, but I also feel a great deal of achievement because they’re being put on trial,” Taty Almeida added.
Bignone, who is currently living under house arrest, was the last of four military de facto presidents in Argentina during the dictatorship.
He handed over the presidency to Raul Alfonsin, the country’s first democratically elected leader after the dictatorship ended in 1983, as the military junta lost popularity over a deep economic crisis and a humiliating defeat in the war against Britain for the Falkland Islands.
In 2005, Argentina’s Supreme Court, at the urging of then-president Nestor Kirchner, struck down two amnesty laws that shielded hundreds of former officers from charges of human rights abuses during the dictatorship. Since then, several people have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS