In Pursuing Human Rights, Argentina Displays a Broken Justice System
Sunday 18 October 2009
by: Sam Ferguson, t r u t h o u t | Report
Buenos Aires, Argentina - Buenos Aires' Comodoro Py judicial building is situated far from the city's municipal core, sandwiched between the city's busy bus terminal and the country's main port. Long distance buses and semis go rumbling by on a 12-lane road outside. The building is a nine-story, concrete behemoth surrounded by seven-foot high, temporary, riot-control fencing. It is about three times as wide as it is high, with rickety, rusting air conditioners dotting the gray, imposing facade. Behind closed doors lining the dirty corridors of this house of justice, the largest human rights case against Argentina's dictatorship is being investigated.
Over 30 officials from Argentina's notorious Naval Mechanic's School, or "ESMA," have been indicted for their responsibility in the kidnapping and torture of about 900 people during Argentina's last military dictatorship, which ruled from 1976 to 1983. For human rights groups, it is a symbol that "the impunity" has ended. For 16 years, the ESMA's henchmen were protected by amnesty laws passed in the wake of democratic transition in 1986 and 1987. Those laws were repealed by the Congress in 2003, and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2005. The ESMA case is most representative of the repression which claimed nearly 9,000 victims during Argentina's dictatorship - students, dissidents, guerrillas, labor activists, journalists, psychiatrists, and others, who were kidnapped, tortured and sometimes exterminated by the armed forces.
But it has now been more than six years since the case was opened. Only one defendant has been tried on four counts of kidnapping. He was poisoned - whether it was a suicide or he was murdered has yet to be conclusively established - before the case reached a verdict. In the interim, the ESMA defendants have been held in jail during the pretrial phase without bail. One defendant, Jorge Acosta, has been in jail for over ten years without trial. (He was arrested in 1998 on charges of planning a kidnapping ring by placing children of victims of the government in military homes rather than returning them to their families. He was later indicted in 2003 in the ESMA case). On October 6, 17 defendants were supposed to show up in court to hear the allegations against them in a case involving 85 victims of the ESMA, but it has once again been delayed until November 19. In prosecuting human rights violators, Argentina has demonstrated it falls short of guaranteeing criminal defendants a speedy trial.
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/101809A
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Documentaire In our name (In onze naam)
(Lichtpunt)
Wie zou vandaag nog durven denken dat nodig is om te praten over pro's en contra's van folteren. Het internationaal recht verbiedt foltering. Maar na 11 september zijn folteren en andere vormen van mishandeling ernstige beleidsopties geworden in de oorlog tegen terreur. Maar wat is folteren eigenlijk? Is folteren ooit gerechtvaardigd ? Wat zou u doen als iemand die u erg na staat, uw kind bijvoorbeeld, in gevaar was ?
Zou u akkoord gaan met folteren als u dacht dat dat de enige manier was om te redden ? En als we toestaan dat er in onze naam wordt gefolterd , wat zegt dat dan over ons ?
De filmmaker Chris Tuckfield sprak hierover o.m. met Raimond Gata ( moraalfilosoof), Darius Rejali (expert over folteringen in democratieën), Ken Roth ( Human Right Watch) , Juan Mendez (VN adviseur en zelf slachtoffer van folteringen), …
"In onze naam" is een aangrijpende documentaire.
anzi
The Vanished Gallery
The Responsible
Zorreguieta, Jorge
(Photo courtesy of Nieuws.nl) Minister of agriculture during the Videla regime. Became controversial recently as a result of his daughter, Maxima becoming the fiancee of the Royal Dutch Prince. All he had to say about his part in the repression was ``I support democracy''. No regrets, no taking personal responsibility for being a part of the top brass during the time tens of thousands of innocent people were killed.
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Asked in 1977 about a woman who was in a wheelchair when she was captured by the military, General Videla replied, "One becomes a terrorist not only by killing with a weapon or setting a bomb but also by encouraging others through ideas that go against our Western and Christian civilization." [Children of Cain, p. 112]
One of the saddest points of the story is that very few of the abductors, torturers, and killers have been brought to a court of law, even fewer were indicted, and even those who were indicted and sentenced for long periods in jail, were released long before completing their sentences due to military pressure.
Moreover: for every General or Admiral brought to trial there are thousands of petty officers and low ranking military men who took part in the atrocities. Most of them are still living among us, with impunity, as if nothing at all has happened.
anzi
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