Brazil: Volkswagen spied on workers in 1980s

Reuters is reporting that German carmaker Volkswagen spied on union activists and passed sensitive information to Brazil's dictatorship in the 1980s.

VW covertly monitored workers and other unionists including former president Lula.

The news agency reports that the country's truth commission has uncovered documents Volkswagen gave to the military in 1983 and 1984.

In the documents, Volkswagen provided extensive accounts of more than a dozen union meetings in Greater São Paulo. The company relayed workers' plans for strikes as well as their demands for better salaries and working conditions. The company reported the names of Volkswagen workers who attended union events and, in at least two cases, noted the make and license plate numbers of vehicles present.

It's long been known that big companies - not just Volkswagen - were in cahoots with South America's military regimes, but there hasn't been much legal redress so some firm evidence on this would be really good.

This story is being covered in Spanish-language, Brazilian and German press, but all media are just referring to the Reuters report:

Exclusive: Volkswagen spied on Lula, other Brazilian workers in 1980s (Reuters)

Argentina: Doctor arrested on allegations of participating in torture

The Argentine human rights organisation APDH has announced that the doctor Omar Caram was arrested on 16 April. He is accused of participating in torture in the province of San Luis during the 1976-83 dictatorship. Former detainees had named him in their testimonies.


Detuvieron a un médico por denuncias de torturas durante la dictadura (Telam)

Argentine lecturer resigns over dictatorship acusations

Enrique Pérez Albizú, vice-deacon of the faculty of medicine at the university of La Plata, has stepped down from his post after a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo accused him in court of complicity with the dictatorship.

In the trial concerning the detention centre La Cacha, Adelina Dematti de Alaye said that surgeon Pérez Albizú had signed false death certificates which were then used by the military to cover up deaths in custody by attributing them to deaths in "shoot outs". Another 20 doctors are said to have done the same thing.

Renunció el docente acusado de vínculos con la dictadura militar (Tiempo)

Argentine newspaper owner summoned to court

Vicente Massot, owner of Bahía Blanca-based newspaper La Nueva Provincia, has been summoned to testify in court on 18 March, in a groundbreaking move towards investigating the role of the media in the dictatorship.

La Nueva Provincia was known for its support of the military regime. Massot is also accused of killing two printshop workers and for helping the military regime cover up and justify the abductions and forced disappearances. The prosecutor’s indictment alleges his media group played a key role in legitimising the genocide that the military dictatorship carried out.

The printshop workers were trade unionists Enrique Heinrich and Miguel Ángel Loyola, who were both abducted on 30 June 1976. Their tortured remains were found on the embankment of Route 33, 17 kilometres from Bahía Blanca.

La Nueva Provincia owner to testify on dictatorship (Buenos Aires Herald)
Desde el diario a los tribunales (Pagina/12)

I was interested to note that the paper is still in existence and that it has reported on the upcoming testimony of its owner. It describes his court appearance as "spontaneous" and refers to the dictatorship as the "government of the national reorganisation process".

Massot declarará el lunes 18 de este mes (La Nueva)

Argentina: Trial of the judges

A high-profile human rights trial opened this week in Mendoza, Argentina. It is the "trial of the judges" (juicio a los jueces) of the last dictatorship and interesting because it focuses on complicity from outside the armed forces.

The around 40 defendants* include former judge Otilio Roque Romano, who was extradited from Chile last September, Luis Miret, Guillermo Petra, Rolando Carrizo and Gabriel Guzzo. They are accused of not having investigated reports of illegal detentions, disappearances and murders relating to over 200 people.

The images of the courtroom are quite striking (see both La Nación and Diario Uno, linked below), with the men in their 70s and 80s surrounding by uniformed guards. As the trial is forecast to last around two years, it seems likely that some of the accused will not survive to hear the sentence. The case is still symbolically important, but of course, like all the current human rights trials, it comes late and progress is slow.

At the initial hearing on Monday, Romano raised his handcuffed wrists as he left the courtroom, to competing cries of "hero" and "murderer" from his supporters and opponents in the visitors' section. Luis Miret was reprimanded by the presiding judges for photographing the public prosecutor.


Jueces de la última dictadura, en el banquillo en Mendoza (La Nación)
Al grito de "asesinos, asesinos" terminó la primera jornada del juicio histórico a los jueces (Diario Uno)

*Media reports vary from 39 to 41.

Argentina judges civilians involved in dictatorship

Spanish daily El País has a very good article on the prosecution of civilians involved with the military dictatorship in Argentina - or, as it is sometimes known nowadays, the civil-military dictatorship.

In 2013, 16 non-uniformed people were convicted of crimes from the "dirty war" period, up from nine in 2012. 142 people, including those 16, were convicted last year.

Of those 16, eight of them were involved in the abduction and illegal adoption of stolen babies, six were intelligence officials, one was a doctor involved in the treatment of pregnant detainees, and one was a lawyer.

Of the 2,335 people involved in current cases, 272 of them are civilians. Around 53 of those worked in the judicial system. 32 were judges, but only one of those - Víctor Brusa - has been sentenced to date. Brusa was found guilty in 2009 because he visited the clandestine detention centres. Other are being investigated or about to be tried for dismissing the petitions for information from the families of disappeared people, collaborating in the concealment of bodies, giving false causes of death on death certificates, complicity in the stealing of babies, and so on.

Argentina juzga a los civiles involucrados en delitos de la dictadura militar (El País)