Chile: Charges over Bachelet's father's death

Two former Chilean military officials, Ramon Caceres and Edgar Ceballos, have been arrested on charges of torturing to death General Alberto Bachelet, the father of former president, Michelle Bachelet.

Bachelet, who was loyal to President Salvador Allende, is thought to have been tortured to death in 1974.


Chile charges two over General Alberto Bachelet's death (BBC)

Argentina: AMIA/Mauricio Rosencof

"Memory is a barricade"

Pagina/12 today carries an interview with Mauricio Rosenhof, a former political prisoner, writer, playwright, poet and ex-minister of culture for Uruguay. He is an invited speaker at the commemorations of the AMIA attack on Tuesday. I was interested by what he says because he draws explicit parallels between the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, the Southern Cone military dictatorships, and the memory of the terrorist attacks. This is often implicit in memory discussions but here it it spelled out.

"I think we owe a lot to the old Left, which had a very important presence in the Jewish collective. There were a thousand young people disappeared during our dictatorships who were of Jewish origin. In the international brigades which fought fascism [in Spain], 25% were Jewish. I grew up among tailors, shoemakers, carpenters who spoke in Yiddish. Workers with a clear conscience. In their honour, I'm going to talk at the event organised by Memoria Activa in memory of the victims of the AMIA."

"My presence at the event for the victims of the AMIA is emotional for me. It's remembering and putting things in their place. The voices of the Jews of the Left do not have the presence which they had and which they have to have."

"As a moral reference and example of resistence, I have Mordechai Anielewicz in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and Primo Levi, who struggled against the Nazis together with his students and then gave that example of resistence in Auschwitz. Rosa, my father's sister, was the only survivor in her family. They all died in the concentration camps. Raúl Sendic, my friend and the leader of the Tupamaros, said that he took the Kibbutzim in Palastine as a model. Shimon Peres was secretary-general of the Socialist International*. This is why it is necessary to remember the Jewish militants, those who were disappeared and the victims of the two attacks in Buenos Aires. This is what made me accept the invitation. I'm Uruguayan to my toes, Gardel-ian, tango-lover. And I'm Jewish."

*Actually, vice-president, according to my research.

The whole thing is here:

“La memoria es una barricada” (Pagina/12)

News Round-up

Brazil
Truth commission to investigate Operation Condor (Transitional Justice in Brazil)

Colombia
Document Friday: The Mapiripán Massacre “Cover-up” (Unredacted, the National Security Archive)
The Colombian military falsely blamed a junior officer for complicity in a 1997 paramilitary massacre “as part an effort to confuse and cover up the responsibility of others,” according to a 2003 State Department letter.

Guatemala
Guatemala frees ex-colonel who killed campaigning bishop (Guardian)
Byron Disrael Lima Estrada was in jail for killing of Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi, who wrote report on civil war crimes by army

Peru
Peru's anti-riot tactics unmatched in lethality (AP)

Since 2006, bullets fired by Peruvian security forces to quell protests have killed 80 people and wounded more than 800, according to the independent National Coordinator for Human Rights watchdog.[...]

"These numbers would be a scandal abroad. And I'm not talking about a comparison with Europe, but with Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, where there are protests but not so many deaths," said Jorge Mansilla, investigator for Peru's national ombudsman's office.

Argentina: Complicity at the fore in new trial

As Argentina has recently made progress by condemning some of the key figures of its dictatorship, such as Jorge Videla (although there's still a long way to go), the focus of attention has broadened somewhat. Human rights groups including HIJOS - the children of the disappeared - have been organising this year under the slogan "los grupos económicos también fueron la dictadura" (the economic groups were the dictatorship too), i.e. focusing on complicity.

Now a new trial is bring this issue even more to the fore. Carlos Pedro Blaquier, president of sugar company Ledesma since 1970, is accused of involvement in the disappearance of 30 people.

As I understand it, the case will focus on the events of the "Noche del Apagón" (Night of the blackout) on 27 July 1976 - or more accurately, the nights in the week running up to that date. During those nights, the electricity was switched off in the town of Libertador General San Martín (also known as Ledesma), Calilegua and El Talar. Police and members of the armed forces then went through the towns and arrested and took away large numbers of people, some of whom remain disappeared. There are accusations that they used trucks belonging to the company Ledesma and also that foremen were involved in the repression.

Another of the disappeared from the town was Luis Arédez, a doctor who had at one time worked for Ledesma but was dismissed for "giving out too many medicines to the employees" (yes, that does sound like a bad joke). He was disappeared in May 1977. His wife, Olga del Valle Márquez de Arédez, became a human rights activist and testified before the CONADEP truth commission. She died in 2005 - many sources say of the consequences of bagassosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling molasses dust. 

Blaquier denies lending company vehicles to the security forces. He has also complained of aggressive behaviour by protesters who shouted threats and thumped on the car he was travelling in. Leader of the social organisation Tupuc Amaru, Milagro Sala, responded scornfully that he is attempting to turn himself into the victim, rather than the perpetrator.

Anyway, there seems to be relatively little information in English on this issue, so I hope this is helpful for someone. The trial starts tomorrow; I can't promise I'll be following it day to day but I'll try to post the big news!

News:
Blaquier negó haber participado en la represión (El Dia)
Milagro Sala: "Blaquier quiere pasar de acusado a víctima" (Telam)

Background:

El horror de “La Noche del Apagón” (Clarin)
Olga Aredez, sinónimo de memoria, verdad y justicia en Jujuy (Telam)
The case against Argentinean sugar company Ledesma (ECCHR)

Argentina: Videla and others convicted of baby thefts

Yesterday was truly a historic day in Argentina as Jorge Videla, Reynaldo Bignone, and others were convicted of the systematic theft of babies during the dictatorship. There has thus been an official acknowledgement that children were taken from families by the military regime and that these were not isolated incidents by one or two corrupt officers. It is a massive boost for the Grandmothers and others who have struggled for so long for justice on this issue.

Here's a couple of the front pages this morning:

Here is some of the sentence being read out:

Argentina: Videla denies plan to steal babies

Former Argentina dictator Jorge Videla has been testifying in the trial regarding the appropriation of minors this week and has denied that the State had a systemic plan to steal the babies of those it regarded as its enemies.

"Si la sustracción de un menor tuvo lugar, ello no respondió a una orden ni a una convalidación implícita de cualquier índole encuadrada en un plan sistemático emanado de los mandos superiores de las Fuerzas Armadas en el marco de la lucha antiterrorista."
"If the removal of a minor took place, this was not in response to an order or an implicit order of any form coming from a systematic plan formed by the higher powers of the Armed Forces during the war against terrorism".

At the same time, he has characterised the pregnant women abducted by the State as terrorists who used their unborn babies as human shields.

"Las parturientas aludidas por la querella, aludidas por las fiscalías, a quienes respeto como madres, eran activistas y usaron a sus hijos embrionarios como escudos humanos al momento de operar como combatientes."
"The pregnant women referred to by the prosecutor, whom I respect as mothers, were activists and used their embryonic children as human shields when operating as fighters."

You can watch the relevant clips from his testimony here:

The Abuelas put the number of pregant detained women whose babies were removed shortly after birth at around 500. The trial, which includes not only Videla but also Bignone, "Tigre" Acosta and others, is scheduled to end on 5 July.

Videla Denies Argentine Dictatorship Baby Thefts (ABC)
Videla denies a systematic plan (Buenos Aires Herald)
El exdictador Videla llama terroristas a las madres de los bebes robados en Argentina (ABC.es)
Videla acusó de terroristas a mujeres presas que estaban embarazadas (Clarin)

Argentina: Exhibition Sacco/Brodsky

An exhibition of the work of Graciela Sacco and Marcelo Brodsky, "Entre Aguas", is currently taking place in the Rolf Art Showroom in Recoleta, Buenos Aires. Entry is free and the show runs until 27 July.