Argentina: ESMA witness commits suicide

This is very sad. Rodolfo Picheni, who survived torture in the ESMA, committed suicide yesterday. He had already testified in the megatrial which began last week.

Picheni - a union delegate - was abducted on 16 December, 1976, and taken to the ESMA. He recounted that there, he was beaten on several occasions for moving his hood in order to see, tortured with electricity, subjected to a mock execution, and witnessed a fellow prisoner beaten to death. He was freed in January 1977 but lived in fear for the rest of the dictatorship as he continued to receive menacing phone calls.

Of course, it is not for me to say exactly why Picheni killed himself or why now, but it's surely a reminder that some wounds run very deep.

ESMA: se suicidó uno de los testigos (Tiempo Argentino via Espacio Memoria)

Argentina: ESMA megatrial begins

The next massive trial of alleged human rights abusers began recently in Argentina. The trial - which is expected to last two years - is the first to focus on the death flights and encompasses a huge 789 victims. There are so many people involved that journalists have to watch the trial by videolink. Make no mistake, this is a big event, both in scale and significance. However, the very length of the trial means that it won't sustain the same level of attention throughout. The usual dedicated human rights groups will be following the entire thing, of course.

The opening of the trial received broad international coverage. British daily The Independent provides background for readers, introducing names familar to regular visitors of this blog, such as Alfredo Astiz and Jorge Acosta. It also quotes one pilot, Emir Sisul Hess, who reportedly told relatives how sleeping victims "fell like little ants" from the aircraft.

Victims of 'death flights': Drugged, dumped by aircraft – but not forgotten (Independent)

IPS notes that among the defendants, five are on the run. It reports that human rights activist Mario Villani has welcomed the start of the trial while stressing that “the struggle will continue as long as there are regimes in the world that need to use torture to maintain control.”

Argentina’s Biggest Human Rights Trial Begins (IPS)

The BBC notes that human rights lawyer Rodolfo Yanzon told the Associated Press: "This was, is and will be the largest trial of crimes against humanity."

Largest trial of 'Dirty War' crimes starts in Argentina (BBC)

German weekly Die Zeit also reports on the start of the trial:

Massenprozess gegen Mitglieder der argentinischen Militärjunta (Die Zeit)

Naturally, the megacausa has received blanket coverage within Argentina. La Nación, for example, focused on the defendants in this article about the opening of the trial:


Comenzó el tercer juicio por los crímenes en la ESMA (La Nación)

 Elsewhere, Spanish daily El País picks up on the urgency of trying the defendants now, because both they and the surviving relatives and victims are now so old; many have already died. The paper also talks to Ana Maria Careaga, who having been detained and tortured at the tender age of 16 is still only in her early '50s and well able to keep on fighting.

"Se están muriendo los sobrevivientes, los familiares de las víctimas, los represores" (El País)

Argentina: JUSTICE for the ESMA victims

Well, it feels like I've been waiting a long time to write this post - but of course, not nearly as long as the Argentine relatives have been waiting for justice. It's almost two years since the ESMA megatrial started, and it's finally over, and some of the worst perpetrators of human rights abuses of the dictatorship have received lengthy jail sentences. They include Alfredo Astiz, responsible for the infiltration of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in the very early days of the group's existence and for the murder of two French nuns. Congratulations Argentina for taking a massive step towards justice for the disappeared and their relatives.

Here is a small selection of coverage of the issue:

Astiz, el Tigre y el grupo de tareas de Massera (Pagina/12)
Quiénes son los enjuiciados (Pagina/12) - recommended as a "who's who" of the accused
Primera condena por los crímenes de lesa humanidad cometidos en la ESMA (CELS via Proyecto Desaparecidos)

Life sentence for Argentine "Blond Angel of Death" (Reuters)
Argentina's 'Angel of Death' jailed for crimes against humanity (Guardian, includes video embedded below)
Argentine Navy captain ‘Angel Face’ Astiz sentenced to life imprisonment (Mercopress)
France praises Argentina justice system over the sentencing of Astiz (Mercopress)
Argentina: 12 Given Life Sentences for Crimes During Dictatorship (New York Times)

Argentina: Astiz claims "persecution"

Alfredo Astiz, given the opportunity to make a statement in the closing stages of his current trial, has claimed that he is the victim of "political persecution".
According to Astiz,

Esto no es justicia, esto es un linchamiento. (...) No nos perdonan que hayamos intervenido y derrotado al terrorismo",
This isn't justice, this is a lynching. (...) [The government] won't forgive us for having intervened and defeated terrorism."

Yes, this murderer of nuns and betrayer of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo believes that he is a martyr. Unfortunately I suspect that his attitude is quite typical of those involved with the military regime, and I don't suppose there's any way of persuading them differently. Which really matters little if they are behind bars; the problem is the section of Argentine society in general which agrees with them.

Symbol of Argentine repression claims persecution (AP)
El criminal Astiz ahora dice que es víctima de una persecución política (eldiario24.com)

Update: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo say that Astiz is "insulting the memory" of their children.

Taty Almeida: Astiz "insulta la memoria de nuestros hijos" (Pagina/12)

Update 2: Pagina/12 is running this cartoon.

Translation: Reporter: Astiz... You said your trial is a lynching.
Astiz: Yes, and I mean, I'm not against lynching.

Update 3: It actually gets more brazen: Adolfo Miguel Donda (uncle of congresswoman and found grandchild Victoria Donda) says he feels like "a persecuted Jew". Nice.

Donda: “Me siento un judío perseguido” (Clarin)

Argentina: Acosta's Secret Archives?

Witness Ricardo Héctor Coquet has testified in court that records were kept of the around 4,700 prisoners who passed through the ESMA.

He stated that three microfilm copies of the archives were made before the originals were destroyed: one for the now late Rubén Chamorro, head of the ESMA, one for dictator Emilio Eduardo Massera, and the third for Jorge "el Tigre" Acosta, who is currently standing trial.

Coquet further described his tasks of falsifying documents for the task forces who carried out the abductions.

This testimony certainly seems to fit with that of Victor Basterra who photographed in the ESMA. I wonder if any of those microfilms have survived. While I don't think we are really lacking in evidence to convict the perpetrators, the contents might clarify what happened to some of the disappeared.

Los archivos del Tigre Acosta (Projecto Desaparecidos)
Entrevista a Ricardo Hector Coquet, sobreviviente de la ESMA (radio nacional - audio interview, Spanish)
"Hay microfilms de 4700 secuestrados" (Pagina/12)

News Round-Up

Argentina
Landmark Human Rights Case in Argentina Puts Torture on Trial (Latin America Activism)

Guatemala
Angels in Guatemala: Confronting a Legacy of Official Terror (NACLA)

Peru
In the Final Appeal, the Supreme Court Ratifies Alberto Fujimori's 25-year Sentence (Fujimori on Trial)

News Round-Up

Argentina
Unrepentant "Blond Angel" 18 Others from the ESMA Stand Trial (truthout)

Mexico
Rights court condemns Mexico in 'dirty war' case (AP)

Peru
Cocaine and rebels haunt Peru's remote jungle (Reuters)

Argentina: Astiz in the News

"There are conflicting feelings," Ana Careaga, whose mother was kidnapped by order of Astiz, told AFP. "On one hand, there's deep pain, on the other we see that there can be justice 32 years later.

"It's important to see them in the dock."

Astiz is one of those figures from the Argentine dictatorship who seems to capture the interest of the media, and his "blond angel of death" nickname in particular crops up again and again. Although he is not the only defendant in the ESMA megatrial, there have been a whole series of articles focusing on him alone.

'Blond angel of death' on trial in Argentina (AFP, source of quote above)

Ex-officer tried for 'Dirty War' crimes in Argentina (BBC)

Argentine "Dirty War" Spy on Trial (Impunity Watch)

The "blond angel of death" on trial in Buenos Aires (Mercopress)

Trial begins for Argentina's 'Angel of Death' (AP)

Former Argentine Navy Officer to Be Tried in Torture Deaths (NY Times)

Argentina: ESMA trial to begin

The ESMA 'megatrial' is due to begin at 10am in Argentina today. This is something that human rights activists have been waiting decades for; some of the major military perpetrators still living will be in the dock. No Navy perpetrator has been convicted since the amnesty laws in the 1980s, so this is a hugely symbolic chance for justice.

The turn of the Navy mob

From today, Federal Oral Court 5 will judge Astiz, Acosta, Cavallo, Pernías and Rolón, among other accused from the Navy and security forces, for the crimes against Rodolfo Walsh, the French nuns, the founders of the Mothers [of the Plaza de Mayo] and 79 other victims.

At 10am today, in the basement of Comodoro Py, an Argentine court will begin to judge the 17 repressors from the ESMA, that universal symbol of State terrorism. This will mark the end of a third of a century of impunity, Raúl Alfonsín's laws of forgetting, Carlos Menem's pardons, the resistance of the political, judicial, corporate and religious institutions, and those hundreds of parents who died without seeing justice for their loved ones.
[...]
The majority of the abductions, tortures and murders which this trial will consider have been proven since the mid-1980s. The perpetrators have been living in impunity for the past twenty years thanks to the 'Full Stop' and 'Due Obedience' [amnesty] laws. Of the three major cases which are grouped together for the first trial, testimonies A is the most wide-ranging, with 79 victims. A few of them survived. For some, there is proof of their murder. Most were seen in captivity and remain disappeared.

The second part, testimonies B, relates to the crimes against the French nuns and the founders of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, abducted on 8 December 1977, tortured in the ESMA and thrown into the sea on the "death flights". In opposition to the twenty years of impunity are the achievements of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, who identified the victims after finding their bodies buried in unmarked graves in coastal cemeteries.

The third part is called testimonies C and its main actor is the writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh, terminated by the machine gun of police inspector Weber after resisting abduction with a small pistol. The investigation into the death of Walsh, whose body was seen in the ESMA but was never released to his next of kin, includes questions about the whereabouts of his unfinished book, which the Navy also declined to hand over.
[translation mine]

Here are the accused in full:


La hora de la patota de la Armada (Pagina/12)

The trial will last for months. I will attempt to flag up important testimonies, occurrences, etc but won't be able to follow it on a daily basis. More information can be found on the website of the Centro de informacion judicial (Spanish) and on the blog Causa ESMA (Spanish), as well as in the Argentine media and web sites of human rights organisations.