-Caveat Lector-
http://eeng.net/CS/blogs/smileycoyote/archive/2007/08/16/624.aspx
A much awaited human rights abuse trial is underway in Argentina. The
accused is a catholic priest charged with carrying out human rights
abuses while working in several clandestine detention centers during
the nation's 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The priest was arrested
four years ago while living under an alias in Chile. This is the
latest human rights trial of accused torturers since the landmark
conviction of a former police officer for genocide in 2006.
Clergyman to Stand Trial for "Dirty War" Crimes in Argentina
by Marie Trigona | July 25, 2007
Former Chaplin Christian Von Wernich wore a priest's collar and
bulletproof vest as he sat behind reinforced glass in a federal court.
The court clerk read charges accusing him of collaborating with state
security agents and covering up crimes in seven deaths, 31 cases of
torture, and 42 cases of illegal imprisonment. He answered basic court
questions but refused to testify in the case, stating, "Following the
advice of Dr. Jerollini who is my lawyer. I am not going to make a
declaration. And I am not going to accept questions."
An estimated 30,000 people were killed during the military junta's
reign of terror. As his trial began, hundreds of human rights
activists stood outside the courtroom in the city of La Plata to decry
Von Wernich as a murderer. President Nestor Kirchner traveled to La
Plata and said during a speech that Von Wernich "brought dishonor to
the Church, to poor people, and to human rights."
At least 120 witnesses are slated to testify against Von Wernich and
the court has taken precautions to protect their safety, putting up
police fences around the courthouse and installing metal detectors. In
the front row of the courtroom's audience, representatives from the
human rights organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo sat with their
white headscarves listening to the court's accusations.
According to Nora Cortinas, president of the Mothers of Plaza de
Mayo's founding chapter, the Catholic Church supported the crimes
committed during the dictatorship.
"The heads of the Catholic Church participated in the dictatorship.
Many priests were chaplains inside the barracks of the concentration
camps. We want to point out that there is a sector from the church
that didn't have anything to do with the dictatorship, on the contrary
they supported us and reported the crimes committed at the time. But
most of the representatives from the church participated in the
celebration of death and torture," explains Cortinas.
The Church's Role in the Dictatorship
Journalist Horacio Verbitsky recently published a book on the Catholic
Church's involvement with the military dictatorship. In his book, El
Silencio (The Silence), he reports that the Catholic Church actively
participated in the 1976-1983 dictatorship while having full knowledge
of the human rights violations being committed at the time.
In the days leading up to the coup, representatives from the Catholic
Church met with leaders of Argentina's armed forced and witnesses
report they left each of these meetings smiling. On the eve of the
March 24, 1976 coup, military leaders Jorge Videla and Ramón Agosti
visited Archbishop Paraná Adolfo Tortolo and Monsignor Victorio
Bonamín at the Catholic Church's Vicariato Castrense headquarters. A
week later, Tortolo reported that, "General Videla adheres to the
principles and morals of Christian conduct. As a military leader he is
first class, as a Catholic he is extraordinarily sincere and loyal to
his faith." He also said that when confronting subversion, the
military should take on "hard and violent measures."
However, it was during interviews in 1995 with former Marine captain
Adolfo Scilingo in which he confessed to Verbitsky having led the
"Vuelos de Muerte" or death flights, that Verbitsky realized the
gravity of the Catholic Church's complicity with the military's human
rights crimes. Scilingo, who was sentenced to 645 years in prison by a
Spanish court, reported that the catholic hierarchy approved drugging
dissidents and dropping them from planes into the Atlantic Ocean
during the "vuelos de muerte," as a Christian form of death. When
Scilingo felt anguished after directing these death flights, he would
seek counseling from military chaplains at the ESMA Navy Mechanics
School, the largest clandestine detention center in Buenos Aires.
During the dictatorship, there were representatives from the church
who provided refuge for people fleeing from being kidnapped by
commando groups and reported the crimes being committed by security
commandos. At the same time, they risked their own lives. French nuns,
Alice Domon and Léonie Duque, were disappeared and murdered in 1977
for their organizing activities with the poor. Ex-navy captain Alfredo
Astiz, also known as the "blond angel of death" is facing trial for
the nuns' disappearances along with those of a dozen other people,
including Azucena Villaflor, the founder of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
Villaflor was kidnapped by a commando group in 1977 as she left the
Santa Cruz church in Buenos Aires, where family members of the
disappeared would clandestinely meet. Humanitarian organizations have
reported that during the dictatorship at least 19 priests were
disappeared, 11 were kidnapped, tortured, and later released, and 22
were arrested for political reasons.
Human rights representatives have demanded that the Catholic Church
issue an apology for the victims during Argentina's so called "Dirty
War." The Catholic Church has refused to issue a statement, other than
to confirm that Von Wernich continues in the ranks of the church
hierarchy.
Von Wernich's Past and Present
"Christian Von Wernich is one of the spokesmen from the Church that
participated in the tortures and 'comforted' disappeared detainees,"
said Christina Valdez, whose husband was kidnapped and later
disappeared in the provincial capital of La Plata. Witnesses have
testified that Von Wernich carried out a special role inside a network
of clandestine detention centers known as the "Camps Circuit" in the
Buenos Aires suburbs. He is most notorious for his title as "spiritual
aid" inside the Puesto Vasco concentration camp, one of the 375 used
to disappear, torture, and murder 30,000 people.
On just the third day of the trial, a number of witnesses gave
remarkable testimonies of Von Wernich's crimes in several clandestine
detention centers. Torture survivor Héctor Mariano Ballent testified
that the catholic priest would visit detainees in the their cells
after torture sessions saying, "Come on son, confess everything so
they stop torturing you." After Ballent asked from his cell how a
priest could condone this type of punishment, Von Wernich left. At
least 30 detainees report that they saw Von Wernich inside the Puesto
Vasco clandestine detention center.
The Catholic Church relocated Von Wernich to Chile at his request to
avoid criminal persecution in 1996, just before a series of trials
began in La Plata in 1998. He was working as a priest in El Quisco,
Chile under the alias of Christian González, a name the parish gave to
him until he was arrested in 2003. Nearly 30 years after Von Wernich
committed human rights violations, it is unlikely he will escape
conviction, given the amount of evidence and witnesses slated to
testify against him.
Legacy of Fighting for Human Rights
Outside the courthouse, hundreds of human rights advocates rallied,
demanding a severe sentence for the priest. At one point, Von Wernich
interrupted head judge Carlos Rozanski, saying he couldn't hear the
accusations against him because protestors could be heard yelling
"Assassin" from outside the courtroom.
Christina Valdez describes how she felt seeing Von Wernich on trial:
"Looking at Von Wernich is looking at the face of a murderer. I
suppose that all the relatives of the disappeared must feel a similar
sensation: a certain impunity because one has to sit and swallow down
everything that he or she feels in that moment. You can't yell at the
murderer, you can't scream 'assassin'."
This is only the third human rights trial since Argentina's Supreme
Court struck down amnesty laws in 2005 protecting military personnel
who served during the seven-year dictatorship. Human rights
organizations worry that judicial roadblocks and an atmosphere of fear
may provide former members of the military dictatorship a window to
escape conviction.
Rights representatives have expressed immediate concerns over missing
witness Julio Lopez; a new name that has been inscribed on the doleful
roll call of Argentina's disappeared. Human rights groups in Argentina
report that the trials to convict former members of the military
dictatorship for human rights abuses have been put on hold and that
the wave of threats against witnesses continues.
Argentina's federal courts have virtually paralyzed upcoming human
rights trials six months after the disappearance of Julio Lopez?a key
witness who helped convict a former police officer for life. Lopez
went missing Sept. 18, 2006, the eve of the landmark conviction of
Miguel Etchecolatz, the first military officer to be tried for crimes
against humanity and genocide.
Only a handful of former military officers have been tried for their
human rights abuses during the military dictatorship. In April, a
federal court revoked a 1990 pardon for two of the leaders of the
former dictatorship, Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera, although it is
unlikely that the former dictators will serve any part of the life
sentences they received in 1985.
Etchecolatz is only the second military officer to be charged and
convicted for human rights abuses since 2005, when Argentina's Supreme
Court struck down immunity laws for former officers of the military
dictatorship as unconstitutional. Etchecolatz was arrested and
sentenced to 23 years in 1986, but was later freed when the "full
stop" and "due obedience" laws implemented in the early 1990s made
successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for human rights abuses
virtually impossible.
In total, 256 former military personnel and members of the military
government have been accused of human rights crimes and are now
awaiting trial. However, this adds up to less than one ex-military
officer for each of the country's 375 clandestine detention centers
that were used to torture and forcefully disappear people. Aside from
numbers, human rights representatives report that the trials are
advancing at a snail's pace, if advancing at all. Victims blame an
inefficient court system filled with structural bureaucratic
roadblocks and uncooperative judges.
Nora Cortinas says that Argentines do not wish to live with a justice
system that permits impunity: "What we want is for the trials to speed
up a little bit and not be tried on a case by case basis, and that the
government takes responsibility to help end the threats against
witnesses, judges, and lawyers, so that we can really say that there's
justice in this country."
Von Wernich's trial is expected to go on for two months. Human rights
groups are preparing events to demand the safe return of Julio Lopez
as the year anniversary of his disappearance nears.
SOURCE: IRC Americas
*
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