http://lo-de-alla.org/2013/03/argentine-justice-system-puts-videla-and-bignone-on-the-dock/
Argentine justice system puts Videla and Bignone on the dock<http://lo-de-alla.org/2013/03/argentine-justice-system-puts-videla-and-bignone-on-the-dock/> <http://lo-de-alla.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/x-videla-bignone1.jpg> ((Jorge Videla, left, and Reynaldo Bignone)) *Both ex-dictators and more than 20 other defendants will be tried for their part in the persecution and detention of opponents under Plan Cóndor* [Translation of an article from *El Observador* of Montevideo, Uruguay, for March 4. See original here<http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/245014/justicia-argentina-sienta-en-el-banquillo-a-videla-y-bignone/> .] The Argentine justice system on Tuesday will bring to trial ex-dictators Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone for their alleged responsibility for the persecution and detention of opponents under Plan Cóndor, which involved the cooperation of Southern Cone dictatorships in the 70s and 80s. Among the 25 defendants in the evidentiary hearing for crimes against humanity are also the former minister of the interior of the Argentine dictatorship of 1976 to 1983, Albano Harguindeguy, and ex-Generals Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, Antonio Bussi, Santiago Riveros and Ramón Díaz Bessone. The First Criminal Trial Court of Buenos Aires will judge crimes committed against 108 victims in a proceeding in which around 500 witnesses will testify and which could last for some two years, according to the Centro de Información Judicial. <http://lo-de-alla.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/x-orletti.jpg>Most of the victims were Uruguayan citizens who were transferred to the Automotores Orletti clandestine detention center [so named because it was in a former auto repair shop] in Buenos Aires, but the cases of the kidnappings of Paraguayan, Chilean, Bolivian and Peruvian citizens will also be judged. In connection with this case, the Argentine courts last Feburary requested the extradition of the former dictator of Peru, Fancisco Morales Bermúdez, because of the alleged deportation of 13 Peruvians to Argentina in 1978, but the request was denied. Plan Cóndor or Operación Cóndor was put in place by the dictatorial regimes of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Paraguay to pursue, assassinate, disappear or deport political opponents outside their countries. The cooperation of the secret services of the different countries began with the coup détat that ousted socialist Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. One of the first victims of Operation Condor was Chilean General Carlos Prats, who had remained loyal to Salvador Allende and who was assassinated in Buenos Aires in September, 1974, together with his wife, Sofia Cuthbert. There was no concrete proof of the plan until 1992, when secret reports, known as Archivos del Terror, were discovered in branches of the Paraguayan government. The reports record authorization for members of the armed forces and the paramilitary to cross their national borders in order to kidnap, torture or assassinate their fellow citizens who were taking refuge in neighboring countries. One very well known case is that of María Claudia García de Gelman, daughter-in-law of Argentine poet Juan Gelman, arrested in her country and taken to Uruguay in 1976, where she disappeared after giving birth to a daughter, who was given in adoption to a Uruguayan police officer. Gelman managed to join his granddaughter Macarena in 2000, when she was found and recovered her identity. Eighty-seven-year-old Videla, held in the Unidad Penal de Campo de Mayo outside Buenos Aires, was the first ruler of the Argentine dictatorship to be given a life sentence when in 2010 the Argentine courts found him guilty in the shooting deaths of some 30 political prisoners in 1976. Last year an Argentine court sentenced the ex-dictator to 50 years in prison for a plan to steal babies systematically during the dictatorship. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
