ARGENTINA-HUMAN RIGHTS: Spanish Court Cracks Down on Ex-Dictator

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Mar 25 1997 (IPS) - A Spanish court ruled preventive detention for former Argentine dictator Leopoldo Galtieri for the abduction, torture and “disappearance” of 330 Spanish citizens in Argentina.

The families of the missing persons have filed charges against former general Galtieri and other leaders of Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship.

The preventive detention will not be served in Argentina, where Galtieri, president of the de facto military regime from December 1981 to June 1982, was pardoned, along with other members of security forces found guilty of human rights violations. But if he leaves the country, he risks arrest by the Interpol (International Police).

Captain Alfredo Astiz, pardoned in Argentina but sentenced in absentia in France, is in a similar situation.

Galtieri headed the April 1982 invasion of the Malvinas/Falklands islands, occupied by Great Britain since 1833. Argentina’s defeat cost him the presidency.

Judge Baltasar Garzon issued his decision with the understanding that genocide and crimes against the fundamental rights of individuals cannot be pardoned or amnestied.

Garzon considered the testimony of two reknowned Argentine citizens, among others: Nobel Peace Prize-winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel and the public prosecutor in the case against the officers in Argentina, Julio Cesar Strassera.

He also asked U.S. government agencies and embassies for documents and data related to politically-motivated “disappearances” in Argentina, and on paramilitary forces that operated there.

He solicited data on the so-called “Condor Plan”, which coordinated the armed forces of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay in what he called “criminal acts of repression.”

The judge reiterated a request put months ago to Argentine authorities, urging that 101 people, including Galtieri, be cited to express whether or not they were willing to testify in Spain.

Argentine authorites have demonstrated little or no interest in cooperating with the Spanish courts, citing the laws of “full stop” and “due obedience”, approved by the government of Raul Alfonsin (1983-89), which let the perpetrators of human rights violations off the hook, and later pardons issued by President Carlos Menem.