RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Moves to Repeal Amnesty Law Gather Strength

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 22 1998 (IPS) - The recent declations of ex-naval officer Alfredo Astiz, one of the most notorious officials of the former military junta, has prompted ruling Justicialist politicians to study a proposal to rescind amnesty laws that excuses some 1,000 military officials for human rights violations.

The president of the Justicialist bloc, Humberto Roggero, acknowledged that after the declarations made by Astiz, “Congress cannot discard the idea of revoking the ‘final stop’ and ‘due obedience’ laws,” and has exhorted legislators from his party to consider proposals put forward by the opposition Alliance.

The initiative was introduced by a group of representatives of the Alliance one week before the publication of an interview with Astiz published in the magazine “Tres Puntos.”

In the interview, Astiz, a retired navy captain, said that he had given instructions to destroy, kill and place bombs, and that he was the most technically trained person in the country to kill a politician or a journalist.

He also admitted to crimes such as the kidnapping of newborn children, torture, kidnapping and summary executions, and boasted about receiving requests every day from navy comrades to lead an uprising, a confession that was considered to be an reflection of the unrest that existed among certain groups inside the Navy.

The government already has rejected the possibility of revoking the amnesty laws. Among members of the opposition Alliance, there is a debate about the advisability of such a proposal.

Representative Graciela Fernandez Meijide, mother of a “disappeared” son, said she believed that a project to revoke the laws was not feasible.

Astiz was arrested for 60 days, on orders of president Carlos Menem. On Monday he appeared in a federal court, which tried unsuccessfully to get him to give further details about the kidnapping of writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh, who disappeared in 1977.

Astiz limited his statement to saying that he did not remember anything, despite the fact that during his earlioer interview he had mentioned Walsh’s kidnapping as “one of the Navy’s most screwed up operations.”

In 1997, Walsh’s family – knowing that those responsible for the crime could not be punished because of the amnesty laws – filed a lawsuit so that the truth could be known about the disappeared writer’s final fate. It was in that context that Astiz was called to testify.

However, once the questioning became more specific, Astiz took refuge in the laws of “due obedience” and refused to cooperate with the investigation although he asked the court to intervene in stopping the insults from victim’s relatives, who kept shouting “assassin” and “rapist” among other epithets in ther courtroom.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Carlos Corach called Astiz a “provocateur,” and said that the Navy would do well if it separated him permanently from the force through a demotion. But he also warned about the impossibility of revoking the amnesty laws, as such an action would imply a coup against the rule of law.

In this sense, some jurists opined it was impossible to eliminate a benefit and apply infractions of the law retroactively, but others believed that the laws were unconstitutional and, therefore, invalid. Those who supported this view argued that Congress could assume the power to pass a law that caused severe harm to society, and that the main argument against such an action was not legal but rather political.

As an example, they pointed to the moment just before the end of dictatorship in 1983 , when military commanders tried to pass a self-amnesty law that was later repealed by Alfonsin, with the same arguments that could now be used now to rescind the final stop and due obedience laws.

On Tuesday, Astiz testified in the case of the death of journalist Mario Bonino, which occurred in 1993. Bonino’s body was found in the Rio de la Plata and officials first uled it as suicide, but his family and the journalists’ union, where he worked as press secretary, maintained it was murder.

Astiz said that journalist Jose Luis Cabezas, assassinated a year ago, “was not the first one to be killed under the democratic government, but rather the second” and referred to Bonino as “the one who was thrown into the river chained to his car.” Lawyers for the Bonino family immediately said they may sue Astiz for coverup if he refused to provide any more details.

Astiz was found guilty of a well-known crime in which two French nuns were kidnapped, together with three members of “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” in 1977, as they were collecting funds to call for the return of the disappeared. Astiz denied any involvement.

He also has been accused of killing Swedish student Dagmar Hagelin, whom he allegedly shot in the street, apparently mistaking her for somebody else. But the amnesty laws passed 10 years ago by Congress freed him of all judicial process in Argentina.

Nevertheless, Astiz cannot leave the country without risking arrest by Interpol. He is wanted in Paris as a result of a trial in absentia in which he was sentenced to life in prison for the disappearance of the two French nuns.

In Argentina, the only cases still pending are those of relatives who want to know the truth about the whereabouts of at least 10,000 disappeared. Astiz now says there were “only” 6,500 .