RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Historic Tour of Illegal Detention Centre

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 11 1998 (IPS) - Judges, lawmakers, military officers, relatives of ‘disappeared’ victims and survivors of Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship made the first joint inspection Wednesday of the site that operated as the largest illegal detention centre in that period.

“I’m doing this for my sons and my husband,” Laura Bonaparte said through tears as she entered the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), where she suspects her husband, three sons and three daughters-in-law were tortured and ‘disappeared’ in 1977. The installations allegedly held a total of more than 4,000 detainees during the de facto military regime.

The historic tour took place after residents living nearby reported that furniture and machines had been removed from ESMA under cover of night, in spite of a court order suspending the presidential decree that ordered the demolition of the building and the construction of a park and a monument to peace.

The decree, issued by President Carlos Menem and signed in January, triggered an outcry from human rights groups, which argued that the building should be left standing and open to the public as a symbol of state terrorism and a reminder for future generations that the past must not be repeated.

Nevertheless, the president went ahead with the project of transferring ESMA to a city in the province of Buenos Aires.

In response, two relatives of ‘disappeared’ victims went to court to get a stay of action.

Not only did the federal court find that the families of ‘disappeared’ victims had valid reasons to keep the building from being torn down, but it urged the preservation of the installations in case evidence remained that could shed light on the final fate of the victims.

The ‘Madres de la Plaza de Mayo’, a group of mothers seeking their ‘disappeared’ sons and daughters, contend that ESMA installations contain secret graves.

Although amnesty laws and presidential pardons have kept army troops and officers implicated in the “dirty war” out of prison today, families have not stopped demanding the truth on the whereabouts of their loved ones. The ‘Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo’ still entertain hopes of recuperating their grandchildren, who were born in captivity or taken away as small children.

According to human rights groups, around 30,000 people were ‘disappeared’ during the dictatorship.

Human rights activists were dealt a severe blow last Friday when the Defence Ministry appealed the judicial decision to block the decree, arguing that “it was not completely clear” that victims had been abducted, tortured and ‘disappeared’ in ESMA – even though that had been proven in trials in the late 1980s in which the dictatorship’s military commanders – later pardoned – were found guilty.

Protests by human rights groups and opposition lawmakers against the Defence Ministry’s statement forced Minister Jorge Dominguez to apologise this week and request the resignation of the legal advisers who drafted the communique.

In spite of denials by Menem himself that objects had been secretly removed from ESMA, the courts heard the complaints brought by neighbours Wednesday, and sent two judges to make an on- site inspection. Two parliamentarians and relatives of ‘disappeared’ victims were invited to accompany the judges.

Survivors of the clandestine concentration camp, who during the 1980s trials of the former military commanders helped reconstruct part of the grisly events that took place in ESMA, also accompanied the group.

Further testimony on what occurred there was provided by former navy captain Adolfo Scilingo, who worked in ESMA during the de facto regime and confessed in 1995 that many detainees were thrown alive but drugged into the sea from navy aircraft.