RIGHTS-SPAIN: Activists Praise Argentine Court, Gov’t Decisions

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jan 5 2000 (IPS) - The families of victims of Argentina’s 1976- 83 dictatorship and human rights attorneys in Spain applauded Wednesday the South American country’s response to Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón’s petition for the capture of 48 human rights violators in Argentina.

Garzón ordered the preventive detention of 48 former officers on charges of genocide – including torture, murder and forced disappearance – and state terrorism.

Argentine President Fernando de la Rúa, who succeeded Carlos Menem on Dec 10, referred Garzón’s request to the courts after receiving it from Interpol. During his time in office (1989-99), Menem rejected similar requests for collaboration, arguing that foreign courts did not have the jurisdiction to try offences committed in Argentina.

Attorney Carlos Slepoy, the president of the Argentine pro Human Rights Association of Madrid, and Matilde Rutilo Artés, “Grandma Sacha,” with the Argentine rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, considered the reaction by the government and courts in Argentina a positive step in the right direction.

Both Slepoy and Rutilo Artés said it was “normal” that Argentine Judge Gustavo Literas rejected Garzón’s petition and asked for more background and data.

Literas told the Madrid daily ‘El Mundo’ that he asked for additional data “in order to proceed with the preventive arrest” of the 48 former officers, and “to keep the case from being annulled or contested.”

He added that the fate of the individuals Garzón wants captured, including those who benefited from amnesty laws passed in Argentina in the late 1980s or by the presidential pardon decreed by Menem, “will be established after an eventual extradition trial.”

Slepoy told IPS that Argentina’s justice system would have to pronounce itself in favour of or against an extradition request, and that if it decided against the petition, the accused would have to be tried in Argentina.

“The most positive thing would be for them to stand trial in the country where the crimes were committed, Argentina,” said the lawyer.

“The government of De la Rúa took a big step forward, and now it is up to Argentina’s justice system to comply with international treaties” the country has signed, he added.

Similar remarks came from “Sacha”, who shot into the limelight when she recovered, after 10 years of constant searching, her granddaughter, who was given in illegal adoption to a police commissioner after her mother and father were killed under the de facto regime.

“Sacha” told IPS that the Argentine decision was encouraging, because it marked the start of a new era, one of even more profound changes, “starting with respect for international conventions.”

Slepoy also stated that it was positive for Literas to take some time before deciding on the case, which he said would enable rights groups in Argentina to apply pressure demanding that rights violators be tried, and to submit evidence to further substantiate the case.

He added that he did not agree with Argentine Justice Minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra, who denied that genocide had taken place in Argentina on the argument that genocide “is mass killing based on ethnic or religious reasons, which did not occur here.”

But Slepoy pointed out that international conventions defined genocide as mass repression for political as well as ethnic or religious reasons.

Between 10,000 and 30,000 people became the victims of forced disappearance during the de facto regime in Argentina.

Human rights activists point to declarations and documents dating from the dictatorship referring to the need to defend Western, Christian civilisation and to crack down on those who did not share the official ideology.

According to international treaties signed by Argentina and Spain, courts in Argentina will have to decide whether extradition requests are to proceed, and if so, whether the accused can be tried for one, several or all of the offences with which they are charged.

If the courts decide that the accused can be extradited on the basis of all of the charges, those defendants not being prosecuted for other offences in Argentina would have to be sent immediately to Spain.

But those who are undergoing trial – including nine former military chiefs in preventive custody or under house arrest on charges of kidnapping and illegal adoption of children of political prisoners during the dictatorship – would have to await the end of their trial in Argentina before being shipped off to Spain.

But if the courts reject an eventual extradition request on the basis that Argentine jurisdiction takes precedence over that of courts abroad, the next step would be new trials in Argentina.

Whatever the final decision, said Slepoy, a far-reaching step has been taken, “and the most significant aspect will be what happens in the future.”

He pointed out, however, that in Argentina it is summer and the courts are closed for the month of January. But in Spain, Literas’ request for further data will be processed and Garzón’s response will be prepared this month.