RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Prisoners Use Hunger Strike to Press for Appeal

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 22 2000 (IPS) - Twelve Argentines incarcerated since 1989 for attacking a military barracks have been engaged in a hunger strike for the last 23 days, seeking to pressure authorities to comply with Organisation of American States (OAS) recommendations that they be allowed to appeal their sentences.

Héctor Tracktenberg, an attorney with the Argentine League for the Rights of Man, told IPS that the prisoners’ health has greatly deteriorated from the fast, and they have lost an average of 10 kilograms each, but he stressed, “they are determined.”

The prisoners were members of the ‘Movimiento Todos por la Patria’ (MTP – All for the Homeland Movement), a leftist group that in January 1989 occupied La Tablada military barracks, claiming that military personnel there were preparing a coup d’etat against then-president Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989).

The occupation of the barracks, which lasted two days, ended in MTP defeat, with 28 of its members and 11 government soldiers dead, and three people disappeared.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS indicated there were serious irregularities in the government force’s repression of the attack and in the ensuing trial of the MTP members involved in the attempted takeover.

In 1997, the IACHR presented the Argentine government with a report stating nine of the MTP attackers were “executed” after they had surrendered, all arrestees had been tortured and there were notorious deficiencies in the investigations and court trials.

The international institution recommended investigating the incidents at the military site, guaranteeing the possibility to appeal the prison sentences and “compensating” the victims – a vague term that, according to the prisoners’ lawyers, can only be interpreted to mean their immediate release.

In an annual report on human rights in the region, the US State Department expressed its concern for the unsatisfactory performance of the Argentine justice system, using the case of the prisoners sentenced for the attack on La Tablada as an example.

The trial of the MTP members – eight months after the attack – was conducted under norms of the Defence of Democracy Act, which denies the accused any chance to appeal the investigations and sentences before a higher court.

“We then presented a special petition before the Supreme Court of Justice, which was rejected outright due to technicalities, in other words, it was not even considered,” commented Tracktenberg after a recent visit with the inmates at the Caseros prison in Buenos Aires.

Former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) suggested on several occasions that he would pardon the La Tablada prisoners, but he never followed through. Six months into Fernando de la Rúa’s term as president, the inmates say it is time the government complied with the recommendations of the IACHR.

To appeal their sentences, the prisoners need Congress to approve a law drafted by governing party deputy Ramón Torres Molina, who served as their lawyer during the original trials. The bill seeks to reform the Defence of Democracy Act and open the way for the appeals process.

Congress is slated to take up the bill June 29, but Tracktenberg is optimistic the debate will begin this week in an attempt to put an end to the hunger strike and to reduce further risks to the prisoners’ health.

If the Torres Molina bill is passed, nearly all of the La Tablada prisoners could apply for a measure that counts each year served in prison as two, and includes release on parole while they await completion of the appeals proceedings.

The only exceptions to these benefits would be the cases of MTP leader Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, and his former wife Ana María Sívori, who were arrested in Mexico in 1995 and tried shortly thereafter.

Gorriarán Merlo is a former leader of the People’s Revolutionary Army, a Trotskyist group that took up arms in the 1970s. He and Sívori were detained in Mexico by Argentine and Mexican intelligence agents who were operating without extradition orders.

Among the La Tablada prisoners involved in the hunger strike is Catholic priest Antonio Puigjané, who has been serving his sentence under house arrest in a convent for the last two years due to his advanced age. He had served a large portion of his sentence in prison for his ties to the MTP, though he did not participate in the occupation of the military barracks.

The international human rights organisation Amnesty International considers Puigjané a “prisoner of conscience.”

There are also two women serving sentences in a separate prison facility for participating in the La Tablada attack, though they are not participating in the hunger strike.

Among those sentenced for the attack, seven are on parole – including two who currently live in Spain -, and another completed his prison term just over a year ago.

There are also international arrest warrants in effect for six other people linked to the attack. The appeals for a definitive solution to the case include the revocation of the warrants.

The Argentine government, meanwhile, has announced through Justice Minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra that the La Tablada prisoners will not be pardoned, but did not rule approval of the Torres Molina bill in Congress – though it will not implement the bill under pressure from the hunger strike, said Gil Lavedra.

“It is unacceptable that voluntarily abstaining from eating is being used to dictate any sort of government measure,” stressed the minister.

But the government is also under pressure from the IACHR, which originally presented its recommendations to Argentina three years ago, and now exhorts the government to quickly resolve the issue.

IACHR jurist Robert Goldman met with government representatives in Buenos Aires last March, and the principal issue on the agenda was the case of the La Tablada prisoners – who have the support of political and cultural figures from several countries.

Goldman said at the time that the Defence of Democracy Act, passed shortly after three military uprisings had occurred in Argentina within two years, violates the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights by not allowing for appeals.

Families of the prisoners and of those who died in the attack are calling for a new investigation into the incident, primarily to bring to light the executions, torture and disappearances that took place – though not necessarily to determine who was responsible for these serious crimes.

They also demand a far-reaching but rapid solution to the case, one that includes Gorriarán and Sívori, due to the irregularity of their arrests in Mexico.

The League for the Rights of Man and the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, another non-governmental organisation, have presented justice authorities with a petition to investigate the executions and to identify the human remains discovered at La Tablada, but officials have yet to take any action.