RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Justice Nabs Another Dictatorship Official

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 8 2000 (IPS) - The Chilean Supreme Court’s decision to strip former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s immunity from prosecution, officially announced Tuesday, coincides with the arrest of retired Argentinean army officer Jorge Olivera in Italy, accused of human rights abuses committed during his country’s last dictatorship (1976-1983).

“This is a major case for Argentina,” a pleased Horacio Méndez Carrera, human rights attorney, told IPS.

He is providing legal counsel in the case of 15 French citizens who disappeared in Argentina during the dictatorship. The arrest of Olivera, a retired army major now being held in Rome and charged with illegal arrests, torture and other crimes, sets an important precedent, Méndez Carrera said.

The Argentinean government has so far defended the principle of “territoriality” in protecting the 48 military leaders in the country who face arrest warrants issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón. But Olivera was arrested in Italy, meaning that Argentina has no role in the process if Italian authorities agree to extradite him to France.

Méndez Carrera explained that the case of Olivera, arrested at the airport in Rome under a French warrant, is similar to that of Pinochet, who was held under house arrest from October 1998 until March 2000 while he awaited the extradition to Spain requested by judge Garzón.

Both cases indicate that overseas travel is risky for those accused of human rights violations when justice has not been served in the country where the crimes were committed, said Méndez Carrera.

But unlike Pinochet, Olivera is not accused of being the intellectual author of the human rights crimes. Another difference is that the Argentinean government, far from jumping to the defence of the arrested officer – as occurred in Chile -, announced that it would limit itself to providing consular legal assistance, if necessary.

Also unlike Chile, Argentina may face problems arising from the reaction of its top military brass.

Presidential adviser Jorge de la Rúa affirmed Tuesday that there is no unrest among the nation’s armed forces, but army commander, general Ricardo Brinzoni, has made known his displeasure with Olivera’s arrest.

Retired military officer Olivera also serves as the defence lawyer for other officials charged with human rights violations. According to commentary in Argentina’s ‘Pagina 12’ newspaper Tuesday, Brinzoni had encouraged Olivera’s efforts to obstruct legal proceedings that seek the truth about the fate of the thousands who disappeared during the dictatorship.

The officer-attorney had launched a campaign in Argentina for the victims of terrorist acts committed in the 1970s, encouraging them to demand compensation from the State.

Using the same strategy to counterbalance cases against military officers overseas, Olivera filed a claim last July in international court against Britain’s former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, for the sinking of an Argentinean ship during the 1982 Malvinas (Falklands) war. More than 300 soldiers died.

The International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) in Rome arrested Olivera who was in the city to do some work on the Malvinas case. French authorities had been keeping an eye on him for some time already.

“He moved about with an air of impunity, arrogance and fanaticism that eventually proved his undoing,” commented Méndez Carrera, who provided information to the French judge on the Olivera case.

Olivera’s arrest in a foreign country has its similarities to the case of Adolfo Scilingo, a retired marine officer who publicly confessed to his participation in “disappearing” people during the Argentinean dictatorship by throwing them, still alive, out of an airplane as it flew over the River Plate.

Scilingo was arrested in October 1999 in Madrid, where he had gone voluntarily to present statements before judge Garzón. He is currently in the Spanish capital, where he faces criminal trial.

Though Olivera and Pinochet enjoyed impunity in their own countries due to amnesty laws, nothing impeded them from legal charges in other countries.

“Olivera’s is a unique case, it is emblematic because it shows that military officers with impunity in one country could be in the sights of international justice if they leave,” said the attorney.

Olivera is one of three army officers said to be involved in the kidnapping of Marianne Erize, a French citizen, in the Argentinean province of San Juan.

According to the testimony of soldiers, and of prisoners who survived torture, she was taken to an army installation where she was raped and tortured, and then died five days later.

Marianne’s mother, Francisca Erize, also French-born, confirmed Tuesday that five days after her daughter was kidnapped, 16 men broke into the house in the middle of the night, destroying everything and forcing her children to the ground, threatening them with machine guns.

The men told her not to worry about her daughter anymore because she was already buried.

“She was an idealistic and generous young woman. Now I want to at least know where she is. I imagine they did not throw her in the sea because it is so far from San Juan. I go to the local cemetery where they buried the unknown dead, and I think she must be waiting for me in heaven,” said Erize, a resident of Argentina.

One of the torture survivors, Margarita Camus, said Tuesday that she had known Marianne and knew Olivera had tortured her. Camus denounced Olivera from prison in 1977 before the Federal Court of Mendoza province.

That court charged the officer in 1985, once investigators had gathered enough evidence of his participation in kidnappings, torture and disappearances, but Olivera was released due to the amnesty laws enacted that year by Congress.

Eloy Camus, Margarita’s brother and human rights activist, commented that there is evidence that other military officers besides Olivera were involved in the crime. “One of them is Eduardo Cardozo, who was promoted to colonel last December by Congress.”

Human rights groups say that as many as 30,000 people were “disappeared” under the Argentinean dictatorship, which is also known as the “dirty war.”

Pinochet’s trip to London in 1998 detoured into extradition proceedings initiated by Spanish authorities who accused him of being behind the human rights crimes committed under his dictatorship (1973-1990).

The 84-year-old Pinochet returned to his country after British authorities released him citing health concerns. But now he faces trial at home as the Chilean Supreme Court upheld the removal of his legal immunity Tuesday, stripping him of the protections afforded by his position as senator-for-life.

In Argentina, the Olivera case seems to confirm that Pinochet’s arrest in London was the turning point that gave way to the international legal battle against human rights crimes.

The case is also a warning to other military officers in Argentina who have been granted amnesty or pardoned that they are condemned to remaining within the country’s borders, or they risk going to prison.