RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: 53-Day Hunger Strike Fails to Bring Results

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 31 2000 (IPS) - Human rights groups in Argentina exhorted the government Monday to comply with the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in order to convince 14 political prisoners to suspend the hunger strike they began 53 days ago.

“We cannot understand or accept the indifference of those who have in their hands the necessary measures to ensure that the State complies with the recommendations made by the IACHR in 1997,” which call for reviewing the prisoners’ sentences, says a statement released Monday by several human rights organisations.

The hunger strikers demand a second legal hearing, which was previously denied because their original trial occurred under the so-called Democracy Defence Act, which does not allow for appeals.

The IACHR recommends some form of indemnification for the 14 inmates because the trial violated their right to equality under the law, a suggestion human rights organisations and the prisoners interpret as a call for their release.

But the Argentine parliament has refused since early August to take up a bill presented by the Executive branch that would allow discussion of the issue and a lifting of the prisoners’ drastic measure, even though it does not fulfil all of their demands.

The 14 are members of the leftist All for the Fatherland Movement and are serving life sentences for an attack in January 1989 against La Tablada military barracks, located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The incident left 28 movement activists and 11 members of the security force dead, and three people remain missing, believed by many to have been “disappeared.”

The surviving members of the movement were sentenced following a trial that was denounced by the human rights forum of the Organisation of American States (OAS), which cited serious irregularities.

The IACHR pointed to proof that police and military troops had committed summary executions after the attackers surrendered, and had tortured the detainees, who later could not appeal the case before a higher court.

The attackers argued that their intention was not to occupy the barracks but rather to prevent a military coup attempt, which they said was being planned against then-president Raúl Alfonsín (1983- 1989).

The Democracy Defence Act did not include the opportunity for appeals that the IACHR requires in all trials, leading the OAS- based body to rule that the Tablada case violated the principle of equality of rights before the law.

The inmates began a hunger strike in May that lasted 47 days, after which the Justice Ministry and the parliament promised they would study the case. But they did not keep their promise and the solution was postponed, prompting the prisoners to reinitiate their fast 53 days ago.

Attorney Héctor Tracktenberg, of the Argentine League for the Rights of Man, told IPS that the health of the inmates has greatly deteriorated. In addition to the weight the 14 prisoners have lost, two had to be hospitalised and all have likely suffered irreversible physical damage.

Tracktenberg commented that the presidential bill sent to Congress two weeks ago could be the beginning of a resolution, to the extent that it opens the case for interpretation by the judiciary and not the political forces, which are reluctant to take responsibility for the potential release of the prisoners.

The hunger strikers are said to want a presidential pardon or, in its place, a law that would allow them to appeal their sentences. This would give them the status of “accused,” opening the way for their release for having spent more than 10 years behind bars without a firm sentence.

Argentina has another law known as “two for one.” It establishes that for every year spent in prison without a sentence, two years must be counted. This would allow the immediate release of the 14 if they regain the status of “accused.”

But efforts to implement such laws in this case met with resistance from the presidency, which opted to provide a more severe option in its legislative bill.

The human rights groups interpret the OAS commission’s recommendations as a call to release the inmates.

Given the current panorama, the non-governmental organisations demand that the State take measures in line with the IACHR recommendations, and that it does so in order to convince the prisoners to halt the hunger strike that is endangering their lives.

“Among our traditional slogans, the first is to defend life, then truth and then justice. We have put life first because we believe its is the primary and principal right of all human beings,” the organisations said in their declaration Monday.

The document is signed by the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the families of those detained-disappeared for political reasons. Numerous other organisations expressed their support for the demands outlined in the communiqué.

The Argentine League for the Rights of Man, entrusted with the prisoners’ legal defence, and the group ‘Hijos,’ which unites children of the disappeared, loudly demanded a resolution to the case recently during an international tour by President Fernando de la Rúa.