RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Senate Delays Military Promotions

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 21 2000 (IPS) - The Argentine Senate postponed the promotions Thursday of five military officers accused of committing human rights violations during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

However, they approved the ascent of four others – out of a list of 175 presented by the Defence Ministry – who were accused by human rights groups of taking part in uprisings against the government after the restoration of democracy.

After two days of parliamentary debates and heated public controversy, four lieutenant-colonels were promoted to the rank of colonel, while the other five officers fingered by rights activists will have to wait until March to find out whether or not their promotions will be approved.

The debate in the Senate even drew in the government of Fernando de la Rúa, when Human Rights secretary Diana Conti and deputy minister of the Interior Nilda Garré declared that they were opposed to the promotion of officers implicated in crimes against humanity and attacks on democracy.

“The government of which I form part would be much safer if we avoided the ascent of military coup-leaders,” Garré said Thursday.

The deputy minister’s statements were criticised as “impertinent” and “inappropriate” by ruling alliance and opposition legislators.

One of the officers whose promotion was authorised by the Senate is Luis Candía, identified as one of the members of the combat group known as the “carapintadas” that staged an aborted putsch against the government of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-89) during Holy Week in 1987.

Jorge Cáceres, Daniel Oneto and Jorge Daura were the other three officers signalled by human rights groups but promoted regardless.

The army put Candía at the disposition of civilian courts in 1988, after he was charged with the kidnapping of a businessman. However, he was absolved of all charges for lack of evidence.

The five officers whose promotion was put off until senators review their records dating to the late 1970s repression against suspected subversives were army Colonel Hugo Casela and lieutenant- colonels Virgilio Moschino and Oscar Vaquero, and navy captains Edgardo Rodríguez and Carlos Anzoátegui.

Promotions of military officers in Argentina must be endorsed by the Senate, which studies the records of the officers contained on a list of names proposed by the Defence Ministry.

Since the restoration of democracy in 1983, Congress has had to decide whether or not to give the green light to promotions of officers whose role in the dictatorship has been called into question by human rights activists and victims of the repression, a problem that could crop up even more frequently in the future.

Cristina Caiti, with the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, told IPS that as time passes, the government’s hopes that the armed forces will make “less noise” have grown. But, she pointed out, that is not possible, as servicemen whose role in the dictatorship has been heavily questioned are now coming up for promotion to high-ranking positions.

Caiti was referring to those who were middle- and low-ranking officers during the de facto regime, who escaped conviction thanks to the 1985 and 1987 amnesties – the “full stop” and “due obedience” laws – despite the fact that legal processes were well underway against them on charges of direct participation in abductions, torture and “disappearances”.

The Centre for Legal and Social Studies and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights objected to the list proposed by Defence Minister Ricardo López Murphy.

The minister, however, defended the officers whose promotions were postponed by saying he took “responsibility for the officers, their quality, professionalism and moral fitness.”

But Estela Carlotto, the president of the local human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo – dedicated to seeking minors who were abducted and presumably illegally adopted during the dictatorship – said “we don’t care if a minister says he takes responsibility for the morality of a murderer, because that could just mean he is vindicating him.”

Caiti, meanwhile, said it was “lamentable that the minister dedicated so much effort to defending officers who participated in the illegal repression or staged attacks against democracy.” She added that the minister’s position was “offensive to organisations that for years have been working with total seriousness and integrity.”

The human rights leader pointed out that Congress always consults a list of officers accused of crimes against humanity that was drawn up by eight human rights groups in the 1980s, and to which names provided by survivors of the repression and the families of victims have been added over the past 20 years.

In the last five years, representatives of rights groups have complained at least a dozen times that the Defence Ministry’s lists included the names of officers involved in the repression or uprisings against democratic governments.

At least 11,000 people “disappeared” at the hands of security forces during the military dictatorhip, according to official figures, although human rights activists put the number at around 30,000.

The de facto military commanders of the dictatorship were convicted in the mid-1980s and most of them sentenced to life in prison for human rights abuses. But they were later released, by a 1989 pardon issued by former president Carlos Menem (1989-99).