ARGENTINA: Priebke Verdict Reveals Menem’s Double Standards

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 6 1996 (IPS) - Argentine President Carlos Menem banned former Nazi officer Erich Priebke’s from returning to the country after his aquittal by a military tribunal in Italy, reawakening the controversy over the pardon given the local military for similar abuses.

For while Priebke will not be allowed back, the human rights abusers of the military dictatorship which ruled the nation from 1976 to 1983 have never come to trial.

Last Thursday, Priebke was cleared of responsibility for the Ardeatine Caves massacre, where 335 Italian civilians were abducted and shot during the German occupation of Rome in 1944.

He is still in prison at present, as Germany has called for his extradition.

Human rights groups, led by the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), protested against the verdict opposite the Italian embassy in Buenos Aires early this week.

The demonstration was attended by a broad group of local human rights groups born at the height of the battle against the military dictatorship, a time when between 9,000 and 30,000 people disappeared.

DAIA leader, Ruben Beraja, told the Italian ambassador how the local Jewish community rejected the decision made in Rome.

Beraja said the diplomat had accepted the complaint and had promised to pass it on to Italy’s head of government, Romano Prodi.

Menem hastened to declare the 83 year-old war criminal unwelcome in Argentina, though Priebke had lived here openly for the past 50 years before his extradition to Italy.

When a reporter asked Menem if he could see the contradiction between banning Priebke’s return and the pardon granted to former military officers, Menem said, “the memory of horror does not disappear with time, but it can be prevented from happening again.”

“There was no war in Argentina,” he added.

Cesar Miguel, mayor of San Carlos de Bariloche, the south Argentine city where Priebke lived, did not agree with the presidential point of view. Miguel agreed Priebke should not be allowed to return, but called for “similar rigour” in the cases against the former military leaders, which he said should be revised.

“This case should serve to leave it clear what treatment should be given to crimes against humanity, as in Argentina there are many people who did the same as Priebke and they are still free,” he said.

In fact, the Italian courts have repeatedly called on Argentina to allow them to try those responsible for the disappearance of 70 Italian citizens in this country, but the goverment refused to allow this.

In conversation with IPS, Carmen Lepac, member of the Mothers of the Plazo to Mayo Founding Line, classified the Italian verdict as an “aberration, as inhuman crimes like those of Priebke do not become lesser with time.”

At the same time, she protested over the “incoherence” of President Menem.

“How can he claim Priebke is any different from (Jorge Rafael) Videla?” She said. Videla was president of Argentina during the firest military junta of the dictatorship.

“They were both murderers,” she said, stressing that her organisation is fully behind the families of the Ardeatine Caves massacre in their quest for justice.