ARGENTINA: Political Prisoners Call Off 46-Day Hunger Strike

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 14 2000 (IPS) - A group of leftist activists in prison since 1989 in Argentina for a bloody assault on a military garrison called off a 46-day hunger strike after the government agreed to a review of their cases, which were plagued with irregularities according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

One of the prisoners’ lawyers, Rodolfo Yanzón, told IPS Friday that if Congress approved the initiative to review the cases, the 13 members of the Everyone for the Fatherland Movement (MTP) could soon be released.

“The government has decided to assume the political cost of this matter, and the prisoners agreed to wait until August,” said Yanzón.

The negotiations between representatives of the government, legislators, lawyers and key human rights activists took place Thursday evening in the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, where the 13 fasters are hospitalised.

A few of the hunger strikers have lost up to 20 kgs, and have begun to experience fainting spells, convulsions and other symptoms of rapidly deteriorating health. But they agreed to begin intake of calories as of midnight Thursday, as part of the accord reached.

If Congress approves the modification of a special law which denied the MTP members the right to an appeal, their cases will be reopened, and they will be declared prisoners held in “preventive detention”, rather than convicted inmates.

In consequence, given the fact that they have already served 11 years of what would now be seen as “preventive detention,” they would be set free to await the results of the new trial.

In February 1989, the MTP took by storm the La Tablada military regiment on the outskirts of the capital, on the argument that a coup d’etat was being plotted there.

A total of 39 people died, including 28 assailants and 11 members of security forces, while three people went missing in the attack and the following military crackdown.

The IACHR, the human rights commission of the Organisation of American States (OAS), reported in 1997 that it had found serious irregularities in the military operation that put down the attack and in the legal proceedings against the 13 arrested MTP members.

Since then, the IACHR has been pressuring the Argentine government to do its share to set in place the conditions allowing the clarification of what happened to nine assailants supposedly killed by firing squad after they had already surrendered.

The regional human rights commission also proved that the detainees had been tortured, and that there were flaws in the investigation and the legal proceedings.

The 13 detainees were tried and convicted eight months after the attack under the Law on Defence of Democracy, which Congress is to modify in August. As it stands today, the law denies the militants the right to appeal their sentences and blocks any review of the investigations.

The IACHR sent recommendations to Argentina, as well as representatives to meet with local authorities. Meanwhile, academics, church leaders and cultural figures joined the campaign in favour of the 13 activists in prison for the attack on La Tablada.

But the government of president Carlos Menem (1989-99) turned a deaf ear to all pleas, and the administration of President Fernando de la Rúa, who took office in December, had done the same until now.

The lack of a response led the prisoners to declare a hunger strike on May 29.

Also participating in the fast are former guerrilla leader Enrique Gorriarán and his wife Marta Sívori, who remained at large until 1995, when they were captured in Mexico.

Gorriarán, a leader of the leftist People’s Revolutionary Army in the 1970s, was identified by authorities as the intellectual author of the occupation of La Tablada. He was captured in Mexico City by Argentine and Mexican intelligence agents and brought here without any formal extradition process.

Gorriarán has also publicly claimed responsibility for the Sep 17, 1980 assassination of former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was living in exile in Paraguay at the time.

“Although a solution has not yet been reached, we are aware that until this Thursday we had nothing, and today we already have a government commitment to put an end to the problem, and a commitment by Congress to review the law,” said lawyer Yanzón, with the Argentine League for the Rights of Man.

The proposed modification of the Law for Defence of Democracy was to be discussed in May, but the debate was put off to June, and the final decision was postponed by each subsequent session due to the lawmakers’ failure to reach agreement.

But on Thursday, a new delay due to differences within the centre-left ruling Alliance and with the opposition had greater repercussions, not only due to the fragile state of health of the prisoners, but because it was the last day of the session before the winter recess, which ends Aug 3.

President Fernando De la Rúa expressed his concern for the health of the hunger strikers, but said the solution was in the hands of the legislature.

Justice minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra and minister of the interior Federico Storani took part in the discussions with the lawyers and legislators.

Gil Lavedra said Thursday that the government was interested in complying with the IACHR recommendations, while Storani went even further, stating that the executive branch wanted to see the law modified and the prisoners released, said Yanzón.

Up to now, the opposition Justice (Peronist) Party refused to debate the law, in order to make sure that it was the president who assumed the political cost of releasing the detainees, another of the lawyers, Héctor Tracktenberg, told IPS.

But now “the government has accepted that it will have to pay some political cost. However, it prefers to do that rather than fail to live up to the IACHR recommendations,” said Yanzón.

He explained that once the modification of the law passed through both houses of Congress, the lawyers would file an appeal before the federal appeals court to have the case reopened.

“As of then, the prisoners, who today are convicted to life in prison without having had the chance to appeal, will be put under ‘preventive detention’,” he added. “And since 11 years is an absurdly long time to be under preventive arrest, they should be released immediately and remain free while the appeal moves forward.”

The reform of the law will be debated Aug 3 in the Chamber of Deputies. Once approved, it will be passed by the Senate, and finally enacted by the executive branch.

But the entire process should take just a few days, if there is political will, said the lawyer, who pointed out that the hunger strikers warned that they would start to fast again if the law was not modified to allow them to appeal their life sentences.