US Department reveals documents on Argentine human rights abuses

Argentine authorities arrested the 72-year-old general and 40 other military veterans

Washington finally shed light over details on tortures and murders of people performed by Argentine security forces during the military stayed in power from 1976 to 1983. It is also strong evidence that the White House was being permanently kept posted on the crimes in the South American country, by its local Embassy.

Documents explain how the prisoners accused of conspiracy were tortured and may lead to extraordinary revelations about the doom of tens of thousand on people reported “disappeared”. It also support proofs against former dictator Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri after his arrest on July 10.

Argentine authorities arrested the 72-year-old general and 40 other military veterans for human rights violations. Galtieri, now under house arrest in Buenos Aires, is accused of participating in the abduction, torture and execution of 20 leftist guerrillas and other people. The arrests have made the State Department declassification even more urgent, says Victor Abramovich, who heads a human rights group in Buenos Aires called Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales.

The documents posted on the Web site of the Washington-based National Security Archives add details about the disappearances of dozens of people in 1979 and 1980, allegedly at the hands of a military battalion under Galtieri's command. They also register communications between the local authorities and the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, where the Argentine Government did not showed concern in killing even innocent people if it was necessary to preserve institutions and the militarist process as a whole.

One of the files shed light over the so – called “Condor Operation”, the alliance between all the military regimes among the region to organise the internal security against leftist groups. It tells the story of two members of the Peronist movement “Montoneros” captured in Brazil and sent back to Argentina for annihilation. Besides, a specific description of the abductions includes new details on the cooperation of Brazilian military intelligence with the Argentine junta.

When asked on the revelations of such documents, Mrs. Ebe de Bonafini, head of the “Madres de Plaza de Mayo”, a social group of mothers whose sons were kidnapped, tortured and killed by the military security forces, she expressed “We are not interested in such news from the United Stated. They only prove that the US Government knew about the massacres and supported them. We are saying this since 1979.”

More than 5,000 pages of cables, memoranda, and reports between the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires support allegations of a bloody campaign to stamp out leftists and other dissidents. These documents were unclassified even with the opposition of the CIA and the FBI and are being now reviewed by dozens of Human Rights Groups, the justice and the press.

Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina