Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone, Argentina’s last dictator, is being judged from today along with five other generals and a Buenos Aires superintendent. They accused of 58 kidnappings, missing people, and tortures committed three decades ago in Campo de Mayo, the biggest clandestine detention centre in Argentina.
The military man took over the presidency of the de facto dictatorship (1976-1983) in July 1982, in the throes of the civil-military regime, after losing the Falklands War against Britain. The defendant was the one who handed over power in December 1983 to late former elected president Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989).
Hundreds of relatives raised the pictures of victims as soon as the defendants entered the courtroom. There were the Justice Minister, Julio Alak, and members from human rights organizations.
“This is another milestone in this fight with no capitulation from the humanitarian agencies, militants and survivors of the repression. They demand legal justice, never justice performed on their own hands”, highlighted Tati Almeida, who chairs the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line.
Santiago Omar Riveros, former commander of Military Institutes; Fernando Ezequiel Verplaetsen, former head of Intelligence; and Jorge Osvaldo Garcia, former director of Infantry School, are also prosecuted.
The three of them were sentenced last August to prison terms ranging from 18 years to life imprisonment, in a trial that was was conducted for the assassination of militant Floreal Avellaneda, 15, and his mother’s kidnapping.
The list of defendants is completed with Eugenio Guañabens Perello, former director of Combat Support Services; Carlos Tepedino, former head of Intelligence Battalion 601; Eduardo Esposito, former director of the Engineering School; and German Montenegro, former commissioner.
The ruling will be announced next February. The case was opened in 2003 and it has taken 6 years to reach trial, due to different pardons that exonerated the soldiers.
In Argentina there are 204 prosecutions for human rights violations during the dictatorship, in which 526 defendants are oppressors, out of which 385 are in custody, according to a recent survey of the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS). Some 30,000 people disappeared during the dictatorship and 500 were babies born during their mothers’ captivity were stolen, out of which 97 recovered their true identity, according to human rights organizations.
