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Fri 21 Jan, 2005 08:07 pm
This is interesting not only because it is rare, I think, for such crimes to come to trial, and because it is good to see the truth come out, but because of the trial in one country of crimes "against humanity" allegedly committed in another.
I know this has happened before (eg trials of alleged Nazi war criminals in dear old Adelaide) but I do wonder if (I know - stupid optimism!) this might make people in abusive regimes a little more cautious?
Grim account of Argentine deaths
Scilingo's trial is the first for crimes against humanity in another country
A Spanish court has heard dramatic evidence at the trial of an Argentine ex-naval officer accused of crimes against humanity nearly 30 years ago.
In a taped confession, Adolfo Scilingo described how pregnant detainees at a naval school in Buenos Aires had their babies taken away for adoption.
He also spoke of how officers at the school cremated the bodies of those who died during interrogation.
Mr Scilingo has since recanted the confession, made eight years ago.
Earlier this week, he told the court in Madrid that his confession was made-up and designed to provoke an investigation of Argentina's former military rulers.
I was not conscious that the order was immoral
Adolfo Scilingo
Human rights groups say around 30,000 perceived political opponents disappeared or were killed during Argentina's so-called dirty war between 1976 and 1983.
Mr Scilingo faces charges of war crimes, genocide, torture and terrorism in Spain's first trial of a person for human rights abuses allegedly committed in another country.
He denies the charges.
Under Spanish law, people accused of crimes against humanity committed elsewhere can be tried in Spain.
'Death flights'
Mr Scilingo, 58, stared at the floor as the court heard a second day of excerpts from a tape recording made by Spain's judicial authorities in 1997.
He was heard describing abuses at a naval school - one of the most notorious torture centres of Argentina's former military regime.
For humanitarian reasons, the pregnant women could not be moved. I mean, eliminated
Adolfo Scilingo
Dissidents were taken to a Buenos Aires airport, drugged by navy doctors, hustled aboard air force plane, stripped, and thrown alive into the ocean.
There were 180-200 "death flights" in 1977 and 1978, killing thousands of people, he said.
"When the major gave the order, we just had to drop them. I was not conscious that the order was immoral," he said.
He said he participated in two flights: one with 13 people aboard and another with 17.
Illegal adoptions
Mr Scilingo, who was the chief electrician at the school, also described how pregnant detainees had their newborn babies taken away from them.
"For humanitarian reasons, the pregnant women could not be moved. I mean, eliminated. We had to wait until they gave birth," he said.
Doctors who delivered babies signed birth certificates in which the children were given the names of the people adopting them, he added.
The goal "was to keep the children from falling into the subversive mentality of their parents", he was heard saying.
Mr Scilingo also spoke of how officials at the school cremated the bodies of people who died of injuries suffered while under interrogation.
He said these cremations were referred to as roastings.
In 1995, Mr Scilingo told a journalist about the "death flights".
In 1997 and 1998, he told the death flight story under oath in a Spanish investigation, but later denied he was involved.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4193341.stm
Flights were on Wednesdays, I was told in the late 80s by Agustina -an Argentinian student of mine, who was jailed by the military junta at the time.
She told me that every Wednesday the detainees were put in a row, kneeling, blindfolded, handcuffed and facing the wall. The militars walked behind them, and seemingly at random, picked a few prisoners, who were never seen again.
All of them knew that if you were picked, you were dead. She said that, during those terrible moments, she was praying that they'd pick another person, even if she knew this meant her comrade's death. Every time some one was picked, they started to cry and yell and beg for mercy.
... and this hijosdeputa surrendered with their pants all wet when the Brits reconquered the Malvinas/Falklands. They are among the most despicable beings ever to call themselves human.
" I was not conscious that the order was immoral," he said. "
What a species we are.
I have heard the "baby-harvesting" was also done in Chile under Pinochet?????????
There was an Argentinian film about it, I seem to recall....the Argentinian crimes, I mean.
Oh, groan. I do remember reading something like this about that time, but not, of course, what I read.
I'm glad we left that godforsaken country...I can't bear to look at these reports.
There are at least three Argentinian films that tell about those years:
"La Historia Oficial", by Luis Puenzo. Won an Oscar for best foreign language film.
"Kamchatka": the "dirty war" seen with the eyes of a child with some touches of comedy (the boy who doesn't understand why he must change his name).
"Garage Olimpo"... a love story intertwined with the infamous garage turned into a torture place.
Plus there's a Swedish film: "La Amiga", about how the "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo" group came into being (the mothers of the dissappeared).
Finally, a sort of a classic, about Chile (but filmed in Mexico City, which made me shiver): "Missing", by Costa-Gavras, with Jack Lemmon.
I think Sting's Bailan Solas is about the widows of Buenos Aires who "dance alone"
Ah - I meant La Historia Official and, of course, Missing.
And of course, have seen documentaries and such about the Mothers...
Interesting that the country of francisco Franco has taken upon itselt the role of judge and jury of all mankind.
Odd that neither Spain nor any of the other European powers were willing to intervene in Bosnia while it was still possible to prevent far worse crimes than occurred in Argentina.
Perhaps we can round up a few of the descendents of those who practiced systematic genocide against the Spanish and criollo populations of the Mexican highlands under Morelos, or before them the conquistadores, or even the Aztecs themselves. Bolivar's campaigns in the early 19th century were particularly bloody and involved systematic slaughter as well. While we are at it, there is also the ghost of Robspierre and the French Terror.
On a more recent issue when will the French try and punish the leaders of their systematic repression of the Algerians?
It is much easier to sit in judgement of others, than to deal with your own lapses and crimes.
georgeob1 wrote:It is much easier to sit in judgement of others, than to deal with your own lapses and crimes.
I don't think people being held responsible for past heinous crimes is being judgemental.
War criminals being brought to trial might help curtail future lapses OF judgement.
These people need to be held accountable for what they did.
Accountability is fine. Indeed the general lack of it among the European countries, including Spain, for the past crimes of their own people was a central part of my point.
Accountability to whom is a key question. The leaders of the Argentine repression are accountable to the Argentine people and their government, who are perfectly capable of dealing with the matter. What the hell gives Spain the right to sit in judgement of these actions taken by officials of the government of another country, and done in that country to its own ctizens? Odd that Spain has taken no judicial action whatever to deal with the excesses and oppressions of both the Republican and Nationalist sides in ts own civil war, or even the decades of authoritarian rule under Franco that followed. With all those equivalent issues unresolved, what gives them the right to appoint themselves as judges of others?
Several European countries have written laws claiming universal jurisdiction for their own courts, Belgium, Germany, and Spain are three examples. This is an offense against the justice and jurisdiction of other nations. It is also grossly hypocritical in view of the histories of these countries' past aggressions and colonial oppression and exploitation.
If you're gonna criticize Spain for over reaching judicially, fine ob1. I can see where you're heading. But don't compare Franco's regime to the Argentine one. There is no comparison in the brutality that was an everyday occurrence.
I am not making any relative comparison of Franco's regime with the one in Argentina. I am, instead addressing the presumption, hubris , and hypocricy attendent to the current assertions of universal jurisdiction by certain European governments.
However, in specific reference to your point, if you will consult any library or newspaper file from the 1940s you will find descriptions of the Nationalists of Spain that are exceedingly familiar to those more recently written about events in Argentina. The later judgement of history - after a sufficient time had passed - put Franco's regime in a much better light. He restored civil society and thwarted an attempt to export Communist tyranny to Spain; resisted Nazi attempts to draw Spain into their orbit and WWII; and, most importantly, he prepared the country for a transition to Democracy (although he waited a good deal longer to do this than did the much-revilet Pinochet of Chile). It is entirely possible that the later judgements of history with respect to both Argentina and Chile will also be similarly revised.
Obviously there's a contradiction between national needs and swift justice, after a totalitarian or authoritarian regime has eclipsed.
This was the case in Argentina, where an amnesty law was approved to ease the transition to democracy. A similar thing happened in Spain, with the addition that some of the people who pushed from democracy were converted franquistas who understood that modernization and insertion into Europe was impossible with the old political institutions.
In both countries, and more notably in Argentina, because less time had gone by, there was widespread popular opposition to this institutional "amnesia".
I, personally, think that international tribunals, and international law to uphold human rights is a good thing. On the long run, it will mean that no dictator or human rights abuser will feel safe after the loss of power.
The slow transition from national to international law has created this sort of legal chimeras (half national-half international), such as spotlight searching judge Garzón.
My opinion on them is also ambiguous: I like that they act legally against human rights abusers; I understand there's a double standard behind their actions.
As for the Spain-Argentina comparison, let me say that Franco was a personally blood-thirsty little Fascist who wanted, against the tide of the times, his regime to last beyond his death. I see no difference between him and Videla, Gualteri or the others.
Franco was only lucky enough to be spared by the Allies, for geopolitical reasons, and to be at the helm in the late 50s and 60s, on the wave of Western economic prosperity. During the first 15 years of his rule, Spain was a Catholic concentration camp, where only repression and hunger prevailed.
fbaezer wrote:
I, personally, think that international tribunals, and international law to uphold human rights is a good thing. On the long run, it will mean that no dictator or human rights abuser will feel safe after the loss of power.
The slow transition from national to international law has created this sort of legal chimeras (half national-half international), such as spotlight searching judge Garzón.
My opinion on them is also ambiguous: I like that they act legally against human rights abusers; I understand there's a double standard behind their actions.
As for the Spain-Argentina comparison, let me say that Franco was a personally blood-thirsty little Fascist who wanted, against the tide of the times, his regime to last beyond his death. I see no difference between him and Videla, Gualteri or the others.
Franco was only lucky enough to be spared by the Allies, for geopolitical reasons, and to be at the helm in the late 50s and 60s, on the wave of Western economic prosperity. During the first 15 years of his rule, Spain was a Catholic concentration camp, where only repression and hunger prevailed.
While I concede that in certain circumstances the prospect of eventual justice for tyrants may, conceivably, have some benefits, overall I believe the tradeoffs in the eyes of such figures will be insufficient to deter the worst of them. Moreover I am exceedingly suspicious of the "justice" meted out by such self-appointed nations and tribunals. It is neither fair nor uniformly implied. Moreover it creates expectations for the power, justice, and efficacy of "international law" which the international community has repeatedly shown it is chronically unable to fulfill. Finally ,it is not even based on real power, just the crowing of a judicial cock on his particular dung hill.
During the first 15 years of Franco's rule, Spain was the only European nation (save Switzerland & Portugual)) spared from the horrors of WWII. Recall that in the weeks after the fall of France - at the moment of the heighth of Hitler's power and potential, before the Battle of Britain and before the invasion of Russia - when Hitler met Franco at the border with Vichy France to demand military access to Spain and Gibraltar, Franco told him to piss off, and that Spain would resist any such attempt. Contrast this with the actions of the Vichy government in France and the all-too-willing efforts of French officials to exceed their quotas for rounding up their Jews and ship them off to extermination camps.
I think you should revise your assessment or at least put it in a more realistic context.
georgeob1 wrote:[,While I concede that in certain circumstances the prospect of eventual justice for tyrants may, conceivably, have some benefits, overall I believe the tradeoffs in the eyes of such figures will be insufficient to deter the worst of them. Moreover I am exceedingly suspicious of the "justice" meted out by such self-appointed nations and tribunals. It is neither fair nor uniformly implied. Moreover it creates expectations for the power, justice, and efficacy of "international law" which the international community has repeatedly shown it is chronically unable to fulfill. Finally ,it is not even based on real power, just the crowing of a judicial cock on his particular dung hill.
Do you have any idea how odd that sounds coming from an American?
Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Perhaps your perceptions are clouded by your own prejudices.
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