Argentina ex-president testifies now-annulled 'Dirty War' amnesty laws ...

[bemildred]

Needed

Former Argentine President Raul Alfonsin has testified that amnesty laws preventing prosecution for human rights abuses during the so-called Dirty War of the late 1970s and early 80s helped to prevent rebellion during the transition from military rule to democracy. Nevertheless, Alfonsin said he "felt pained in enacting the laws" and was "relieved" when the Argentine Supreme Court struck them down last year. Alfonsin, president of Argentina from 1983 to 1989, appeared as a defense witness Wednesday at the trial of Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz , former chief investigator of the Buenos Aires province police, who is charged with murder, kidnapping and torture in connection with the disappearances of six people during the Dirty War. At least 13,000 dissidents are estimated to have "disappeared" during the military junta's campaign against its domestic opponents from 1976 to 1983.

Jurist

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ex-Argentina leader testifies at trial

Posted on Thu, Aug. 31, 2006
Ex-Argentina leader testifies at trial
BILL CORMIER
Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The first civilian president after Argentina's dictatorship ended in 1983 defended his administration's amnesty laws while testifying at a human rights trial, but said he felt relieved when the laws were overturned.

Former president Raul Alfonsin, who was on the stand Wednesday at a trial for a former police officer accused of human rights abuses, said he promoted the amnesty laws to smooth the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy during a turbulent era.
(snip)

"I felt pained in enacting the laws," he told the three-judge panel, and acknowledged "the situation has changed" two decades later with the repeal of those laws in 2005.
(snip)

Under the junta, authorities say, some 13,000 dissidents, labor leaders, intellectuals and other opponents were detained and made to "disappear." Human rights groups put the toll at more than twice that number.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/15404844.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seldom discussed points on the US-supported Argentinian military coup:

~snip~
Some prominent politicians, such as former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, even expressed public sympathy for the Argentine military. In one radio commentary, Reagan chastised assistant secretary of state Pat Darien for her human-rights protests, saying she should "walk a mile in the moccasins" of the Argentine generals before criticizing them.

The Argentine military also banded together with six other South American military dictatorships in Operation Condor, which hunted down leftists and other dissidents around the world.

To finance these and other operations, the intelligence services relied on illicit sources of cash. According to U.S. Senate testimony by Argentine intelligence officer Leonardo Sanchez-Reisse, the Argentines funded many of their paramilitary operations with $30 million in Bolivian drug money laundered through Miami businesses.

In 1980, using that slush fund, the Argentine military joined forces with Bolivian drug lords and right-wing military officers to overthrow an elected left-of-center government in Bolivia. Spearheading the putsch was Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and elements of the same international band of neo-fascist terrorists who had flown to Argentina with Juan Peron.
(snip)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/111299a.html

[rpannier]

2. "walk a mile in the moccasins" of the Argentine generals

I'll bet most of the Argentine people would have loved to have done so. It would have been better than struggling to get over the trash strewn streets in barefeet.

[formercia]

3. The people who brought you the Dirty Wars

in Argentina, Chile, Central America and elsewhere are the same people who support Fearless Leader's administration and oppose democracy in Venezuela, Mexico and elsewhere.