Face of Argentine military repression defiant in court

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Face of Argentine military repression defiant in court
AFP
March 18, 2010, 8:20 am

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Alfredo Astiz, a former naval captain who earned the nickname the Blond Angel of Death during Argentina's 1976-1983 military rule, was defiant in his first remarks in his trial Wednesday for crimes against humanity.

Astiz, 58, and 16 other naval staff are on trial for the killings of opponents of the government, real and perceived, at the Naval Mechanics School. About 5,000 regime opponents went through the school, essentially a killing field, and just about 100 are known to have survived.

Taking the stand for the first time at his trial which opened in December, Astiz went on for more than an hour, taking critical aim at former president Nestor Kirchner whom he accused of pressuring the high court to try military staff for rights abuses.

Astiz also denied the killings attributed to him including those of French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet as well as that of Azucena Villaflor, the founder of the rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.


Read more: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6947578/face-of-argentine-military-repression-defiant-in-court/

---

ARGENTINE MILITARY BELIEVED U.S. GAVE GO-AHEAD FOR DIRTY WAR

New State Department documents show conflict between Washington and US Embassy in Buenos Aires over signals to the military dictatorship at height of repression in 1976

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part II
Edited by Carlos Osorio

Assisted by

Kathleen Costar, research and editorial assistance
Florence Segura, research assistance
of the National Security Archive

Natalia Federman, research assistance and Spanish translation
of CELS
Washington, D.C., 21 August 2002 - State Department documents released yesterday on Argentina's dirty war (1976-83) show that the Argentine military believed it had U.S. approval for its all-out assault on the left in the name of fighting terrorism. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires complained to Washington that the Argentine officers were "euphoric" over signals from high-ranking U.S. officials including then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index3.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Wikipedia on the "Blond Angel of Death:"

~snip~
Kidnapping and torture

Using the false name of Gustavo Niño, Astiz specialized in infiltrating peaceful organisations protesting against extrajudicial execution, identifying their members and, after a sufficient number had been identified, kidnapping them.<1> In 1982 a human rights lawyer named Martín Gras, a survivor of the many Astiz kidnapped, claimed that Astiz was a charming man who rarely tortured or murdered those he kidnapped but merely handed them on to others in the system. Yet Astiz was well thought of within the armed forces for his effective interrogation techniques, and in 1979 he was sent to the Argentine embassy in South Africa to give a series of seminars on torture techniques to the South African security police. While there, he also participated in a number of discussion groups to exchange ideas regarding methods of interrogation.

In 1977 Astiz kidnapped Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti, the founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a non-violent group of mothers protesting against the disappearance of their children. Neither she, nor any of the other early members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo kidnapped by Astiz on the same night, were ever seen again. While Astiz kidnapped hundreds of people during 1976 and 1977, it was his kidnap and mistreatment of three foreigners that was later to cause him minor inconvenience as a prisoner of war.

On the 27 January 1977 Dagmar Hagelin, a 17-year-old girl having Swedish citizenship through her father, the Swedish citizen Ragnar-Erland Hagelin, who has been tirelessly battling to bring Astiz to justice since the early 1980s (her mother was an Argentine called Buccicardi), was shot and wounded by Astiz while attempting to escape; it is said that Astiz mistook her for a Montoneros activist to whom she bore some physical resemblance and who was a mutual acquaintance of fellow-activist Norma Susana Burgos. Witnesses saw her later at the ESMA torture center and alleged that Alfredo Astiz was in charge of her interrogation. According to the Argentine Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs tasked to follow up Swedish complaints at the time of Hagelin's shooting and abduction, Captain Jorge Eduardo Acosta, the commander of GT332, stated "setting her free is out of the question. We must not give in to public opinion. We must appear strong" – apparently because of the seriousness of the injuries caused by Dagmar's shooting that had rendered her paralyzed, also affecting her cognitive abilities. Inés Carazzo, then a detainee enslaved and regularly raped by Captain Antonio Pernias, another GT332 officer, claims that Acosta ordered that Hagelin be put to death in a "death flight". Hagelin joined the ranks of the "disappeared" and is thought to have been killed and cremated at the ESMA. There is no direct evidence that Alfredo Astiz had any part in the affair after shooting and kidnapping Hagelin, but there is also no evidence of who killed her, who interrogated her or even whether she was interrogated at all. As a result of the very nature of "disappearances" cases, such evidence is notoriously hard to find, which explains why Astiz has been charged with only a few of the crimes he is suspected of having carried out.

Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, two French nuns, were members of a support group for victims of forced disappearance which was infiltrated by Astiz. A forged photograph aimed at showing that they had been kidnapped by the Peronist leftist group the Montoneros was leaked to the graphic media before their assassination. Astiz kidnapped them in December 1977 and was witnessed torturing them by beating them, immersing them in water and applying electrified cattle prods to their breasts and into their genitals and mouths. Their bodies were identified (along with that of Azucena Villaflor) by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (also known by their finding and identification of Che Guevara's corpse in Bolivia) in August 2005.<2>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Astiz

http://www.repubblica.it.nyud.net:8090/2009/02/sezioni/esteri/processo-massera/ergastolo-astiz/este_26210935_10430.jpg http://www.primeraedicionweb.com.ar.nyud.net:8090/imagesdig/11121.jpg

Alfredo Ignacio Astiz

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/L%C3%A9onie_Duquet_y_Alice_Domon_fotografiadas_en_la_ESMA_.jpg

Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, French nuns tortured and murdered by Astiz

http://www.clarin.com.nyud.net:8090/diario/2005/07/08/thumb/t014dh01.jpg

Azucena Villaflor
Villaflor's Wiki:

~snip~
The body of Villaflor, together with those of two other Mothers, was identified in July 2005 by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, EAAF, known also for having found and identified Che Guevara's corpse in Bolivia). The bodies showed fractures consistent with a fall and impact against a solid surface, which confirmed the hypothesis that the prisoners had been taken in one of the many "death flights" (vuelos de la muerte) recounted by former naval officer Adolfo Scilingo. In these flights, prisoners were drugged, stripped naked and flung out of aircraft flying over the ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azucena_Villaflor

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Dagmar_Hagelin_-_1976.jpg/225px-Dagmar_Hagelin_-_1976.jpg

Another victim, Dagmar Hagelin, 17 yrs. old
Her Wikipedia:

Dagmar Hagelin (September 29, 1959- presumed dead in early 1977) was an Argentine-Swedish girl who disappeared during the Dirty War on January 27, 1977 and is presumed to have been arrested by security forces in Buenos Aires,<1> Argentina, and murdered in a case of mistaken identity.<2> Dagmar's father, Swedish diplomat Ragnar Hagelin, has ever since worked to have the responsible people put to justice, accusing Alfredo Astiz.<3>

Hagelin and Svante Grände are the two known Swedish victims of the Dirty War during Argentina's military regime.<4>

Mistaken identity
It is today believed that Hagelin was a victim of mistaken identity when on January 27, 1977 she went to visit a friend in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Her friend, who was politically active, had been arrested the night before by Alfredo Astiz's forces and had told during interrogations that another politically active friend of her would visit the next day. Hagelin, who had decided to visit her friend on a spur of the moment, was approached by the forces and shot when she tried to escape. She was taken to ESMA, a noted torture centre, where she was later killed.<5> Hagelin was 17 years old at the time of her death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagmar_Hagelin

[lunatica]

2. These monsters flourish in Dictatorships and totalitarian regimes.

Absolute power will take the corrupt and absolutely corrupt them all the way.