ARGENTINA: Human rights groups say they wish more was known about the "disappeared" before the death of former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla who oversaw some of the darkest hours of Argentina's "dirty war"

Record ID: 447409

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Human rights groups say they wish more was known about the "disappeared" before the death of former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla who oversaw some of the darkest hours of Argentina's "dirty war"
  • Date: 17th May 2013
  • Summary: NEWSPAPER WITH A HEADLINE ON STOLEN BABIES
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ESF2TZSG7INVO8279MCWHVIC
  • Story Text: Argentine human rights activists on Friday (May 17) expressed some relief at the news of the death of former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla who led the country during the bloodiest period of a "dirty war" dictatorship, but also voiced regret that more information was not gleaned from him about the fate of thousands still listed as missing from the period.
    Videla was the first president to head the military junta that "disappeared" thousands of suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983, and he spent his final years behind bars for human rights crimes including the systematic theft of babies born to political prisoners in secret torture centres.
    The austere former army commander died of natural causes in his jail cell in a prison outside the capital, Buenos Aires on Friday at the age of 87.
    Estela de Carlotto, the president of the human rights group the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo which is dedicated to recovering the children of disappeared victims who were stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families, said the feeling was bittersweet.
    "We feel so relieved, but at the same time this weight because he didn't speak or contribute to us knowing where those 30,000 people that we are looking for are or the whereabouts of the 400 grandchildren that the Grandmothers [of Plaza de Mayo] are still looking for who are disappeared and are alive. There was not a scrap, not a single word to help with this; on the contrary, he reaffirmed their crimes," Carlotto said.
    Rights groups continue to campaign for the "disappeared" - a euphemism for kidnapped and murdered - during the dictatorship, which began in March 1976 when Videla and two other military leaders staged a coup against President Maria Estela Martinez de Peron, the widow of former leader Juan Domingo Peron.
    The legacy of the missing children is one of the most painful of the junta's crackdown on leftist dissent.
    "If anyone wants to cry, they should do so but they should realize that they're not crying for a good person. They're crying for a man who killed, tortured, robbed and violated the constitution at all times and so, of course, the memories of this character in the pages of history will not be good, quite the contrary," added Carlotto.
    The Grandmothers group has identified just over 100 "grandchildren" born to their sons and a daughters, most of whom are still unaccounted for, though they say there could be several hundred more who are yet to discover their true identities.
    Now grown, many of those who have come forward and been united with their biological families stood by Carlotto's side at the organization's Buenos Aires headquarters.
    One of them, Giselle Tepper, expressed regret that Videla did not provide more information about the disappeared before his death.
    "For us, someone died who could have told us where the moms and dads of a lot of people are, or the brothers and sisters (children of the disappeared) we are still looking for who remain deprived of the right to their identity. But I think that for everyone a murderer of the homeland, a killer, and a baby stealer has died. So I think that is the feeling, that today there are mixed feelings, some people say they are happy. We never celebrate death, because we wanted them alive and incarcerated and moreover death was the tool they used to take a lot of our loved ones away," Tepper said.
    Some of the stolen babies were born to women held at clandestine torture centres. Nurses have told how some babies were breast-fed by their mothers for several days, while others were taken away immediately.
    There were no birth certificates, making the task of identifying them and reuniting them with their parents' relatives painstaking and lengthy.
    During a trial in 2012, Videla was sentenced to 50 years in prison for being the architect of a systematic plan to steal the babies.
    He was also given several life sentences in a number of cases on convictions of human rights crimes, though he remained unrepentant until his death.
    "It is my duty to reiterate that I fully accept, as I have at other opportunities, fully, my military responsibilities for what the army did in terms of the war against terrorists. Completely disregarding my subordinates who were limited to completing my orders and whom I accompany in prison as a political prisoner until the last of them regains the freedom they long for," Videla recently said.
    He described himself as a "political prisoner" during one of several trials in which he routinely said he did what was necessary during his years in power.
    "I am not going to make a statement at this time. I am not going to add anything more to what is already exhibited because I understand; it is my personal opinion, that there is no point to try and make a defence under the context of a justice system void of law. I have fished, Mr. President [of the court]."
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