Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 5. Juli 2012 / Time Line July 5, 2012
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07/05/2012
Algeriet
selvstændig, 1962.
07/05/2012
Stolen Babies:
Argentina Convicts Two Military Dictators
In Unprecedented Testimony, Former US Assistant Secretary of State
Confirmed Military Kidnappings of Children of Disappeared Political
Prisoners in the 1970's
/ Robada Bebes: Argentina condena a dos dictadores
militares
En testimonio sin precedentes, EE.UU. El ex subsecretario de Estado
confirmó secuestros militares de Hijos de los Presos
Políticos Desaparecidos en la década de 1970.
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 383
Washington, D.C., July 5, 2012 -- An Argentine tribunal today
convicted two former military leaders for their roles in the
kidnapping and theft of dozens of babies of executed and
disappeared political prisoners during the dictatorship. Drawing on
critical evidence provided from the United States, the court
sentenced General Rafael Videla to 50 years and General Reynaldo
Bignone to 15 years in prison for crimes that epitomized the
vicious human rights abuses during the military regime that
governed Argentina between 1976 and 1983.
The "Tribunal Oral Federal No 6" handed down the verdict after a
review of documentation that included a memorandum of conversation,
written by former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
Elliott Abrams, that proved the clandestine program to steal the
babies of political prisoners was known at the highest levels of
the regime. In his memo, dated December 3, 1982, Abrams recounted a
meeting with the military's ambassador to Washington: "I raised
with the Ambassador the question of children... born to prisoners
or children taken from their families during the dirty war... The
Ambassador agreed completely and had already made this point to his
[Argentine] foreign minister and president..."
The trial, pursued by the Association of the Grandmothers of the
Plaza de Mayo, was based on the cases of 35 children, now adults,
who have been identified through DNA testing as sons and daughters
of disappeared victims of the dirty war. The Grandmothers estimate
that more than 500 children were captured along with their parents
or born in captivity; after their parents were executed, many were
raised by security officers families who hid their true identities.
More than 100 of the children have been identified.
This is not the first time that Videla and Bignone have been put on
trial for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Both are
currently serving life sentences for human rights abuses.
Argentina's National Commission on the Disappeared (CONADEP)
originally documented 9,089 cases of people disappeared by the
regime. Subsequent research using reports from the secret police
battalion 601 raises the total of the dead and disappeared to about
22,000. Human rights organizations estimate that this number is
closer to 30,000.
The Abrams memorandum of conversation was among thousands of
records on human rights in Argentina declassified by the Department
of State in 2002, but it had significant sections redacted [See the
redacted memo here
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/394540-19821203-abrams-doc-redacted.html)].
With the National Security Archive's encouragement, the
Grandmothers formally petitioned the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires
to declassify a full version of the memcon
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/394541-19821203-abrams-doc-full.html).
In "a remarkable move," according to Carlos Osorio who directs the
Archive's Southern Cone Documentation project, the Department of
State released an un-censored version of the memorandum of
conversation last December.
"This is a wonderful example of how declassification serves the
purposes of justice," Osorio said. "We welcome and congratulate the
initiative of the U.S. ambassador and Department of State to
support the Abuelas de la Plaza De Mayo and provide evidence for
this trial."
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