•  buenos aires
• Wednesday, December 29, 2010
• Inter Press Service

The life sentence handed down to former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla Wednesday was the culmination of a year marked by faster progress in trials of members of the armed forces accused of human rights violations committed during the country's 1976-1983 military regime.

The number went from 'two convictions in 2006 to an unprecedented 150 or so this year, making this the year of trials,' Lorena Balardini, with the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), told IPS. CELS, a local human rights group that provides legal assistance, has represented survivors and the families of victims in a number of human rights trials, while closely following all of the legal proceedings.

Videla was found guilty of the torture and murders of 31 political prisoners in 1976 in the San Martín prison in the central province of Córdoba. The prisoners were pulled from their cells and tortured, and were officially shot 'while trying to escape.' Former general Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, who was commander of the third army corps, based in Córdoba, was also sentenced to life in prison on the same charges Wednesday.

In their unanimous verdict, the panel of federal judges that tried them ruled that the crimes of torture and homicide were aggravated because the victims were political prisoners. They also ordered that the 85-year-old Videla serve his sentence in a civilian prison.

Videla had already been tried and sentenced 25 years ago. But he served just five years of a life sentence before he and other junta leaders were pardoned in 1990 by president Carlos Menem (1989-1999). In 1998 he was taken into custody again and put under house arrest in connection with the theft of the babies of political prisoners. And in 2008, the courts ordered his transfer to the Campo de Mayo military prison in Buenos Aries.

The former strongman, who led the coup d'état that overthrew the government of Isabel Perón (1973-1976), the widow of former president Juan Domingo Perón (1973-76), said in the trial that 'It was not a dirty war, but a just war, in which we saved the country from the 'young idealists' who wanted to impose a culture that clashed with our traditional western, Christian style of life.'

Menéndez, who was also pardoned and released from prison in 1990, was not tried again until the amnesty laws and pardons were revoked. He has been handed five life sentences since 2008. Before hearing his sentence Wednesday, Menéndez also justified his activities during the de facto regime. 'Argentine society suffered an assault by Marxist subversives, who on the orders of the Soviet Union and Cuba were trying to take over our country,' he said.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

Advertisement