Minister of Justice and Human Rights Julio Alak has come under intense criticism from opposition legislators and non-governmental organisations for the controversial New Year’s asado, or barbeque, held on the property of the former Naval School of Mechanics (ESMA), which functioned during the last military dictatorship as a clandestine detention centre.

The asado was held on 27 December for employees of the Ministry of Justice as an end of the year celebration; nearly 2,000 people attended the event.

“If any place exists that can demonstrate the transformative process initiated by [former president] Nestor Kirchner and continued by [President] Cristina Fernandez, that place is the former ESMA”, Alak told those gathered at the celebration last Thursday afternoon.

Approximately 5,000 people were held in ESMA between 1976 and 1983, suspected by the military government of being political subversives. Many were tortured and eventually killed on the premises or disposed of during “death flights” over the South Atlantic. The building now functions as the Haroldo Conti Memorial Cultural Centre.

“Actions like these allow us to redefine this space that, during the years of state terrorism, functioned as a centre of torture and extermination”, said representative of the Office of Human Rights of the cultural centre Carlos Pisoni, speaking at the asado.

Other groups have taken offense at the choice of location, however; the Association of ex-Disappeared Prisoners and the human rights organisation Brothers and Sisters of the Disappeared for Truth and Justice today called for Alak’s resignation, stating “this despicable asado is an affront to the memory of more than 5,000 disappeared comrades”.

Carlos Lordkipanidse, president of the Association of ex-Disappeared Prisoners who himself was kidnapped and held at ESMA in 1978, told Radio Mitre “it is absolutely horrifying that they did this at ESMA. It shows an absolute lack of respect”.

He added “the detainees who passed away were cremated on a parrilla [grill], that was the method used to dispose of bodies.

“Alak has to resign”, he affirmed.

In the largest trial yet to address state terrorism committed during the last dictatorship, 68 individuals were officially charged this morning with 789 crimes committed in the Navy Mechanical School (ESMA) secret detention centre. Charges include torture, kidnappings, enslavement, and murder, including so-called ‘death flights’.

The judicial clerk began hearings by reading the names of the accused military officials, pilots, and a few civilians and prosecution’s charges against them. Phrases such as “was violently detained” and “was driven in secrecy to the ESMA site, where he remained in inhumane conditions deprived of suitable food, hygiene, and housing conditions,” were repeated often. In many cases, victims remain missing.

Defendants include eight pilots charged with executing ‘death flights’, in which victims were stripped, hooded, tied up, and drugged before being flung from planes, still alive, into the sea or the Río de la Plata river to their deaths. The list of charges includes the deaths of French nuns Leonie Duquet and Alice Domon and founding member of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Azucena Villaflor by ‘death flight’. Duquet and Domons’ bodies washed up on shore and remained unidentified for decades. The assassination technique surfaced after the dictatorship following survivor testimony and the 1995 confession of Captain Adolfo Scilingo, currently serving 1,084 years in prison in Spain.

Other notable crimes undergoing trial include the murder of Swedish teenager Dagmar Hagelin and the ‘disappearance’ of Montanero leader Norma Arrostito.

On the defendant’s bench sat former marines Alfredo Astiz and Eduardo “El Tigre” Acosta, members of the Task Force 3.3.2 (16 of which were convicted of other crimes in October 2010), and former housing secretary Juan Alemann.

The unusually large number of defendants exceeded their designated seating area at the Comodoro Py 2002 chamber and had to be seated on the ground floor, usually reserved for the general public. Family members of the victims and human rights organizations were separated from defendants’ families in different audience galleries. The latter, headed by Cecilia Pando, held signs calling for “complete memory”. Pando, wife of a military officer and head of the Friends and Family of Imprisoned Argentine Politicians Association (AFyAPPA) raised a stir when she attempted to encourage Astiz during the proceedings. Outside, about 50 pro-government activists sang anthems denouncing the defendants and waving flags reading, “La Cámpora”.

During the proceedings, defendant Carlos Orlando Generoso, a marine known by the alias “Fragote”, fell ill. An ambulance was called and the judges allowed an hour and a half in a private room for recuperation. One defendant, Alejandro Domingo D’Agostino, head of the War Veterans’ Prefect Division, was not present. He is being tried by a separate process for health reasons.

Over the course of the trial, which is expected to last two full years, public prosecutor Eduardo Friele will bring 830 witnesses to testify before Daniel Obligado, Leopoldo Bruglia, and Adriana Palliotti, the team of judges presiding over the case. The first case involving crimes committed at ESMA ended inconclusively when defendant Héctor Febres was discovered dead in his cell by cyanide poisoning in December of 2007. The second trial took place in 2009 and ended with the condemnation of various well-known names of the dictatorship era. Financial offences against ESMA prisoners, such as the confiscation of goods and property, still await trial.

The ESMA campus stands on the northeast border of Buenos Aires. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Argentine Marine Corps used it to operate the largest secret detention centre in the country and detain an estimated 5,000 victims. In 2004, it was converted into a museum, the “Space for Memory and the Promotion of Human Rights”.

Jorge Santander investigates the phenomenon of renaming public spaces ‘Malvinas Argentinas’ since the 1982 war, and wonders what impact this has on society’s, and especially war veterans’, view of the islands.

Camera and Editing: Jorge Santander
Photos: Beatrice Murch and Patricio Murphy

Thirty-six years after the start of the 1976-83 military dictatorship, Marc Rogers visits ESMA with Víctor Basterra, a survivor of the infamous former clandestine detention centre in Buenos Aires, which has been converted into a memorial for the 30,000 disappeared during the darkest chapter in Argentina’s history.

Camera: Daniela Plazas, Jorge Santander
Editing: Diana Ojeda Suárez

Lead image: ESMA by A. Garden

“When that dark day of justice arrived, the whole town awoke without being called”
-Rodolfo Walsh, journalist assassinated by the military junta and taken to the ESMA.

Port dock workers stand united at ESMA awaiting the news (Photo: Patricio Guillamon)

As a brisk Spring afternoon turned into night last week, hundreds waited patiently outside of the national court of appeals in Retiro. They gathered to hear the sentencing of 18 former military officers of the Naval Mechanics Training School (ESMA) charged with crimes against humanity—illegal detention, torture, and murder— during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

“I am happy that they are being judged and I hope that they pay for all that they did,” says Silvia Labayru, wearing a photo of her sister-in-law Maria Cristina Lennie, who was already dead when she arrived at the ESMA in 1977 at the age of 18.

The sentencing was delayed by almost two hours, but this did not faze a crowd—ESMA survivors, family members of the disappeared, and human rights groups—accustomed to waiting. It has been 35 years since the first crimes of the military dictatorship, 28 years since the restoration of democracy, 22 since a presidential pardon temporarily absolved all officers of their crimes, six since the re-opening of the cases by former President Néstor Kirchner, and nearly two years since the beginning of the biggest trial to date against officers of the military junta.

The ESMA ‘Megacase’

One of the biggest clandestine detention centres in Buenos Aires, the ESMA was an emblem of the dictatorship, and held between 4,000 and 5,000 detainees. Some arrived already murdered, some were tortured for months and released; the majority were either killed by execution or drugged and thrown from planes into the Rio de la Plata in one of the infamous “death flights”. An estimated 100 babies were born to detained mothers in the ESMA, and given away to military families and sympathisers, joining a demographic of about 500 people known as “the living disappeared”.

Two women hold up posters portraying Rodolfo Walsh (Photo: Patricio Guillamon)

Among those detained the centre were some of the most well-known leftists and human rights activists of their time. Rodolfo Walsh, one of the first journalists to report on the atrocities of the dictatorship from the underground and author of the defiant ‘Open Letter to the Military Junta’ (1977), was transferred to the ESMA after being shot in the street by one of its death squads and died shortly after. Founding members of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Azcuena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino, and Maria Ponce were taken to the centre from a church, along with two French nuns Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, who had come to Argentina to work in shantytowns and with indigenous communities.

Among their repressors were Alfredo Astiz and Jorge “El Tigre” Acosta, both part of the group sentenced last week. Astiz, nicknamed the “Blonde Angel of Death”, infiltrated the Madres in order to later kidnap members Villaflor, Ballestrino, Ponce, the French nuns, and a handful of other human rights activists. In numerous testimonies Astiz has shown no remorse for his crimes, and in 2009 appeared in court holding a book entitled ‘To Kill Again’ about the threat of leftist guerrillas. Jorge Acosta was a high functionary of the ESMA, responsible for the death of Rodolfo Walsh, and the commander who made decisions about the life, death, and treatment of detainees at the centre. Beyond Argentina he is also known for giving the apartheid government of South Africa training in counterinsurgency.

“The trial for the ESMA case is the first big trial that has been conducted, what we call the ESMA ‘megacase’,” says human rights lawyer Leonel Curutchague. Over the course of 22 months, the court heard the testimony of 250 witnesses made up of family members of the disappeared and survivors.

“It’s important because it’s the first trial carried out against the Navy in the Republic of Argentina,” says Curutchague.

Horacio Tiseria holds a photo of his father Francisco Enrique Tiseira, who was detained in the Campo de Mayo clandestine detention centre when Horacio was but 1 year old. In April 2010, six ex-military functionaries of the Campo de Mayo, including former de-facto president Reynaldo Bignone, were sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“I have to be here because I want justice just like in the Campo de Mayo,” says Horacio.
“What we are asking for is that they are in common jails, not with privileges like they have had for the last years and decades.”

Victory for the People

As the judges finally took their seats, the crowd outside gathered round a giant screen with a live feed of the courtroom. One by one, the sentences of the 18 accused were read along with the names of the victims: Alfredo Astiz, Jorge Acosta, and ten other former ESMA functionaries were given life sentences; four were handed 25 years; and two were absolved (though remain defendants in ongoing cases). After being read his sentence, Alfredo Astiz slyly wiped clean a ribbon of the Argentine flag pinned to his lapel and chuckled.

The crowd responded with cheers of joy, tears, and shouts of “Murderer!” to each sentence as a wave of catharsis and outrage came over those who have been so broken, and tired of being broken; those who have fought so hard and weary from the fight.

“I can’t stress enough how costly this triumph has been,” ESMA survivor Graciela Daleo told the newspaper MU.

'Life for the Murderers' read the protest signs (Photo: Patricio Guillamon)

“Jorge Julio López is disappeared and he also contributed to this. The next victories should include the punishment of those responsible for the disappearance of Julio.” Five years ago, 76-year-old López disappeared after leaving his home to attend the trial of former director general of police investigations, Manuel Etchecolatz—a trial in which he was a key witness. His disappearance is a chilling reminder that traces of the dictatorship still exist in Argentine society today.

Though the sentences were a victory for those directly affected by the military junta’s repression, Daleo says the triumph is “collective.”

“I hope it is experienced as a victory for all our people.”

Until the Last One

The biggest trial against the military dictatorship to date is over, but the 18 sentenced are still a fraction of the 70 accused of crimes committed at the ESMA against a remaining 900 victims. Starting in the coming year, these trials will commence under the titles ESMA I, II, III, and so forth. More than justice, organisations like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo continue to demand that the files of the disappeared be opened and that the children who were illegally appropriated be returned to their families.

Meanwhile, the ESMA, no longer a naval training school, has since become a memorial to the disappeared and a cultural centre to promote human rights.

Marie Trigona contributed to reporting of this article.

Today saw various activities including marches, art exhibitions and musical performances to commemorate the coup that lead to the last military dictatorship, 35 years ago. The coup of 24th March 1976 was followed by more than seven years of state terror in which some 30,000 people are believed to have been killed or disappeared.

Nora Morales de Cortiñas, of human rights organisation Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, spoke this morning about the completion of trials against oppressors throughout the country, noting that “we are trying to end impunity to not re-commit such heinous acts we did, no more civil-military dictatorship. Nowadays there are trials throughout the country and we are trying to end impunity”.

‘Truth and Justice’ is the motto of today’s march to the Plaza de Mayo, with acts beginning at 2.30pm and lasting until approximately 8pm. The marches depart from Plaza Congreso or 9 de Julio and will be led by numerous human rights and memory organisations.

Meanwhile, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who started their activities under the theme ‘People in Action’ on 16th March, will close their programme today at 6pm. This will be occurring by means of a rally to condemn the coup on the Mercado Central’s ‘playón’ under the slogan “For the blood of our children to obtain schools, hospitals, homes and jobs for all.”

Appearing as speakers at this event will be the head of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Hebe de Bonafini, and the Minister of Economy and candidate to head of Government of Buenos Aires, Amado Boudou. In the morning he attend the launch of the exhibition “Deep America” ​​in the Cultural Area Our Children (ECuNHi), which operates in the former Escuela de Suboficiales de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA).

De Bonafini called 24th March “a day of great commitment that every time will have more links with politics.”

Delicia Córdoba Mopardo has died this afternoon at the age of 92 years. This has been confirmed by the state news agency Télam. She was one of the ‘Madres de Plaza de Mayo’ of the ‘Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora’, a foundation developed in the honour of their children.

On  30th April 1977, 14 mothers whose children had disappeared in the Dirty War, marched around the plaza. They were insisting to know what happened to their missing children. In 1986 the group of ‘Las Madres’ split into two. One of the groups, ‘Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora’, leaded by Nora Cortiña, still marches every Thursday. Delicia Córdoba Mopardo was one of them.

The mother died this afternoon in a hospital in Morón just before 4pm, as a result of an  illness that affected her stomach.

Córdoba was a symbol of fight against Human Rights and was named ‘Outstanding Citizen of Morón’. Since 1949 she has been living in the city of Castelar, where she also spent her last few years. There you can find a street named in her honour.

“La Delicia” as many people know her, has two children who disappeared during the military dictatorship. On 13th November 1976, military burst into Córdoba’s home and took her daughter, Selva del Carmen Mopardo.  Afterwards they did the same with her son, Alfredo Mopardo.

The trial of leaders from the military government of 1976-83 and their role in stealing newborn babies began yesterday.

The prosecution aims to prove that the “abduction, detention, hiding and changing of identities of newborn babies” was a clandestine and routine way of dealing with the problem of mothers that gave birth while being held in detention centres. The trial will deal with 34 of the estimated 500 cases.

In total there are eight defendants, including two former de-facto presidents, Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Benito Bignone. Videla already has two life sentences resulting from numerous crimes against humanity, while Bignone received a 25 year sentence in April 2010. The remaining six accused are; Jorge Eduardo Acosta, former intelligence chief of the Navy Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA); Antonio Vañek, former chief of Naval Operations; Santiago Omar Riveros, former commander of Campo de Mayo; Rubén Oscar Franco, former Navy Commander; Juan Antonio Azic, former intelligence officer of ESMA and Jorge Luis Magnacco, a doctor. Emilio Massera and Cristino Nicolaides are two further accused who died before the trial began.

The prosecution alleges that there were maternity units set up in three of the notorious detention centres, specifically for the purpose of assisting in childbirth, only for the mothers to be systematically disappeared afterwards. The children were then adopted, although it is not known how many of the adopting families were aware of where the babies came from. Amongst the 34 cases being dealt with in the trial are instances where the mothers were brought to one of these three detention centres (ESMA, Campo de Mayo and Pozo de Banfield) from various other centres.

Federal prosecutor, Federico Delgado, explained that the issue arose as part of the dictatorship’s Process of National Reorganisation. “That plan had an objective – to penetrate all the spheres of civil society in order to ‘normalise’ them. To normalise subjects meant that they had to be redefined to be an established ‘ideal type’. As for the redefinition of those which did not comply with this ideal, there was no alternative – it ‘was as it should be’, or it ‘was not’. It was on this basis that children born in captivity were ‘allocated’ – their blood ties had to be cut in order for them to ‘be’ in accordance with the social vision which underlay the political regime.”

The trial began after 15 years of preparation, largely undertaken by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, a group of grandmothers whose daughters gave birth in the detention centres and then disappeared, along with the newborn children. A number of these grandmothers and children were present in the courtroom as the trial proceedings were initiated. It is expected to last for eight months, during which more than 370 witnesses are due to give evidence.

Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio is to testify and deliver a statement about the disappearance of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Dorio and Francisco Jalic in 1976, during the last military dictatorship. The two were brought to the ESMA, a clandestine centre of torture, when he was serving as principal of the Society of Jesus in Argentina.

Attorney Luis Zamora requested the Cardinal’s statement on 23rd September after the declaration of María Elena Funes, a former detainee of the ESMA, before the court.

This statement by Funes informed the court that the two Jesuits were abducted on 20th May 1976 after Bergoglio removed their religious licenses to preach in Bajo Flores as well as their protection. The two priests were kidnapped by uniformed military personnel stated the witness. Funes went on to state that Bergoglio must have sent a replacement priest to celebrate mass at the time the military abducted them, as he was never questioned. Dorio and Jalic then spent six months in captivity after being taken to the ESMA.

Although Bergoglio was called as a witness by the court, the head of the Argentine Catholic Church, based on Article 250 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, declares that official dignitaries “are not required to appear” in the court. According to the second paragraph, depending on the importance that the judge administers to their testimony, the witness must “declare at his official residence, or by a written report,” testify under oath.

Because of these articles in the National Code of Criminal Procedure, Cardinal Bergoglio will provide his testimony, which is not public, before the judges of the fifth Federal Court (TOF 5) and the parties in his office in Metropolitan Curia, adjacent to the Cathedral.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo today reunited Bárbara García Recchia with her sister, 32 years after her parents were kidnapped and assassinated.

She was officially recognised as the sister of Juliana Pérez Recchia, and daughter of Antonio Domingo García and Beatriz Recchia by Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado. 

Juliana, who is secretary to the president of the Grandmothers, celebrated the discovery as the happiest day of her life. “My sister was born today, knowing who her real parents were. It was a 32 year pregnancy.”  

The announcement was made by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, speaking from ESMA, the naval school where many of the ‘disappeared’ were held captive. 

She was at the founding of a UNESCO human rights centre, due to be opened in the ESMA building in 2010. “It is one of those coincidences that I like to call a sign.” she revealed, asserting that it was time for a double celebration. 

The mother of the reunited sisters was kidnapped on the 2nd January 1977 in Villa Adelina, and was taken to Campo de Mayo prison in Buenos Aires. She was five months pregnant at the time. Their father was killed in the same operation. 

Bárbara Recchia was adopted by a military family and in 1985 moved to Italy. After initially rejecting genetic tests, she finally agreed to do them, and discovered her true identity. 

Fernández lent her full support to the campaign of The Grandmothers, and condemned the Dirty War as one of the biggest tragedies in the history of Argentina. “The State, and everybody else has the responsibility to help each and every Argentine know the identity of each and every child of the ‘disappeared’”, she declared. 

“We cannot speak of a democratic society, and of freedom and human rights if we don’t know their true identities.”