Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ archives to be opened

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ archives to be opened

Source: AP | October 26, 2016, Wednesday



THE Vatican and Argentina’s bishops have finished cataloguing their archives from the country’s “dirty war” and will soon make them available to victims and their relatives who have long accused the church of complicity with the military dictatorship.

A joint statement yesterday said the process of digitizing the archives had been completed and that procedures to access the information would be forthcoming. No date was set, and the opening for now is restricted to victims, detainees, their relatives and the religious superiors of victims who were priests or nuns.

Official estimates say about 13,000 people were killed or disappeared in a government-sponsored crackdown on leftist dissidents during Argentina’s 1976-1983 “dirty war.” Activists believe the real number was nearly 30,000.

The statement said the decision to open the church’s archives was taken at the express direction of Pope Francis, “in the service of truth, justice and peace.”

Read more: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/world/Argentinas-dirty-war-archives-to-be-opened/shdaily.shtml

[forest444]

1. Excellent find, Judi. Unfortunately, most church records from the Dirty War were destroyed in 1983

What documentation does remain is unlikely to be the really incriminating stuff - i.e. that church officials literally helped draft the hit lists. They often had just as much say in who, among the detainees, lived or died as did the military and police brass themselves.

Most clergy kept a strict code of silence as to their role in or knowledge of the Dirty War, and many seemed to feel real shame and remorse.

A few, however, were quite boastful of their roles - notably the Archbishop of La Plata at the time, Antonio Plaza. Monsignor Plaza was a vocal supporter of the Dirty War, and even advocated for a return to a military regime almost until his death in 1987 (four years after the dictatorship stepped down). He was also very proactive in the destruction of incriminating church documents - which were said to occupy large sections of the basement under the La Plata Cathedral (one of the largest in the world outside Europe).

This had to be done lest, in his words, "we face something like the Nürnberg Trials or people who might come for us, like they did with poor Adolf Eichmann."

Thanks again for researching this, Judi.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Had no idea about the greater original size of the storehouse of records,

nor the info. regarding La Plata Cathedral, or the Archbishop.

[center]



La Plata Cathedral.



Monsignor Antonio José Plaza
Archbishop of La Plata [/center]
This guy was not concerned with a higher purpose. One mean guy. It would have been hell knowing him.

(Looking for a photo of La Plata Cathedral, I saw images of other European buildings in Argentina. Had NO idea there were so many enormous, elaborate, spectacular buildings there. This tells me we have been so wildly underinformed about countries right here in the Western Hemisphere. There's a vast world right here in the "New" World most US Americans have never seen.

Thanks for opening our eyes as you have done so many times already, forest444.

[forest444]

6. Nice!

Thanks for posting that, Judi. It really is an inspiring place inside - and I'm not even religious!

You might be interested to know that La Plata, a city of around 700,000 and capital of Buenos Aires Province, is the largest - and I believe first - city in Latin America to have been built on a Masonic master plan (much as Washington, DC, was).

Its chief planner was Pedro Benoit, who designed La Plata's layout in 1881 based on the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah. He also designed the cathedral above.

Here's an aerial view of La Plata, where the Masonic compass and the Tree of Life can be clearly made out:
[center]

[/center]

[Mc Mike]

2. Penny Lernoux did a lot of good reporting on the Latin American juntas

and clergy on the juntas' side, and clergy who were Liberation Theologists and were murdered.

She reported for the National Catholic Reporter, and has a few excellent books, like Cry of the People, and In Banks We Trust.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's tragic that the clergy who spent their lives serving the needs of humanity

were made the enemies of those serving the interests of the torturers, murderers, predators.

Thanks for mentioning the journalist.

[Mc Mike]

5. That fight was between

actual religious Catholic people and the Opus Dei wackjobs, who ran the Ratline ~ , say, '45, '46.