Argentina's Kirchner blasts defenders of military regime (US-supported)

[Judi Lynn]

Mercosur
Tuesday, 30 May

Argentina's Kirchner blasts defenders of military regime

President Nestor Kirchner said at Monday's Army Day ceremonies here that his government will not tolerate military personnel who act as apologists for the "state terrorism" inflicted on Argentina by the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

"Let it be clear: I'm not afraid nor am I afraid of them," the president said at the end of an address in which he announced plans for a "rational" reform of the Argentine armed forces and defense establishment.
Kirchner was reacting to a rally staged last Wednesday in Buenos Aires to commemorate the soldiers and civilians killed by leftist guerrillas in the 1970s.

During that gathering, attended by about 3,000 people, speakers criticized the human rights policy of Kirchner's administration and insulted army chief Gen. Roberto Bendini, calling him a traitor.

While an estimated 2,500 people were slain by guerrillas in the mid-1970s, the military regime's "dirty war" against the left is blamed for anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 deaths, depending on the source. The army punished six soldiers with up to 40 days arrest for taking part in last Wednesday's event.

Kirchner said that the rally included "a vindication of state terrorism bordering on a justification for crime," and also referred to revelations about illegal domestic-spying operations at an airbase in southern Argentina.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8004

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Chronology of events surrounding the June 10, 1976 Kissinger-Guzzetti meeting

NOTE: Links below refer to source documents

March 24, 1976 - The Argentine military takes power in a coup d'etat, overthrowing the government of Isabel Perón.

April 30, 1976 - American citizen Gwenda Loken Lopez is captured and savagely tortured by Argentine security forces. She is finally freed in October after nearly six months of captivity..

May 5-7, 1976 - American citizen Mercedes Naveiro Bender is kidnapped and tortured by Argentine security forces. Naveiro witnesses the torture of scores of others while in detention.

May 20, 1976 - The bodies of former Uruguayan legislators Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez Ruiz are found in Buenos Aires. U.S. agencies suspect and subsequently come to believe that Michelini and Gutierrez Ruiz - who were vocal critics of the military regime in Uruguay - were murdered in a coordinated operation involving Uruguayan and Argentine security forces.

May 21, 1976 -Argentina's presidential secretary, Ricardo Yofre, tells U.S. Ambassador Robert Hill that Argentina is involved in "an all-out war against subversion. In the heat of the battle there will inevitably be some violations of human rights" Yofre also "warned that the government plans to drastically step up its campaign against the terrorists very shortly."

May 24-27, 1976 - American citizen Elida Messina, coordinator of the Argentina chapter of the Fulbright Commission, is kidnapped and tortured by Argentine security forces.

May 25, 1976 - While visiting Argentina, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative informs U.S. Ambassador Robert Hill that "the GOA was irritated by international pressure on refugees and wanted to proceed to deal with them with as free a hand as possible."

May 28, 1976 - Ambassador Hill presents a human rights demarche to Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti regarding the forces that "murdered Michelini, Gutierrez Ruiz and dozens of others and have just kidnapped a member of Fulbright Commission, Miss Elida Messina." Reporting on Guzzetti's reaction to the demarche, Hill writes "I did not have the impression he really got the point."

Early June 1976 - In the context of a coordination known as operation "Condor" intelligence representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay decide, at a meeting in Santiago, to set up a computerized intelligence data bank and agree to establish an international communications network. Uruguayan, Chilean, and Argentine intelligence representatives agree to expand to Europe their coordination to hit leftists.
(snip/...)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB133/chron.htm

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More information:

ARGENTINA: 'Dirty war' babies learn painful truth (Etc.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x204004

[burrowowl]

1. Good article! K&R