Priest charged over Dirty War atrocities (Argentina)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Telegraph

Priest charged over Dirty War atrocities
By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:54am BST 07/07/2007

A Roman Catholic priest was charged yesterday with a list of murders, kidnapping and torture for his alleged involvement in the Dirty War of the Argentine military dictatorship.

Wearing a dog collar, and bullet-proof vest for fears of an attempt on his life, Father Christian Von Wernich, 69, a former chaplain to the police in Buenos Aires, appeared unmoved as charges of involvement in seven murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings were read out.

He refused to answer questions put to him by Judge Carlos Rozanski. "I can't really hear that well," he said, referring to the cries of protesters outside the court in Buenos Aires.

While the atrocities committed during Argentina's 1976-83 military junta, in which some 30,000 people were killed, are nothing new, the case has raised passions and reopened old wounds.

Von Wernich allegedly used his position as a priest to extract information from the prisoners - even violating the sanctity of the confession, one of the Catholic Church's most sacred sacraments - and promising them that their salvation lay in co-operating with the authorities.





Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/07/warg107.xml

---

Argentine priest goes on trial for `Dirty War' work


AP, LA PLATA, ARGENTINA
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007, Page 7

"There are priests ... who give honor to their country and their church and then there are priests, who thank God, are held accountable by the justice system."
Nestor Kirchner, Argentine president

A former police chaplain went on trial on Thursday, the first Roman Catholic cleric to be prosecuted on charges of complicity in deaths and disappearances during Argentina's 1976 to 1983 military dictatorship.

Christian Von Wernich, 69, wore a bulletproof vest and a priest's collar as he appeared behind a reinforced glass shield in a federal courthouse in La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province.

The shouts of "assassin!" from some 200 activists protesting outside could be heard in the chamber as a clerk read charges accusing Von Wernich of collaborating with state security agents and covering up crimes in seven deaths, 31 cases of torture and 42 cases of illegal imprisonment.

The prosecution said it would call survivors to testify that Von Wernich had collaborated with police torturers and provided security agents with information he obtained from prisoners while giving "spiritual assistance" at clandestine detention centers.

Prosecutor Sergio Franco alleged that Von Wernich had "direct contact" with detainees and even inflicted psychological "torments" on victims being held in illegal confinement and subject to physical torture by police repressors.

More:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/07/07/2003368494

[Judi Lynn]

1. Priest accused of murder and torture

Priest accused of murder and torture
Rev. Christian Von Wernich is accused of complicity with the torture and murder of scores of fellow Argentines during a military dictatorship of the 1970s. Argentine president said the priest had "dishonored" the Church.
Friday, July 06, 2007
By Martin Barillas

A priest and former chaplain of Argentina's police forces was accused in court on July 5 of murders and torture committed during that country's right-wing military dictatorship (1976-1983). Christian Von Wernich is accused of participation in seven homicides, 31 cases of torture and 42 abductions at five different detention centers in the Buenos Aires area. Appearing at the Federal Oral Tribunal in the coastal city of La Plata, some 45 miles from the nation's capital, the priest appears to be the first such cleric in Latin America to be tried for human rights violations, according to journalist Hernán Brienza - author of the book "Maldito eres tú (You're damned): the Von Wernich case, the Church and illegal repression".

Argentine president Nestor Kirchner said in a statement in La Plata that this was an historic moment for Argentina as a priest who had dishonored the Church, afflicted the poor and violated human rights is being brought to justice. Von Wernich appeared in court as a graying older man, wearing a bulletproof vest over his clerical shirt and Roman collar. The prosecutor in the case accused Von Wernich of "primary complicity" in torture and murders, having had direct contact with those detained in the Argentine dictatorship's many detention centers. In the city of Buenos Aires and the surrounding province of Buenos Aires, Von Wernich is accused of serving during the time when the feared General Ramon Camps had control of police and military facilities - such as the infamous Naval College - where scores of victims, including pregnant women, were detained, tortured, and killed at the hands of security forces.

In relation to the Von Wernich case, journalist and author Horacio Verbitsky - a frequent critic of the Catholic Church - told AFP that the paradox of the Church in Latin America during the 1970s was that even while many of the clergy supported right-wing dictatorships, there were many murders of priests and bishops and laity by the right-wing. For example, the current cardinal of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, has been accused by human rights investigators of "sinister complicity" in right-wing repression of the 1970s and early 1980s. The political and military leaders of that regime, such as General Leopoldo Galtieri, have been brought to book; until now, clerics had been apparently immune.
(snip/)

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=10200

http://www.trial-ch.org/trialwatch/profil_photo.php?ProfileID=456



Christian Von Wernich appeared for his trial
wearing a bulletproof vest {AFP}

Argentine priest in Dirty War trial

A Roman Catholic priest has gone on trial in Argentina charged with involvement in kidnappings, murder and torture while the country was under military rule from 1976 to 1983.

Heavy security surrounded the courthouse in La Plata as the trial got under way on Thursday, with defendant Christian Von Wernich wearing a bullet-proof vest.

The Roman Catholic priest is charged with participating in seven murders, 42 kidnappings, and 31 cases of torture while he was chaplain to the Buenos Aires police force.

He is accused of using his religious position to obtain confessions from prisoners who were held at secret detention centres.
(snip)

"Von Wernich would visit prisoners after horrific torture sessions and asked them to trust him, to give him information in exchange for an improvement in the conditions of their detention," Carlos Zaidman, a survivor of one of the detention camps, said.
(snip)

'Disappeared'

The trial was attended by dozens of relatives of victims of the military government, including members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo group whose children are among the 30,000 people who "disappeared".
(snip)

He was extradited to Argentina and arrested in 2003 after amnesty laws passed at the end of the dictatorship were declared unconstitutional.
(snip/)

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C55DE96A-3911-4F3E-A28E-29652C29D1EF.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_Bush family friend, former Argentinian President, Carlos Menem was the man who pardoned Dirty War criminals. Figures.

Police investigator during Argentine "Dirty War" gets life sentence for junta-era disappearances
The Associated Press

Published: September 19, 2006

~snip~
Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing from the right-wing dictatorship and human rights groups put the toll closer to 30,000 victims of the country's "Dirty War" — the government crackdown on dissident leftists and other groups.
(snip)

Under the junta, authorities say dissidents, labor leaders, intellectuals and other opponents of the regime were illegally detained and never heard from again. Many were reported to have been tortured and then executed, some on so-called airplane "death flights" as they were tossed drugged and naked into the sea.

Nine junta leaders were convicted and imprisoned in 1985 on charges of abduction, torture and execution, but they were pardoned in 1990 by then-President Carlos Menem. Lower-ranking officers also received pardons.
(snip)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/20/america/LA_GEN_Argentina_Dirty_War.php



Menem, Bush

[acmavm]

2. Where ever you find the lowest of the low, the real scum of humanity,

if you look a little closer there in the pile, you'll always find a bush.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Isn't that the by God truth? n/t

[mitchtv]

4. Fits right in with the current Vatican junta

what a Damn Shame. I saw those brave women in the very beginning at the Plaza de Mayo

[Peace Patriot]

5. Mr. McDermott of the Telegraph has an odd way of framing this story...

"While the atrocities committed during Argentina's 1976-83 military junta, in which some 30,000 people were killed, are nothing new, the case has raised passions and reopened old wounds." --McDermott

"...nothing new..." Hm-m-m. If you, or your mother or father, or other close relative, or friend, had been tortured by these bastards, it would be "new" to you every day, every night. Nightmares like that live a second life, in cold sweats and screams in the night and horrible imaginings. They sicken, they haunt, they are never healed. "...nothing new..." That is a very questionable way to put it. And what follows--"...the case has raised passions and reopened old wounds..."--almost seems to blame the victims and those outraged on their behalf for daring to bring up such an "old hat" story as torture and horrible death.

"...nothing new..." --and yet it has taken a quarter of a century to strengthen Argentina's democratic institutions sufficiently to prosecute these awful crimes. This is new--that justice can, at last, be accomplished.

"The case has raised passions..." Yes, it would, if there had been no justice, if the criminals had gone free, able to enjoy life and eat well and sleep in comfortable beds, and walk about freely, and gain a glow of prestige in certain rightwing circles. The case has "reopened old wounds." Tut-tut. Mustn't remind people what rightwing politics leads to, inevitably. Torture. Agonizing death. Filthy greed. Vast impoverishment. Oppression.

Possibly the reporter didn't mean to convey such an oppressive view of this situation, but it's interesting how rightwing and "centrist" attitudes, that support sweeping fascist crimes under the carpet, creep into news articles. Twenty-five years from now, when the horrors of the Bush Junta are finally fully revealed, and George Bush, in his decrepitude, is hauled before the World Court, I expect that readers will be lulled with similar sentiments: "nothing new" about Bush's war crimes in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay, in Middle Europe, and in places we don't yet know about. Why "inflame" old passions? Why "reopen" old wounds?

But it is not a matter of "reopening" old wounds. It is a matter of wounds that never heal. And it is not a matter of "old passions" but rather of lessons that need to be learned, time and again, about the rich and their greed, about Bushites and predatory corporations, whose power is fed by the blood and the screams of the poor, of the good, of the generous hearts. It is a GOOD THING that this trial is taking place, both for the sake of specific justice, if this priest is guilty, and as a reminder that democracy is fragile and can be broken, and that we must be ever vigilant to maintain it.