Argentine Dictators Go On Trial For Baby Thefts

[Derechos]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A long-awaited trial began Monday for two former Argentine dictators who allegedly oversaw a systematic plan to steal babies born to political prisoners three decades ago.

Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are accused in 34 cases of infants who were taken from mothers held in Argentina's largest clandestine torture and detention centers, the Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires and the Campo de Mayo army base northwest of the city.

Also on trial are five military figures and a doctor who attended to the detainees.

The case was opened 14 years ago at the request of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a leading human rights group. It may take up to a year to hear testimony from about 370 witnesses.

Videla, 85, has been sentenced to life in prison, and Bignone, 83, is serving a 25-year term for other crimes committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, but this is the first trial focused on the alleged plan to steal as many as 400 infants from leftists who were kidnapped, tortured and made to disappear during the junta's crackdown on political dissent.

There are 13,000 people on the official list of those killed, although rights groups estimate as many as 30,000 died.

The dictatorship generally drew the line at killing children, but the existence of babies belonging to people who officially no longer existed created a problem for the junta leaders. The indictment alleges they solved it by falsifying paperwork and arranging illegal adoptions by people sympathetic to the military regime.

Some 500 women were known to be pregnant before they disappeared, according to formal complaints from their families or other official witness accounts. To date, 102 people born to vanished dissidents have since recovered their true identities with the aid of the Grandmothers, which helped create a national database of DNA evidence to match children with their birth families.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/jorge-videla-reynaldo-bignone_n_829861.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thank you for this article. Great photo of the mad dog killers.

http://i.huffpost.com.nyud.net:8090/gen/252692/thumbs/r-JORGE-VIDELA-large570.jpg

What a tragedy these men were ever born. I doubt they'd like
to meet the same fate they assigned to conscientious people
like their victims, being tortured, sometimes to death, or
simply tortured and thrown,alive,from airplanes, into the sea.

[joshcryer]

3. They know they're fucked. But no remorse, more like fear.

That's my take anyway, I know reading people is not a given.

[rabs]

4. They could have been in the docket at Nuremberg

Not too much difference in the war crimes.

----------------------

OT, hey, where is our friend Social_Critic ??

[Judi Lynn]

5. You're right. Can't do any worse to one's fellow man/woman than they did many times.

They have failed their human being test badly.

As for S_C, we must agree to all call each other marxists AND fascists during an appointed Moment of Accusation in his honor.

[EFerrari]

2. Thanks, Derechos. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

6. Baby-stealing trial begins in Argentina

Baby-stealing trial begins in Argentina
By the CNN Wire Staff
March 3, 2011 -- Updated 1705 GMT (0105 HKT)

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- Eight former Argentine military officers, including two one-time dictators, went on trial this week to face allegations that they systematically stole babies from political prisoners and gave them new identities.

The accusations stem from the country's "Dirty War" from 1976 to 1983. During those years of military dictatorship, up to 30,000 students, labor leaders, intellectuals and leftists disappeared or were held in secret jails and torture centers.

Jorge Rafael Videla was among the coup leaders who overthrew then-President Isabel Martinez de Peron in March 1976. He ruled as dictator until 1981. Gen. Reynaldo Benito Bignone ruled the country from June 1982 until the nation's return to democracy in December 1983.

They are the two most high-profile defendants on trial for being the "presumed authors of the crimes of theft, retention and hiding of minors, as well as replacing their identities," according to a statement from the country's judiciary.

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/03/03/argentina.baby.theft.trial/?hpt=T2

[Judi Lynn]

7. Trial over Baby Theft Opens at Last

Trial over Baby Theft Opens at Last
By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 28, 2011 (IPS) - After 35 years of campaigning and legal action by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the first trial over the systematic theft of babies of political prisoners during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship began Monday.

"It was sad and even repugnant to see the apathy and indifference of the accused, who dozed off while the prosecutor's report was read out," 91-year-old Rosa Roisinblit, vice president of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the organisation that brought the charges, told IPS after the first day of the trial in a Buenos Aires court.

In the dock are former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, 85; the last head of the military junta, Reynaldo Bignone, 83; five prominent army, navy and coast guard officers; and one civilian doctor.

The eight defendants face charges of "taking, retaining, hiding and changing the identities of" 34 children born to political prisoners held in clandestine prisons during the dictatorship.

The opening session of the trial, which could last more than eight months, was attended by representatives of human rights groups, survivors of the "dirty war" against dissidents, and relatives of the victims.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54661

[Judi Lynn]

8. Argentina's Dirty War Still Haunts Youngest Victims

Argentina's Dirty War Still Haunts Youngest Victims
by Juan Forero

February 27, 2010 Alejandro Rei's life was one of middle-class comforts in a leafy suburb of Buenos Aires. There were cookouts, rugby games, a job running a gas station and what seemed like a normal family life shared with his doting parents, Victor Rei and Alicia Arteach.

The truth, though, came barreling through the door, thanks to a group of determined grandmothers in Argentina. They have searched for the babies their children delivered while held as political prisoners of the country's 1970s-era military dictatorship.

In the depravity that marked the period, the young mothers were killed after giving birth and the babies were handed over to military families to raise.

The man Alejandro believed to be his biological father, Victor Rei, had been a cog in the ferocious military machine that ran Argentina back then, an intelligence officer whose job had been to root out subversives in Argentine society.

More:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124125440