Argentine Senate Rejects Promotions for Officers Accused of Rights Violations LADB Staff

Home , Alfredo Astiz, Alice Domon, Argentine Senate

University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository

NotiSur Latin America Digital Beat (LADB)

11-4-1994 Argentine Senate Rejects Promotions for Officers Accused of Rights Violations LADB Staff

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/notisur

Recommended Citation LADB Staff. "Argentine Senate Rejects Promotions for Officers Accused of Rights Violations." (1994). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/notisur/11713

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NotiSur by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 56405 ISSN: 1060-4189 Argentine Senate Rejects Promotions for Officers Accused of Rights Violations by LADB Staff Category/Department: Argentina Published: 1994-11-04

A recent bid by President Carlos Menem's government to promote two navy captains accused of serious human rights violations was thwarted on Oct. 26 by a special Senate committee. The Senate refused to approve the promotions after hearing testimony by the two officers who admitted their role in torturing prisoners in the anti-guerrilla campaign during the military juntas of 1976-1983. When members of the special Senate committee turned down the request to promote navy commanders Juan Carlos Rolon and Antonio Pernias on Oct. 27, Argentine human rights groups were jubilant. The two men are accused of participating in the torture and assassination of political dissidents in the military's "dirty war" during the 1970s and 1980s in which almost 10,000 people were kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

Rights groups had lobbied heavily for the Senate to reject the promotions. Nevertheless, while such pressure influenced the Senate, it was the testimony of the two officers themselves about the use of torture as a "tool of war" that apparently convinced the senators to reject the promotions. Both men admitted during questioning by the Senate on Oct. 18 that they knew political prisoners had been routinely tortured by the armed forces to extract information. Pernias testified that he had used torture himself to gain information, and Rolon said that everyone in the military was required to participate in such acts. Pernias also admitted that the military was involved in the disappearance of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, who were kidnapped from a Buenos Aires church in 1977 and never seen again. The families of the two nuns believe they were tortured in the navy's infamous Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (ESMA), killed, and their bodies dumped in unmarked graves. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who was in Argentina during the officers' testimony before the Senate, said that based on their statements, the French judicial system could reopen the investigation into the case.

One Argentine navy captain who is also up for promotion, Alfredo Astiz known as the "Red Angel" or the "Angel of Death" was tried in absentia by the French courts in 1990 and found guilty of the disappearances of the two women. Pernias had actually been charged by the Argentine courts for 22 cases of torture but, before the cases could be tried, then president Raul Alfonsin passed the "law of obedience," granting amnesty to all but the country's senior officers. The amnesty law was based on the grounds that the junior officers were acting under orders of their superiors. In 1985 a court martial of the first three military juntas to rule Argentina after 1976 acquitted four of the junta leaders but sentenced two of the remaining five officers to life in prison. When President Menem, who supported the promotions of Pernias and Rolon, sent the request to the Senate he urged the lawmakers "not to look back," otherwise "every time someone wants a promotion we are going to have these types of problems."

Forty other officers with backgrounds similar to Pernias and Rolon are in line for promotions that could be jeopardized by these latest revelations. Opposition leaders, however, feel vindicated by

©2011 The University of New Mexico, Latin American & Iberian Institute All rights reserved. Page 1 of 2 LADB Article Id: 56405 ISSN: 1060-4189 the affair, since two officers directly responsible for political crimes during the "dirty war" openly admitted to their crimes. "Torture by the military has always been a public and notorious fact," said Mario Firmenich, ex-leader of the Montoneros guerrilla forces. "But now it has been verified by the authors personally."

-- End --