Government allows extradition of suspects from 'Dirty War'

[Judi Lynn]

Government allows extradition of suspects from `Dirty War'



By Alistair Scrutton
Reuters
Posted July 26 2003

BUENOS AIRES · The government annulled a decree on Friday prohibiting the extradition of Argentines suspected of torture or murder in the 1976-83 "Dirty War," a landmark move that could lead to dozens of officers and former junta leaders being tried abroad.

Newly elected President Nestor Kirchner, himself briefly detained during the military dictatorship, signed the order after returning from a state visit to the United States.

The move came a day after an Argentine judge, Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, rocked the military establishment by ordering the arrests of 45 military officials and one civilian at the request of a Spanish judge who charged them with murders of Spanish citizens during the dictatorship.

The orders, which include several elderly and ill former junta leaders already detained on other rights charges, allows Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon to request the extraditions. Up to 30,000 leftist opponents died during the Dirty War. (snip/...)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-hargruling26jul26,0,4910924.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean


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Our connection to the "Dirty War" in Argentina:

(snip) U.S. APPROVED ‘DIRTY WAR’
Newly released U.S. diplomatic archives indicate that in 1976 the U.S. government assured Argentina’s military rulers that the “dirty war” they started that year against suspected leftists would not be criticized by the United States on human-rights grounds, according to an article in the January 7 edition of Insight on the News, the newsweekly published by the rightwing Washington Times. The documents are being released in fulfillment of a promise made on August 16, 2000, by then–Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during a visit to Buenos Aires.

In secret dispatches he sent Washington in 1976, then–US Ambassador Robert Hill reported that he was trying to warn the military government against excessive human rights violations during the campaign against leftists. But the Argentine foreign minister, Adm. César Guzzetti, was “convinced that there was no real problem with the United States over the issue” after meetings in October 1976 with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and other top State Department officials, according to an October 19, 1976, cable from Hill. Hill quoted Guzzetti as saying Kissinger “had assured him that the United States `wants to help Argentina.’” Referring to leftists as “terrorists,” Kissinger told Guzzetti “that if the terrorist problem was over by December or January, he believed serious problems could be avoided in the United States,” Hill said. (snip)

(snip) Ambassador Hill, now deceased, was a conservative appointed to the Buenos Aires post by former President Richard Nixon. Hill was not himself opposed to the dirty war, only to obvious excesses. In a September 20, 1976 cable he recalled telling Guzzetti that “murdering priests and dumping 47 bodies in the street in one day could not be seen in context of defeating the terrorists quickly; on the contrary, such acts were probably counterproductive. What the USG hoped was that the GOA could soon defeat terrorists, yes, but do so as nearly as possible within the law.” (Insight 1/7/02 via Nizkor International Human Rights Team/Derechos Human Rights/Serpaj Europe Information 1/5/02)

http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20020106_u_s_approved_dirty_war.asp

[Capt_Nemo]

1. GREAT!

I hope these fascists get what they deserve!