A-Infos (en) Argentina Opposition Withdraws from `Dirty War' Session

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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     ARGENTINA OPPOSITION WITHDRAWS FROM `DIRTY WAR' SESSION
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     By AXEL BUGGE, Reuters
 
     BUENOS AIRES (February 6, 1998 11:25 a.m. EST) - Argentina's
opposition Alliance decided late on Thursday it would not
participate in another extraordinary congressional session on
repealing two laws protecting "Dirty War" officers from
prosecution.
   
     Instead the Alliance planned to call an urgent meeting of
the three parliamentary commissions dealing with the different
proposals on the laws so that they can be dealt with in the first
ordinary session of Congress this year, said Carlos Alvarez, an
Alliance leader.
   
     The decision came after a special congressional debate on
the issue on Wednesday was suspended after 5-1/2 hours, to the
outrage of human rights groups. The ruling Peronists called for a
new special session this coming Wednesday.
   
     "The Alliance does not want to participate because it does
not want to endorse with its presence more offenses to the memory
of the victims and to the feelings of their families and
friends," said the document, which was read by Alvarez in a
televised press conference.
   
     The document was signed by the main Alliance leaders,
including former President Raul Alfonsin. The Alliance is made up
of the centrist Radicals and center-left Frepaso.
   
     A group of 22 human rights groups including the white-
headscarved Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, called Wednesday's session
"one of the cruelest jokes on Argentina's people."
   
     "While we waited for the law sending those guilty of
genocide to be sanctioned -- allowing for justice and truth --
deputies launched a circus, using the pain of the victims of
state terrorism to finally give no reply to the demand for
justice," the joint statement said.
   
     Passed under the Radical government of Alfonsin in the
1980s, the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws let more than 1,000
"Dirty War" officers walk free from trials of the horrors
committed by the military juntas which ruled the country from
1976 to 1983.
   
     After Wednesday's debate with bitter accusations hurled
between the Alliance and Peronists and the failure to obtain a
quorum, the Alliance will not take part because "it wants the
conclusion of the debate to be an effective repeal of the laws."
   
     Two Frepaso deputies initially proposed an independent
motion to repeal and annul the laws to allow the trials of "Dirty
War" officers to be reopened.
   
     The Alliance ditched the annulment clause for the sake of
unity at Wednesday's debate. The Peronists, faced with a threat
by President Carlos Menem to veto any annulment, also agreed only
on a repeal.
   
     Human rights groups say 30,000 people disappeared during the
former dictatorship; 15,000 deaths and disappearances have been
officially documented so far.
   
     Polls show widespread rejection of the military's impunity
for their war on leftist guerrillas and suspected sympathizers in
which thousands "disappeared" into secret torture centers.
   
     Argentine military junta member and Navy chief in the
bloodiest years of the "Dirty War" Emilio Massera will give
evidence in the trial of a subordinate who tried to justify the
horrors of those years, it was announced on Thursday.
   
     Massera is accused by human rights groups of being behind a
recent press interview by ex-Navy captain Alfredo Astiz.
   
     Astiz told Trespuntos magazine last month he was "the best
trained person in Argentina to kill journalists and politicians."
   
     Referring to the junta's reported 30,000 victims,Astiz said:
"They cleaned them all away; there was no choice; they killed
them."
   
     Copyright 1998 Reuters News Service
 
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