Death Squads still at it in Argentina

In pretty much all the National Security states the death squads never went away, after crushing political dissent they just focus on social criminals.

Fear of death squads haunts Argentina after former political prisoner disappears

By Larry Rohter
The New York Times

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A crucial witness in the trial of a notorious human-rights abuser has been missing for nearly three weeks.

Authorities and rights groups here say they fear he may have been abducted and killed in a new campaign to intimidate prosecutors, judges and witnesses in cases that have not yet gone to court.

The disappearance of Jorge Julio López, 77, a retired construction worker and former political prisoner, has awakened a host of old fears among Argentines. Some worry that it is a signal of a return of right-wing death squads that were thought to be extinct, precisely at the moment when the leaders of those groups are belatedly being summoned to justice.

"They are sending a message, that they can still threaten, kidnap and kill," said Nilda Eloy of the Association of Former Detainees and the Disappeared, referring to former members of the police, security and military forces that were responsible for the forced disappearance of as many as 30,000 people. "There is a great deal of fear."

Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, is awash in posters with López's name and image, some urging anyone with potential clues or leads to call a hot line, and others proclaiming "We are looking for truth, justice, Julio." The government has offered a $65,000 reward for information that can establish his whereabouts or fate, and on Friday night an estimated 100,000 people marched to the main plaza here to call for López's reappearance.

López vanished Sept. 18, one day before Miguel Etchecolatz, who was the police commissioner in Buenos Aires province during the right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, was sentenced to life in prison.

More than 130 people testified in the trial, but López's turn on the stand provided some of the most emotional moments. He was also one of two former prisoners who in August led the judge in the case on a tour of the police station that 30 years ago was the clandestine detention center where they and dozens of others were secretly held and tortured.

During the tour, which reporters attended, López was visibly distressed at having to return to what he said was the site of his most painful memories. That has led to speculation that, rather than being the target of a political kidnapping, he may have had a nervous breakdown or committed suicide.

But his family rejects that theory, and judges, prosecutors and other witnesses said they have also been threatened in anonymous letters and telephone calls.

Leaders of some rights groups said they had even returned home from meetings to discuss the López case only to find that they had been surreptitiously recorded, and that messages on their phone machines played back their words.

In the '80s, Etchecolatz was convicted of similar murder, kidnapping and torture charges, but that verdict was overturned by a pair of amnesty laws passed later that decade.

In June 2005, though, the Supreme Court ruled both amnesty measures unconstitutional, making it possible to revisit old prosecutions and begin new ones.