Arcadia Foundation

Making huge waves in Latin America and deserving of being on the international radar – A trial began yesterday for Argentina’s last dictator; Reynaldo Bignone, a retired general, along with five former generals and two others who are accused of kidnappings and murders are being tried for atrocities prosecutors say took place in the Campo de Mayo military base.

General Bignone is accused of holding ultimate responsibility for myriad cases of torture, illegal break-ins and deprivations of human rights from 1976 to 1978, before he was appointed president by the military junta in the waning years of the dictatorship.

As president from 1982 to 1983, General Bignone protected the military as Argentina returned to a pseudo-democracy; he granted amnesty to human rights violators and ordered the destruction of documents related to torture and the disappearances of political opponents before he agreed to transfer power to a democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín.

Argentina’s courts and Congress later overturned the amnesty, and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has made a high priority of prosecuting leaders of the dictatorship. General Bignone was charged in 2003, but the trial was delayed until now.

This is an unprecedented case for Argentine democracy, for Latin American justice. The proceedings are so weighty to the region, that  they are taking place in a small indoor stadium to accommodate the crowd that on Monday included witnesses, federal officials, members of activist groups and family members of those who disappeared, many carrying signs and photos of the victims.

Taty Almeida, co-founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights group, said her 20-year-old son Alejandro was kidnapped by security forces and killed at Campo de Mayo; Gen. Santiago Omar Riveros, the base’s intelligence chief, is suspected of giving the orders.

Ms. Almeida called the trial a historic accomplishment. “They should at least get a life sentence, which is what they deserve for those abominable crimes,” she said in an interview. “We can’t forgive and forget. We won’t rest until the last of them has been served justice.”

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