Argentina holds 'Dirty War' trial

[Judi Lynn]

Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 10:23 GMT 11:23 UK

Argentina holds 'Dirty War' trial

An Argentine court has begun the trial of an ex-police chief accused of murder during military rule, the first such case since an amnesty was scrapped.
Argentina's Supreme Court ruled last year that legal immunity for former officers was unconstitutional.

The judgement cleared the way for hundreds of officials to be tried for crimes during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

But rights groups say legal issues and institutional inertia have meant that only now has a case come to court.

The former director of investigations in the Buenos Aires police force, Miguel Etchecolatz, is accused of involvement in six murders, as well as torture and illegal arrest.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5099028.stm?ls

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

June 20, 2006, 4:25PM
Argentina Readies Dirty War Trial


By OSCAR SERRAT Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina —

~snip~
As Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz was led into a federal courtroom in La Plata, some 35 miles southeast of the capital of Buenos Aires, some 500 demonstrators shouted "genocide!" and "murderer!"
(snip)

Etchecolatz, former chief investigator for the Buenos Aires provincial police, faces charges in connection with five killings, kidnappings and torture during the so-called Dirty War against political dissent during a 1976-83 military junta, authorities said.

Under the junta, authorities say, some 13,000 dissidents, labor leaders, intellectuals and other opponents of the regime were illegally detained and subsequently made to "disappear." Human rights groups put the toll at more than twice that number.

Nine junta leaders were convicted and imprisoned in 1985 on charges of abduction, torture and execution, but they were pardoned in 1990 by then-President Carlos Menem. Lower-ranking officers also received pardons.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3987213.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



_Bush family friend of many years, Carlos Menem.

Carlos Menem's personal history:

Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking
by Ana Simo

JUNE 7, 2001. A long-time friend of former U.S. President George H. Bush was arrested today on charges of illegal arms trafficking. If found guilty, he could face a jail term of up to ten years. Only a phone call from the new Bush White House might spare him the indignity, he thinks. But the phones aren't ringing.

The friend in trouble is the former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, a golfing partner and business benefactor of the elder Bush. He is suspected of having illegally sold 6,500 tons of arms to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995, in violation of international arms embargoes. Menem, who was put under house arrest today by a Buenos Aires federal judge, said in his defense last weekend that the U.S. knew all about the arms sales.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher gave Menem the cold shoulder on Monday. He was unaware, he said, of any action by the U.S. government entailing approval or encouragement of Argentinean arms sales to Croatia. Given how profitable the Menem connection has been for the Bushes, one might imagine Boucher was frostily putting interests of state ahead of the Bush family, until you realize that, with a Bush in the White House, they are essentially one and the same.

In 1988, a few months before Menem was elected for his first term, George W. Bush, the then oilman son of a sitting U.S. President, had tried to pressure the administration of outgoing President Raúl Alfonsín to favor Enron, the Houston-based company, over other, more qualified bidders to build a gas pipeline in Argentina. He was unsuccessful, but the Bushes hit it off with the high-rolling, big-spending Menem from the start. One of Menem's first acts as President was to give Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project.
(snip/...)

http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010607bush_menem.html