The last leader of Argentina’s Junta gets 25 years

The Times reports today that Reynaldo Bignone, Argentina’s last dictator, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses, including kidnappings, torture and murder committed during the country’s “Dirty War”

Bignone, 82, served as Argentina's de facto president between 1982 and 1983. He was convicted with five other former military officers for ordering the torture of dissidents at the Campo de Mayo army base, a clandestine interrogation camp, in the late 1970s. Of the 4,000 political prisoners incarcerated at the prison, only 50 emerged alive.The military also ran a secret maternity unit where dissidents who gave birth had their babies taken away to be adopted by army families

Relatives of victims of the military regime held up photos of their loved ones and cheered as the judge handed down the ruling. “Like with the Nazis, wherever they run, wherever they go, we will find them,” some chanted.

General Bignone, who is currently under house arrest, has been ordered to serve out his sentence in a civilian prison but is likely to appeal on grounds of ill health.

Better justice comes late than never at all. Luckily for him he will not face that which many thousands faced at his hands

Argentine Dirty War suspect arrested

According to the BBC Transavia pilot Julio Alberto Poch, has been arrested in Spain over his alleged role in Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War". He was held at Valencia airport as he was about to fly a passenger plane to Amsterdam, Spanish officials say.

Poch, who has dual Dutch and Argentine nationalities, is said to have been a military pilot at Argentina's Naval Mechanics School – an infamous torture and detention centres of the Argentine military regime. He is alleged to have been involved in the so-called "death flights", in which political prisoners of Argentina's military were drugged and dumped into the sea from the planes.

It is expected that the Argentine Government will ask for his extradition to face trial. Argentine judge Sergio Torres had previously called for the Netherlands to extradite Poch at the end of 2008, after he received testimony from witnesses implicating him in the "death flights".

Judge Torres says he has proof that Poch was involved in the abuses at the ESMA, naval mechanics school. Torres received testimony from a Transavia pilot who said Poch had described to him how the regime's political opponents were thrown into the sea.

"He told me that on board his planes, people were thrown into the sea while still alive with the goal of killing them, and he justified the practice by saying that the people were terrorists," the pilot told the criminal investigation. Another source's testimony also implicates Poch for having "flown regular flights during which groups of people were thrown from his plane into the sea."

Some 30,000 people disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina, according to human rights organisations.

If there is enough evidence to extradite Poch I hope he is sent back to Aragentina to face trial. If he is guilty then he deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his worthless life.

Two poems by Alicia Partnoy

Survivor

I carry my rage like a dead fish,
limp and stinking in my arms.
I press it against my breast,
whisper to it,
people on the streets flee from me …
I don't know: is it the smell of death
that makes them flee
or is it the fear
that my body's warmth
might bring rage back to life?


Testimony

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.
I walk up to it,
open my eyes
open
my book
open
my mouth.
That’s right, I open my mouth wide
and begin my story.
They say
I speak too softly,
that I am practically mumbling,
that they can’t hear
the screams piercing.
I open
my memory
like a rotten cantaloupe.

They say
I have not managed
to forcefully convey the pitiless rage
of the cattle prod.
They say that in matters such as this
nothing must be left
open
to the imagination or to doubt.
I take out
the Amnesty report
and begin speaking through that ink.
I urge: “Read.”
I, in my turn, coil around
my bowing accomplice,
this microphone.
I urge action as a prescription,
information as an infallible antidote
and, one every knot is untied,
I recite my verses.
I resist. I am whole.

This microphone
with its cable coiling around it,
bows to me.

Activist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Partnoy Alicia Partnoy spent over two years in detention during the Argentinian Dirty War, during which she was beaten, starved and sexually assaulted. Her novel The Little School is based on her experiences.