4 November 2009 / REUTERS, BUENOS AIRES
The last military president in Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship went on trial on Monday in a makeshift courtroom in a sports arena on charges of kidnapping, torture and murder of 56 people in a concentration camp.
Frail-looking Reynaldo Bignone, 81, a former general who ruled Argentina in 1982-1983, and seven other former military and police officers faced a three-judge panel on charges including the ordering of beatings, waterboardings and electrocutions at the Campo de Mayo army base. Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning widely considered torture. Hundreds of people, including numerous relatives of the victims, turned out for the start of the trial, held in an indoor soccer arena in a Buenos Aires suburb because the local courthouse was not big enough to house the large number of people who wanted to attend the proceedings. According to a government report, more than 11,000 people died or disappeared during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” a crackdown on leftists and other opponents of the military regime. Human rights groups say the number is closer to 30,000. “This is a historic trial in the search for truth for the all of those who disappeared,” Alcira Rios, a lawyer for relatives of one of the victims, told Reuters. “We have to say no to impunity. We owe it to our Argentine society.”
