Posted on 26-8-2004
Argentina's
Dirty War - Who Will Pay
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service (IPS), 25 August 2004
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 24 (IPS) - Daniel Tarnopolsky was 18 years
old when the
security forces in Argentina took away his father, mother, sister,
brother
and sister-in-law one night in 1976. He never saw any of them
alive again.
Today, at the age of 46, he has achieved what he has been fighting
for
since 1987: a former member of the military junta has been forced
to pay
compensation out of his own pocket. "This is the only case
in Argentina in
which a former repressor was directly sued, because for my client
it was
very important that one of them pay," Tarnopolsky's lawyer
Betina Stein
told IPS.
After a lengthy trial for moral and economic damages based on
a lawsuit
originally filed by Tarnopolsky in 1987, the courts ordered
the payment of
indemnification by the state and former navy admiral Emilio
Massera, one
of the first three commanders of Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship.
But
while the state paid its part, Massera appealed the verdict
over and over
again until finally forking over the payment on Monday to prevent
the
courts from auctioning off the apartment where he is serving
house arrest
in connection with the theft of the babies of victims of forced
disappearance.
The Tarnopolsky case is a prominent symbol of the de facto regime's
"dirty
war" not only because of the magnitude of the suffering
caused by the
forced disappearance and murder of five members of a family
of six, but
also because it is the only one in which a civil lawsuit has
been brought
with the specific aim of making those responsible for the dirty
war
literally "pay".
The disappearance and murder of the Tarnopolsky family was among
the
crimes for which the former members of the military junta were
convicted
and sentenced by the federal courts in 1985. But two amnesty
laws passed
in the mid-1980s, which put an end to prosecutions against members
of the
military, made it impossible for Tarnopolsky to see those directly
responsible for the disappearance of his family thrown into
prison. He
then decided to sue for reparations, in 1987.
According to his lawyer, Tarnopolsky would have preferred that
Massera pay
100 percent of the indemnification set in 1994 at 1.2 million
dollars. But
the state decided to pay one million -- in bonds that form part
of the
public debt that it defaulted on in December 2001 -- leaving
the rest to
Massera. The former dictator appealed. But in 1999 the Supreme
Court
upheld the sentence, ruling that the statute of limitations
does not
expire in cases of forced disappearance until the victim --
or the body --
appears.
In 2000, a judge accepted Stein's request to declare Massera
in
bankruptcy, which would have led to the auction of all of his
assets.
Although Massera -- who was left bedridden by a stroke two years
ago -- is
wealthy, the only property in his name is the flat where he
lives, which
was to be auctioned on Sep. 23. The final amount paid was just
over
200,000 pesos (67,000 dollars). "They wanted a reduction,
but we flatly
refused, because this payment is symbolic," said Stein.
The money was
donated to Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo, a human
rights group
dedicated to finding the children of the disappeared.
For years, the Abuelas have been seeking the children of the
disappeared,
who were born to political prisoners in captivity, stolen, and
illegally
adopted, many of them by military families. "The payment
of
indemnification not only amounts to reparations for the victim,
but is
also a strong condemnation for these people who believe there
is nothing
worse than having to pay out of their own pockets," said
Stein.
Between 11,000 and 30,000 people -- depending on the source
of the
estimate -- became victims of forced disappearance at the hands
of the de
facto regime.
The law that recognises the right of the families of the disappeared
to
financial reparations for their loss requires them to officially
accept
that their missing loved ones are dead, something that many
families have
not been willing to do.
Stein believes the 1999 Supreme Court ruling on the case opened
up a new
route for those families to demand economic compensation. In
a moving
press conference granted with Estela Carlotto, the president
of the
Abuelas, Tarnopolsky expressed his hope that the money would
be "purified"
through the activities of the human rights group. He also showed
photos of
his family "for you to see that the disappeared are people,
not ghosts."
"This was Hugo, my father. He was an industrial chemist,"
said
Tarnopolsky, holding up a black-and-white photo. He then presented
photos
of his mother, Blanca, an educational psychologist; his sister
Bettina,
who was 15 the night the family was taken away; his brother
Sergio, 21;
and his brother's wife Laura De Luca, also 21.
In a conversation with IPS, Tarnopolsky pointed out that Massera
was
convicted in 1985 for the abduction of his family, among other
cases. But
in 1990, the pardon issued by then-president Carlos Menem (1989-1999)
left
Massera and other former junta members free. However, the pardon
did not
cover the civil lawsuit brought by Tarnopolsky in 1987.
For the only survivor of the Tarnopolsky family, the struggle
is not over.
He said he is waiting for the Supreme Court to uphold the revocation
of
the amnesty laws, which Congress annulled in 2003. If the Supreme
Court
ratifies the parliamentary decision, the perpetrators of the
dictatorship's crimes against humanity could be tried in court.
Daniel Tarnopolsky survived because on the night his family
was taken
away, he was sleeping over at a friend's house. His brother
Sergio was
doing his military service in the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA),
the
most notorious clandestine torture centre. Sergio, a militant
in the
Peronist Youth –- part of the left wing of the Peronist
party -- along
with his wife Laura, had been assigned as assistant to former
navy captain
Jorge Acosta. Acosta, who was head of the navy intelligence
task force
unit GT-332, is currently under arrest, like Massera, in connection
with
the theft of babies kidnapped with their parents or born in
captivity. "My
brother saw strange things in ESMA, and he told us about a lot
of those
things at home," said Tarnopolsky. In one of his accounts,
Sergio told his
family that he was ordered to clean up traces of blood and identity
documents in a basement in ESMA, which today is being prepared
to open as
a Museum of Memory to commemorate the victims of the de facto
regime.
From the personal accounts of survivors, Tarnopolsky found out
that Acosta
had ordered that his family be seized, and that he boasted about
it in
ESMA. "They even told me he was furious that I was able
to escape," said
Tarnopolsky, who fled to Israel and is now living in the United
States.
Two days after Sergio talked about what he had seen in the ESMA
basement,
he called home to say he was being disciplined (he did not explain
why)
and would not be allowed to return home that night. Later his
wife,
parents, and 15-year-old sister, who was spending the night
at her
grandmother's house, were hauled away.
"Now I just hope that Acosta is put in the dock and forced
by the courts
to explain what my brother did to trigger such a reprisal,"
said
Tarnopolsky, who does not know what happened to his family in
the end, but
assumes they were thrown into the Río de la Plata estuary,
into which
thousands of the disappeared were dumped from planes, drugged
but alive.
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