Argentina VP Villarruel vows to reopen criminal cases against anti-junta guerrillas

Today 11:52

Criticism rains down from human rights groups as Vice-President Victoria Villarruel promises to reopen criminal cases against left-wing guerrillas in speech at Senate ceremony for victims of terrorism.



Vice-President Victoria Villarruel. | cedoc/perfil

Vice-President Victoria Villarruel promised Tuesday to reopen criminal cases investigating the deaths of victims of left-wing guerrilla fighters who fought against Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

The move sparked criticism from human rights groups, who said the conservative leader was disregarding the “genocide” committed during the dark era.

Rights groups estimate that 30,000 people were disappeared under the military junta’s rule.

. . .

Argentina's dictatorship was one of the most brutal of the slew of military regimes that sowed terror in Latin America between the 1960s and 1980s.

. . .

Survivors gave accounts of a systematic plan to persecute and assassinate opponents, many of whom were thrown drugged and unconscious into the Río de la Plata in so-called "death flights."

More:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentina-vp-villarruel-vows-to-reopen-cases-of-victims-of-anti-junta-guerrillas.phtml

(The dictatorship's prisoners had all been kidnapped, imprisoned, viciously tortured mercilessly first before being chained together and thrown into the ocean or rivers from the military airplanes in their "death flights.)

(US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger supported this violence, and pressed Argentine officials to work as quickly as possible before the US Congress caught wind of what they were doing. I assume this means they were sending material and financial support to the dictatorship at the time.)