Miguel Etchecolatz

Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz
Born	1929 (1929) Argentina
Charge(s)	homicide, torture, kidnapping
Penalty	life imprisonment
Status	in prison
Occupation	police officer

Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz (born 1929) is a former senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship. Etchecolatz was an active participant in the "anti-subversion operation" known as the National Reorganization Process. For his part in this operation, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, in 2006, on charges of homicide, illegal deprivation of freedom (kidnapping), and torture. The tribunal, besides passing the sentence, stated that Etchecolatz's crimes were "crimes against humanity in the context of the genocide that took place in Argentina".^[1] The term "genocide", introduced by the accusers, was thus employed for the first time in the official treatment of "Dirty War" crimes.

The "Dirty War" was a series of atrocities committed under the military dictatorship of Argentina during 1976 to 1983. The dictatorship began with a coup d'état staged against President Isabel Martínez de Perón by a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla. During the military rule, as was subsequenely established,^[2] tens of thousands of (political) dissidents were either killed or "forcibly disappeared".

During the dictatorship

Etchecolatz served as Commissioner General of Police , directly reporting to Police Chief Ramón Camps. He served as Director of Investigations of the provincial police from March 1976 until late 1977. During his period in office, Buenos Aires Province had the highest number of illegal detentions in the country. In particular, Etchecolatz was second in command during the so-called Night of the Pencils, when several high school students were detained and then tortured and some of them murdered.^[3]

Return to democracy

In 1983, democratic rule returned to Argentina. In 1986, Etchecolatz was sentenced to 23 years for illegal detention and forced disappearances, but was spared prison because of the "Pardon Laws" (the Ley de Punto Final and the Ley de Obediencia Debida), which halted and rolled back investigations of crimes committed during the so-called Dirty War of the Argentine dictatorship against "subversives".^{[4][dead link]}

After being released, Etchecolatz wrote a book defending his actions during the dictatorship, called La otra campaña del Nunca Más ("The other campaign of Never Again"), a counter-reference to the Nunca Más ("Never Again") report produced by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons. Jorge and Marcelo Gristelli, owners of a Catholic publishing house,^[5] presented the book in 1998 at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair. Etchecolatz decided not to appear in public, because according to the Gristelli's, he "had received threats". In his book, Etchecolatz stated: "I never had, or thought to have, or was haunted by, any sense of blame. For having killed? I was the executor of a law made by man. I was the keeper of divine precepts. And I would do it again." In 2001, the Gristelli's were seen guarding Etchecolatz as he came out of a court in Buenos Aires and they reportedly used violence against left-wing demonstrators who allegedly confronted and insulted Etchecolatz.^[2]

Etchecolatz had to face civil trials outside the purview of the Pardon Laws (which were restricted to acts committed in the context of military or police procedure). In 2004, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for the abduction of a "disappeared" couple's child and the suppression of the child's true identity.^[6] He was imprisoned in Villa Devoto in 2004 and 2005, but was later allowed to continue the sentence under house arrest due to him being over 70 years old at the time.

Although Etchecolatz's lawyers claimed he also had a terminal illness, he was transferred, in 2006, to the Marcos Paz prison after police found a firearm in his home, in violation of the conditions of house arrest.^{[7] [8]}

The 2006 trial

Etchecolatz was the first official of the Dirty War to be prosecuted since the repeal of the "Pardon Laws". Beginning in June 2006, he faced a high-profile trial for human rights abuses. On 19 September 2006, he was found guilty of the detention and torture of Jorge López and Nilda Eloy and the homicides of Ambrosio Francisco De Marco, Patricia Graciela Dell'Orto, Diana Teruggi de Mariani, Elena Arce Sahores, Nora Livia Formiga and Margarita Delgado.

He is believed to have operated, together with Police Chief Ramón Camps, at least eight clandestine detention centres in La Plata, Quilmes, Banfield and Martínez. More than 100 witnesses were called, including former president Raúl Alfonsín (1983–1989), under whose administration the Pardon Laws were passed.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Although claiming to be innocent during the trial, Etchecolatz did not refrain from justifying the actions for which he was accused.

He criticized the procedures of the trial as biased and the judges as obedient to other powers. He called himself "an old man who is ill, with no money and no power", and "a part of a war that we [won] with the arms and that we're losing politically." Furthermore, he refused to acknowledge the authority of the judges, telling them "You are not the judge. The supreme judge awaits us after death. [...] It's not this tribunal that sentences me, it's you." The last thing he said before hearing the sentence was to claim he was "a prisoner of war" and "a political prisoner".

Disappearance of Jorge Julio López

A graffito, addressed to Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner, demanding that the national government find Jorge Julio López alive. The letter K refers to Kirchner.

A witness in the trial, Jorge Julio López, who was among those illegally detained, disappeared after being seen for the last time on 17 September 2006. The provincial government offered a 200,000-peso (US$64,000) reward for information on his whereabouts. López, a 77-year-old retired mason with Parkinson's disease, was initially suspected of having suffered posttraumatic stress disorder after re-living his ordeal during the trial, or that he may have been threatened and chosen to protect himself, but, after a few days, the hypothesis of kidnapping gained weight among the authorities.

Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Solá stated that López "could be the first desaparecido since the years of state terrorism", and that this could be intended "to intimidate future witnesses or block their participation in other trials." President Kirchner warned "The past is not defeated... [But] we cannot go back to that past." Human rights organizations suspect that active and retired Provincial Police personnel took part in the disappearance, as a way to intimidate other witnesses in upcoming trials.^[13][14] On 6 October 2006, a demonstration, gathering tens of thousands at the Plaza de Mayo, demanded that López be found, in the context of a denunciation of defenders of the Dirty War.^[15][16][17]

Retired police doctor Carlos Osvaldo Falcone, who visited Etchecolatz in prison days before López's disappearance, was questioned about the use of a car found at his home that was reported to have been used to kidnap López.^{[18][dead link]}

As of 16 September 2011 (2011 -09-16)^[update], over four years after his disappearance, López is yet to be found.

Threats to judges

On 27 September 2006, judge Carlos Rozanski, president of the court that sentenced Etchecolatz, confirmed he received a long letter which claimed that judges were being pressured by the national government and which denounced those who "from the offices of power do not look for justice but for revenge against those who defended the Nation".

The letter was signed by the self-styled "Third International Congress of Victims of Terrorism - Barcelona - Spain", although the official Third International Congress of Terror Victims, held in Valencia, Spain, was not involved. The three trial judges also received threatening telephone calls.

The same letter was received by Santa Fe federal judge Reinaldo Rodríguez and by several other federal prosecutors who are investigating Dirty War-related crimes. The text was "well-written" and correctly addressed, and contained covert threats, pointing out that the senders "are bound, as citizens, to monitor that [judicial officials] fulfill their functions", and that "this farce will end soon, and those who have not honored their posts will be accountable to a particularly impartial court."^[19][20]

See also

• History of Argentina
• Operation Condor
• Night of the Pencils
• Leopoldo Galtieri
• Ramón Camps
• José López Rega
• Rodolfo Almirón
• State terrorism
• National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons
• Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

References and notes

1. ^ Clein, Naomi The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Macmillan, 2007 ISBN 0805079831,9780805079838, pp. 100-102: "The presiding member of the court, Carlos Rozanski, described the offences as part of a systematic attack intended to destroy parts of society that the victims represented and as such they constituted genocide. Rozanski noted that the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) does not include in its list of offences the elimination of political groups (that category was removed at the behest of Stalin), but the court based its decision on the 11 December 1946 United Nations General Assembly Resolution, unanimously adopted by member-nations, barring acts of genocide 'when racial, religious, political and other groups have been destroyed, entirely or in part', adding that the court considered the original UN definition to be more legitimate than the politically compromised CPPCG definition."
2. ^ ^{a b} "Hermanos de palos y libros" ("Brothers of sticks and books") Clarín, 10 Apr 2001 (in Spanish)
3. ^ . Etchecolatz profile at Desaparecidos.org (in Spanish)
4. ^ "Argentina holds first dirty war trial in 20 years" The Scotsman, 20 June 2006
5. ^ The publishing house's titles include "Conversations with Mussolini", "The dirty history of B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League" and similar others
6. ^ "Argentines jailed for baby theft" BBC News, 30 Mar 2004
7. ^ "El represor argentino Miguel Etchecolatz deberá purgar una condena anterior en una cárcel común" ("Argentine repressor Miguel Etchecolatz must complete a previous conviction in ordinary prison") El País, 24 June 2006 (in Spanish)
8. ^ Terra, 23 Jun 2006. Revocaron la prisión domiciliaria de Etchecolatz
9. ^ "Argentina holds 'Dirty War' Trial" BBC News, 21 June 2006
10. ^ "Día de testimonios en los juicios contra Etchecolatz y 'El Turco' Julián" ("Day of testimonies in the trials of Etchecolatz and 'The Turk' Julien") La Nación, 30 June 2006 (in Spanish)
11. ^ "Juicio a Etchecolatz: un camillero dijo que trasladó cuerpos sin identificar al cementerio de La Plata" ("Etchecolatz trial: an orderly says unidentified bodies moved to the cemetery of La Plata") Clarín, 15 July 2006 (in Spanish)
12. ^ "Condenaron a Etchecolatz a reclusión perpetua" ("Etchecolatz sentenced to life imprisonment") La Nación, 19 September 2006 (in Spanish)
13. ^ "Esto no es una desaparición cualquiera" ("This is not just another disappearance") Página/12, 26 September 2006 (in Spanish)
14. ^ Clarín, 27 September 2006. Kirchner, sobre la desaparición de Jorge Julio López: "El pasado no está ni derrotado ni vencido".
15. ^ "Argentine missing-witness rally" BBC News, 7 October 2006
16. ^ "No tenemos miedo, queremos justicia" ("We are not afraid, we want justice") Página/12, 7 October 2006 (in Spanish)
17. ^ "Masivo reclamo por el testigo López" ("Massive statement by witness López") La Nación, 7 October 2006 (in Spanish)
18. ^ "After three years of mystery, Julio López: retired police doctor to be questioned over witness disappearance" Buenos Aires Herald, 2 February 2010
19. ^ "Amenazaron al presidente del tribunal que condenó al represor Etchecolatz" ("They threatened the presiding judge who sentenced repressor Etchecolatz") Clarín, 27 September 2006 (in Spanish)
20. ^ "Las amenazas llegaron a la Justicia" ("Threats come to Justice") Página/12, 28 September 2006

External links

• Trial Watch profile^{[dead link]}
• Amnesty International: Human rights cases endangered by new wave of threats^{[dead link]}
• Coverage of the Etchecolatz trial on the Human Rights Watch website

Persondata
Name	Etchecolatz, Miguel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1929
Place of birth	Argentina
Date of death
Place of death