MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Court overturns pardons to military rulers of Argentina

The Argentine Supreme Court threw out a 1989 presidential pardon Friday that absolved a former army general of alleged human rights abuses during Argentina's dictatorship.

The ruling that the pardon of General Santiago Omar Riveros was unconstitutional opens the door for lower courts to reconsider dozens of other pardons granted after the end of the 1976/83 military regime, including those of the notorious dictators Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera. The court's seven members voted 4-2, with one abstention, that the former general Riveros can be tried for illegal abductions, torture and killings of dissidents during a furious repressive crackdown known as the Dirty War. Nearly 13,000 people are officially reported as missing from the junta era, though human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000 victims. In 1985 during the famous Juntas Trials (also known as the Argentine Nuremberg) following Argentina's return to democracy and rule of the law, most of its members were sentenced to life imprisonment. However when president Carlos Menem took office in 1989 he signed two decrees benefiting former top officials of the military dictatorship and former members of security forces, accused of horrendous crimes against humanity, and extensive to the guerrilla groupings involved in the so called "dirty war" of the seventies and early eighties. Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has made settling dictatorship-era human rights cases a priority. Since 2005, when the Supreme Court struck down 1980s laws granting blanket amnesty to people involved in official repression, dozens of former military and police officers have been called before the courts. Last year, a former police investigator was convicted of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. That trial was marred by the disappearance of the chief prosecution witness, a torture survivor who remains missing. A high-ranking commander during the Juntas period, Riveros was known for his harsh direction of one of the army's torture centres, Campo de Mayo. Riveros was also ambassador in neighbouring Uruguay, at that time also under military rule. Riveros is accused in connection with 14 killings and 20 cases of torture at army institutes under his command, before being pardoned by then-President Carlos Menem. Riveros has been under house arrest since 2000 as part of a trial of military officials who allegedly arranged the illegal adoption of more than 200 children born in detention centres. Charges of child kidnapping never went to court and were not covered by the presidential pardon. The Supreme Court said Friday that Riveros' alleged crimes violated not only Argentina's constitution but also international law and treaties. Menem issued a statement accusing Kirchner of a pursuing a "vendetta" against former members of the military, while not lifting pardons granted to leftist "terrorist organizations" they sought to crush.