Former Ford executives charged in Argentina for human rights crimes

Friday, May 24th 2013 - 06:55 UTC

Full article 10 comments

Members of the Human Rights organization Madres de Plaza de Mayo Linea Fundadora and other demonstrators hold portraits of people who went missing in the 1976-1983 military dictatorship (AFP)

Three former Ford Motor Co. executives have been charged with crimes against humanity in Argentina for allegedly targeting union workers for kidnapping and torture after the country's 1976 military coup.

All three men are in their 80s now, and their case is part of a new wave of prosecutions focusing on corporate support for the dictators who ran Argentina from 1976-1983.

Factory director Pedro Muller, human resources chief Guillermo Galarraga and security manager Hector Francisco Jesus Sibilla are accused of giving names, ID numbers, pictures and home addresses to security forces who hauled two-dozen union workers off the factory floor to be tortured and interrogated and then sent to military prisons.

Judge Alicia Vence said that eliminating union resistance inside Ford's Argentina subsidiary was their goal.

Categories: Politics, Argentina.

Tags: Argentina, human rights, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.

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Optimus_Princeps
It's an outrage that many corporations during that era supported military coups that could potentially turn a profit. I'm fairly certain that the majority of the U.S. public was unaware of what practices these companies were engaged in.

It's also unfortunate that these practices are precisely why so much hatred for “imperialism” is channeled at the general public and not those parties that were directly responsible.

Could someone who has done research on this topic refer me to some primary unbiased sources on Ford's involvement with the Dirty War?
May 24th, 2013 - 12:01 pm 0
Captain Poppy
My opinion on corporate crime is not different be it in Argentina or the USA. I am not for fining the businesses as we have done to BP and I am fully in support of holding executive management criminally accountable and prefer jailtime and not country club jails. Every action under the Board of Directors are responsible for the actions of everyone under them. While I do not believe that current BoD should be accountable for crimianl actions of 35 years ago......Sr management at the time should be held and charged IF it is proven that Ford was in fact complicit to these activites.
May 24th, 2013 - 12:32 pm 0
Audi Consilium
CP I totally agree. The situaution BP finds itself in, in the SE United States is a cynical manipulation by the US Government to use BP to as an income source to fund the ailing business of that region post financial crash. Allegedly US justice prides itself on being transparent and moral, how ever its arbiters in the compensation scheme don't event check the basic details of claims and approve them almost as as a free 'Bank of BP'. Thats Obama for you.
May 25th, 2013 - 04:19 pm 0

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