MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas veterans abused by their officers are demanding justice from IACHR

“I was completing my time when the Malvinas were recovered. We were all called back and on 11 April, we were in the Islands”, explained Silvio Katz (Pic Vis a Vis)

The Malvinas Islands ex Combatants Center, CECIM has requested the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, to intercede before the Argentine government and demand a commitment that human rights abuses suffered by the Argentine conscripts during the South Atlantic conflict will be investigated. The case has 120 plaintiffs and 95 defendants.

 Former soldier Silvio Katz suffered abuse, torture and anti-Semitic aggressions by the Argentine officers while in the Falklands during the 1982 conflict.

Malvinas veteran Katz was one of the first back in 2009 to denounce all the abuses and tortures he suffered, triggering a major case with other plaintiffs which are currently under consideration in Tierra del Fuego, Rio Grande federal tribunal.

“There was a ruling from the Supreme Court in 2015 arguing that one of the crimes had prescribed and this could stop all other accusations. We need to activate the case so justice in done and we can begin to close a wound which remains open for 36 years”, argued Katz.

“I did my military service at the III Mechanized Regiment in La Tablada, and I was completing my time when the Malvinas were recovered. We were all called back and on 11 April, we were in the Islands”, explained the Jewish family young man.

“We dug into a position and all was relatively quiet until 2 May, a day after the first British attack on the Argentine positions”.

But, from that day onwards “the head of my company a Lieutenant by the name Eduardo Flores Ardoino, underwent a transformation. He was very much affected by the situation, as if he had been overwhelmed and he started to ill treat us. Unfortunately I became his aggressions' target”.

Katz continued saying that Lieutenant Flores, who was just out of the academy started to harass him in front of his pals because he is a Jew, and later came all sort of aggressions including punishments and torture.

Katz and his co-plaintiffs want the Argentine state to investigate the abuse reports as crimes against humanity, which makes them imprescriptible.