MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Case of Malvinas conscripts tortured by officers admitted by International Human Rights Court

Case of Malvinas conscripts tortured by officers admitted by International Human Rights Court

A light of hope for the many Malvinas Veterans who for years have litigated in Argentine courts to have their own officers condemned for having abused, tortured, and committed all sorts of human rights violations against many of the green conscripts sent to fight a war in the Falkland Islands, four decades ago.

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights stated on Wednesday as admissible a case against the Argentine State for not investigating and judging members of the Armed Forces who tortured soldiers during the South Atlantic conflict.

The case was promoted and addressed to the ICHR by the Center of Former Combatants Malvinas Islands from La Plata, CECIM, and in its fundamental decision the ICHR said “declares admissible the current petition related to articles I,II,III and XVIII of the Americas Declaration, articles 5, 8 and 25 of the American Convention in concordance with articles 1.1 and 2, and articles 1,6 and 8 of the Inter American Convention for the prevention and sanctioning of Torture”, signed by Jorge Meza, Executive Director of the ICHR Petitions and Cases.

The case refers to tortures committed against soldiers by their own officers in the Falklands during the 1982 war, among which staking, simulating burials and firing squads, soldiers ill clothed and ill fed plus sexual abuses. It is estimated some 200 former conscripts suffered such abuses.

CECIM Human Rights Office Ernesto Alonso said that 41 years since the end of the war, the Argentine state has given no replies about the tortures suffered by conscripts in the hands of officers members of the Armed Forces. Given this omission of the Judiciary branch, which is mandated to investigate those cases in which massive abuses of human rights are alleged, and in 2015 “following on a Supreme Court ruling which turned their back on us, we presented the petition.”

Alonso said that “eight years later and with great emotion we received the admissibility of the case. ICHR understands the Argentine state must be probed and judged internationally exposing all existing evidence on the tortures on soldiers.”

CECIM addressed ICHR in 2015 arguing that the human rights of former combatants had been violated and those of their families because of the unjustified delay in investigating the torture reports.