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((El Clarín photo))

[Translations of two articles, the first by the Spanish news agency Efe as published in El Mostrador on June 9, the second from El Clarín for June 12. See originals here and here.]

Homage to Pinochet uncovers support for the dictatorship among influential groups

The homage to Augusto Pinochet planned for this Sunday reveals the support that a minority in Chilean society, but a significant and influential group, continues giving the dictatorship, whose crimes they minimize in favor of an institutional and economic structure that continues in effect.

Just five years after the death of the dictator, under whose rule, from 1973 to 1990, 3,200 people were killed and 38,000 suffered torture or political prison, two little known organizations have organized this event in a theater in the capital. (more…)

((El País photo))

[Translation of an article from El País of Montevideo for October 27. See original here and related articles here, here and here. The bill in question, which in effect overrides the controversial Ley de Caducidad by categorizing crimes committed by the dictatorship as crimes against humanity and not common crimes, had been approved in the Senate two days earlier. In March, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the Ley de Caducidad and more recently a group of university students occupied a campus building to demand passage of the bill overriding it.]

By a vote of 50 of the 91 members present, all the votes in favor being cast by members of the Frente Amplio, the House of Representatives at 2:14am on Thursday approved a bill that declares that crimes committed during the dictatorship are crimes against humanity, thus eliminating immunity for the commission of them. (more…)

"Where...?" -- Nueva Tribuna photo

Eighty cases may be reopened after international court ruling

[Translation of an article from Nueva Tribuna of Madrid, Spain, for June 30. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Javier González in Buenos Aires

Thirty-eight years to the day after the last coup d’état in Uruguay, the government announced a decree that will permit the re-opening of cases of human rights violations during the dictatorship (1973-1985) which had previously been sheltered by the so-called Ley de Caducidad (de la Pretensión Punitiva del Estado). A ruling against Uruguay by the Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH — Inter-American Court of Human Rights), which forms the basis of the government initiative, can definitively open up cases involving serious human rights violations. (more…)

Bignone to spend 25 years in a common jail

[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Argentina for April 20.]

The First Federal Hearings Tribunal has pronounced sentence for crimes committed at the clandestine detention and torture center that once operated at the Campo de Mayo military garrison. The last de facto president of the dictatorship, Reinaldo Bignone, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, as were the former head of the Campo de Mayo intelligence department, Exequiel Verplaetsen, and the former chief of the Military Institutes Command of the base, Santiago Omar Riveros. “Nobody could question that it was a war,” Bignone said during his final argument in defense of his actions. The nation’s Human Rights Secretary, Eduardo Luis Duhalde, and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo President Estela de Carlotto expressed satisfaction with the ruling and praised the work of the court.

Also sentenced were the former head of Intelligence Batallion 601 of the general staff of the army, Carlos Alberto Tepedino (20 years), the former director of the General Lemos Combat Support Services School, Eugenio Guañabens Perelló (17 years) and the former head of the Campo de Mayo infantry school, Jorge Osvaldo García (18 years). The former head of the Germán Montenegro Bella Vista commisary, meanwhile, was acquitted. (more…)