Part
I
The Repression
Nunca Más
(Never Again) - Report of Conadep
- 1984
A.
General Introduction
Many of the events described in this report will be hard to
believe. This is because the men and women of our nation have
only heard of such horror in reports from distant places. The
enormity of what took place in Argentina, involving the
transgression of the most fundamental human rights, is sure,
still, to produce that disbelief which some used at the time to
defend themselves from pain and horror. In so doing, they also
avoided the responsibility born of knowledge and awareness,
because the question necessarily follows: how can we prevent it
happening again? And the frightening realization that both the
victims and their tormentors were our contemporaries, that the
tragedy took place on our soil, and that those who insulted the
history of our country in this way have yet to show by word or
deed that they feel any remorse for what they have done.
With this first stage of
investigations complete, the Commission on Disappeared People
takes the weighty but necessary responsibility for affirming
that everything set out in this report did indeed happen, even
if some of the details of individual cases may be open to
question. These questions can only be resolved conclusively by
the testimony of those who took part in the events.
Month
after month of listening to accusations, testimonies and
confessions, of examining documents, inspecting places, and
doing all in our power to throw light on these terrifying
occurrences, has given us the right to assert that a system of
repression was deliberately planned to produce the events and
situations which are detailed in this report. The typical
sequence was: abduction
- disappearance - torture. Each of the testimonies included
in this report is representative of the thousands of cases which
tell a similar story. Our selection represents only a tiny
fraction of the material collected. A single one of these
testimonies would in itself be enough to permit the moral
condemnation which the Commission has expressed; but it is the
sheer number of similar and inter-related cases which makes us
absolutely convinced that a concerted plan of repression existed
and was carried out.
The cases highlighted in
the report were not due to any ’excesses’, because no such
thing existed, if by ’excess’ we mean isolated incidents
which transgress a norm. The system of repression itself, and
its planning and execution, was the greatest ‘excess’-
transgression was common and widespread. The dreadful
’excesses’ themselves were the norm.
It has repeatedly been
claimed that those members of the security forces who committed
any kind of ’excess’ during the anti-subversive campaign
were properly brought to justice on the initiative of their
commanders. This Commission wishes to deny strongly any such
assertion. From the information we have collected, there is not
a single instance of any member of the security forces being
charged with involvement either in the forced abduction of a
person, with the use of torture, or with causing the death of
anyone held in the secret detention centres. The military
commanders of the Process of National Reorganization reserved
the term ’excess’ for any offence committed by military or
police personnel for their own ends, without the authority of
their superiors. It was not related to the repression itself.
As
the report shows, murder, rape, torture, extortion, looting and
other serious crimes went unpunished, as long as they were
carried out within the framework of the political and
ideological persecution unleashed during the years 1976 to 1982.
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