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Part
I
The Repression
Nunca Más
(Never Again) - Report of Conadep
- 1984
Anonymous groups or gangs
who forced their way into homes at night
The first-act
in the drama of disappearance, which involved both the victims
and their relatives, began with the sudden bursting into their
homes of
the group responsible for the abduction. From the thousands
of testimonies in the Commission’s files, we have concluded
that these operations, as part of the use of kidnapping as a
form of detention, took place at night or in the early hours of
the morning, and usually towards the end of
the week, so that it would be some time
before the relatives of the person abducted could take any
action.
It
was usually a group of five or six people who forced their way
into homes. Sometimes several different groups were involved,
and in some special cases up to fifty
People took part. The members of the gang always had with
them a weaponry that was totally disproportionate to the
supposed threat posed by the victims. The gang would threaten
them, their families and their neighbours with both revolvers
and heavier weapons. Often prior to the gang’s arrival the
electricity supply to the area where the raid was being carried
out was cut off.
The
number of vehicles involved varied. In some cases, several
private cars were used, (usually without license plates); in
others, when members of the regular armed forces were involved,
sometimes in uniform, trucks or vans which could be identified
as belonging to one or other of the forces were brought in.
Occasionally, helicopters circled over the neighbourhood where
the victims lived.
This
intimidation and terror was employed not merely to forestall any
possibility of response by the victims. It was also aimed at
achieving a similar effect on all those living nearby. Traffic
was frequently brought to a halt. loudhailers, searchlights,
bombs and grenades used in an excessive show of force.
In file No.
3860, Alberto Santiago Burnichon’s disappearance is described
by his wife as follows:
At
12.30 a.m. on 24 March 1976, our house in Villa Rivera Indarte
in Córdoba province was broken into by men in uniform
carrying rifles. They identified themselves as belonging to
the Army, and were accompanied by a number of youths in casual
dress. They trained their guns on us while they stole books, objets d’art, bottles of wine, etc., which the uniformed men
carried outside. They did not talk to each other, but
communicated by snapping their fingers. The looting of our
house lasted for over two hours; before the raid there had
been a blackout in all the neighbouring streets. My husband, a
trade union official, my son, David, and myself were abducted.
I was freed the next day. My son was freed some time later,
after being held in the La Ribera camp. Our house was
completely destroyed. My husband’s body was found with seven
bullet wounds in the throat.
Lucio Ramon
Perez, of Temperley in, Buenos Aires province (file No. 1919) ,
describes his brother’s abduction in the following way:
My
brother was kidnapped on 9 November 1976. He was asleep with
his wife and five-year-old son when they were wakened at about
2 a.m. by a loud explosion. My brother got out of bed, opened
the front door, and saw four people jumping over the fence.
They
were in civilian clothes; one of them had a moustache and a
jersey wrapped round his head like a turban; they all carried
rifles, Three of them burst into the flat and ordered my
sister-in-law and the boy not to look. The neighbours say that
two of them dragged out my brother and forced him into a Ford
Falcon. That’s the last we heard of him. They also say there
were several cars and a truck on the scene, and there were a
lot of men with rifles behind the trees. The traffic had been
halted, and a helicopter was circling over the house,
These gangs
did not bother to conceal their faces when carrying out the
abductions. In the capital and the other large urban centres,
their anonymity was guaranteed by the number of inhabitants. In
the provinces, where they might have been identified, some
attempt was made at disguise. They often used balaclavas, hoods,
wigs, false moustaches, glasses, and so on.
The only region in which this was not always the case was
Tucumán province, where the repressive forces acted with even
greater impunity, and the inhabitants were even more
defenceless.
Maria Angelica
Batallan, from Tucumán province (file No. 5794) speaks of her
son Juan de Dios Gómez’s abduction:
At
6 p.m. on 10 August 1976, a group of soldiers under the
command of Lieutenant Flores went in a truck to the Santa Lucía
sugar mill and arrested my son, who was working in the store
there. They brought him to our home, where they threatened me
and his father. They searched everywhere, then left with my
son. We never heard anything more of him.
Moment of Abductionn
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