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Part I
The Repression


Nunca Más (Never Again) - Report of Conadep  - 1984
 

 

Location of the Secret Detention Centres

In some cases they were premises which alreadv functioned as detention centres. In others, they were civilian buildings, police offices, and even the Armed Forces’ own establishments, adapted for use as SDCs. All these were handed over to the corresponding regional military authority.

Examples include military premises such as the Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires; La Perla in Córdoba; the Mendoza Military School and Campo de Mayo.

Those which were used most often as concentration camps were police stations and posts. This was the case with the 1st Army Corps, given that - in spite of the existence of testimonies showing that some disappeared persons passed through there - between 1976 and 1979 they kept the majority of their prisoners in buildings controlled by the Federal and Buenos Aires Province Police. We are referring to COT I Martínez, Puesto Vasco, Pozo de Minfield, Pozo de Quilmes, La Plata detective squad headquarters, Arana, Atlético, Banco, Olimpo, Monte Pelone, El Vesubio or Automotores Orletti, all within their area of operation. Amongst the exceptions to this general rule we can include that of Señor Federico Vogelius, Argentine, entrepreneur and landowner, who was kidnapped in September 1977, and was kept in the 1st Army Corps headquarters. He was released after spending twenty-five months in captivity in various SDCs and having been sentenced by a Military Court.

In the case of premises used for the incarceration of common criminals before the sudden influx of people brought in by the gangs, the conditions of imprisonment worsened, turning those places into sheer hell. Adriana Calvo de Laborde (file No. 2531) states:

We slept in the cells in groups of two, three or four, according to how many of us there were, on the concrete floor, without any kind of covering. In Police Station No. 5 of La Plata the doors were kept padlocked, each cell measured approximately 2 metres by 1.5. Later I was transferred to the Pozo de Bánfield ...

There, the conditions of imprisonment were no better; on the contrary, the regime was much harsher than in the police station. We were only let out to eat once every two days. There were three or more women in each cell and the lavatory consisted of a bottle of bleach with the top cut off.

 

 


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