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Part II
The Victims

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

 

Disappearance of Rodolfo Jorge Walsh - File N° 2587


According to the extensive and clear account provided by the writer's daughter, Patricia Cecilia Walsh, her father was kidnapped on 25 March 1977 near Constitución station in Buenos Aires. He had gone there from his house in San Vicente in Buenos Aires province to carry out some business.

The day before, he had managed to put into circulation an open letter written by him to the Military, junta which outlined the human rights violations and the economic problems which characterized the military regime.

On the day of his disappearance he was due to meet his companion, a woman he had been living with for many years, in a flat in Buenos Aires. When he did not find him there she went to the house in San Vicente, which she found pitted with countless heavy-calibre bullet-holes. Inside, the house had been completely ransacked, and there were even signs outside that grenades had been thrown at the building.
According to neighbours' accounts, about forty heavily-armed men had surrounded the place at night. They had attacked it for more than two hours before they realized it was empty.

Several things had happened to make the journalist fearful of his situation. In particular there was the killing by security forces of his daughter María Victoria Walsh, and the raid on his house in the Tigre Delta, when all his belongings had been ransacked.

Among the valuable objects stolen from his house in San Vicente were the originals of his work, including unpublished material from a long and distinguished writing career.

From several testimonies presented to this Commission (Sara Solars, file No. 4442, and Alicia M. de Pirles, file No. 5307), it appears that Walsh was dead on arrival at the Navy Mechanics School.

Another witness (Graciela Beatriz Daleo, file No. 4816) said they had seen identification documents and personal notes belonging to the victim in the Navy Mechanics School. This was seconded by Enrique Marin Fukman (file No. 4687). According to Walsh's daughter, there were also other people, for instance Dr Martín Grass, who saw the body of the unfortunate writer in the same place.

The deposition of these facts was presented to the Federal Court on 5 June 1984 and is now lodged with District Court No. 4 in Buenos Aires.

 

 

 

 


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