Argentina orders ‘dirty war’ arrests
A Buenos Aires judge has ordered the arrest of 46 former government officials for human rights abuses.
The officials were all part of Argentina’s 1976-1983 military junta and face extradition to Spain.
The names of those arrested were not released, Agence France Presse reported.
Their arrest signals important progress toward the prosecution of those accused of committing human rights abuses during the “dirty war,” in which almost 9,000 people “disappeared.”
Cavallo Trial
Last month the trial of former Argentine naval captain Ricardo Miguel Cavallo began in Madrid.
Cavallo, who is being tried by Baltasar Garzَn – famous for indicting Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet for war crimes, is facing charges of genocide and terrorism.
Cavallo was detailed to the notorious Argentine Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires during the late 1970’s.
He has been identified by more than 20 former victims, and is charged with 284 cases of disappearing people, 169 kidnappings, and 21 cases of torture.
The 1984 report of the Argentine truth commission names 8,961 people who “disappeared” under the military dictatorship.
Although some high-level officials were prosecuted in the 1980s for these abuses, the majority were covered by the country’s amnesty laws.