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 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
Priest May Walk in Argentina's "Dirty War" Tribunal
 Sam Ferguson - t r u t h o u t
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La Plata, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina - A "key witness" testified in the human rights case against father Christian Von Wernich on August 6, for his role in Argentina's "dirty war," after a week-long judicial holiday.
From 1976-1983, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship that illegally kidnapped and "disappeared" as many as 30,000 people. Von Wernich, 69, served as chaplain to Ramon Camps, head of the Buenos Aires police force and a hardliner within the military government.
Von Wernich has been indicted as an accomplice on 7 counts of murder, 30 counts of torture and 41 counts of kidnapping for his participation at several clandestine detention centers maintained throughout Buenos Aires province, known as the "Camps Circuit". Nearly a dozen witnesses so far have reported seeing Von Wernich in the Puesto Vasco and Coti Martinez detention centers where they claim he encouraged them to confess to their captors so they would stop being tortured. Several witnesses also claimed information given to Von Wernich in a "confessional" setting within the prisons was later revealed to them while being tortured, suggesting Von Wernich transmitted the information to the torturers. One Witness, Hector Timerman, testifying on behalf of his father Jacobo, who died in 1999, claims his father saw Von Wernich in the torture room on one occasion when his blindfold fell off due to the force of the electric shocks being applied to him.
The prosecution, however, may have difficulty obtaining a conviction against Von Wernich. So far, no witness has directly accused Von Wernich of committing acts of torture. Julio Strassera, who prosecuted Argentina's top generals and military rulers in 1985, just two years after the government collapsed, commented, "It's going to be very difficult to get a conviction against Von Wernich as a principal actor. We filed a complaint against him in Causa Trece [the first trial against the dictatorship after the military government fell] after information came out about him. But the evidence just isn't there."
Pablo Parenti, who heads the government task force in charge of coordinating prosecutions against former dirty war officials, says, "This is a peripheral case. I don't think Von Wernich is a good guy, but he's not a central figure in the architects of state repression."
Yesterday, however, the prosecution sought to use the testimony of Rubén Fernando Schell to establish Von Wernich's central role within the Camps Circuit. Felix Crous, one of the government's two prosecutors in the case, referred to Schell's testimony as "key." Schell was an active factory labor leader and political organizer for the left-wing followers of Juan Peron.
Schell was sequestered by the government on November 12, 1977. He was kept in illegal captivity in the Pozo de Quilmes detention center with no contact with the outside world until the following February. There, along with other prisoners, he was tortured repeatedly, and solicited for information about the Montoneros, a militant armed faction of Peron's left-wing followers. Schell claims not to have been involved with the Montoneros.
Within Pozo de Quilmes, he described an exchange with Von Wernich. He was taken to a room with a small table, where Von Wernich was accompanied by a guard. The guard exited, and left Schell and Von Wernich alone. Schell related that Von Wernich then began to ask him about his political activities, and encouraged him to give up all the information he had.
Schell described the exchange as "the worst torture, a moral torture." He continued, "Between the torture, the hits, the electric shocks, the worst torture I suffered was at the hands of this man," alluding to Von Wernich.
Schell claims that in their conversation Von Wernich told him, "You've been planting bombs, doing bad things so that, when you leave - if you leave - God will reject you." Schell responded, "I'm going to leave because I didn't do anything. You're not a priest, you're a son of a bitch."
Von Wernich, who has been in the building but not in the courtroom during the proceedings, a right to which Argentinian defendants are entitled, has elected not to respond to the tribunal's questions, similar to pleading the Fifth.
Judge Rosanski, president of the three-judge tribunal, also asked Schell about Von Wernich's movement within Pozo de Quilmes, "How did he enter the room, was he accompanied by anybody?" Schell noted that a police officer entered the room with him, but then left. When Von Wernich was done interviewing Schell, "He left on his own, and didn't call for anybody. He appeared completely free to walk around." The prosecution will attempt to use this evidence to establish Von Wernich had a significant role within the detention center, and may be held as a principal actor in his alleged crimes. The torture centers were secretive places; civilians were not often granted such liberal access.
Five other witnesses who passed through Pozo de Quilmes also testified, though none of them had any direct contact with Von Wernich. They were called to establish Schell's presence in the center.
Lawyers for victims in the case as well as a representative for the secretary of human rights, Luis Alen, however, may use the information revealed to help develop cases against other military officials in the future. They have been asking the tribunal to try cases in the future by clandestine center, not simply defendant by defendant, to prevent witnesses from having to testify and relive their experiences over and over. The testimony, though only peripheral to Von Wernich's case, may be central to bringing a case against all the participants in the Pozo de Quilmes detention center. They also believe bringing defendants to court together could speed up the process, as many cases hinge around a similar set of incidents.
Four of the witnesses requested their pictures not be taken. In the last human rights case to go to trial against former Buenos Aires Police official Miguel Etchecolatz, the star witness in the case, Julio Lopez, was "disappeared" several days before Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in Prison. Lopez has not been seen since last September. Most believe the kidnapping was meant to chill future witnesses from testifying.
Jorge Aliega, the second witness of the day to testify, also described the torture treatments to which he was subject, including the "dry submarine," where his head was wrapped in a nylon bag until he was close to suffocating, or the "parilla," where he was hung upside down by his feet until unconscious. Aliega, an electrical engineer, along with the third witness of the day, Juan Carlos Guarino, was asked technical questions about the electromagnetic spectrum during torture sessions. Admiral Massera, then head of the Navy and one of the three members of the ruling military Junta, wanted to assemble a group of electrical engineers to help scramble television reports of human rights abuses that may be transmitted by the international media around the World Cup, which was held in Argentina in 1978, just a year after the two were kidnapped.
Proceedings are expected to last until September 13. A verdict in the case should be announced by early October.
Visit the links below for previous reporting on this subject:
• Argentina's Struggle to Restore the Rule of Law
• Argentina's "Dirty War" Trials Continue
• Argentina's "Dirty War" Trials Continue, Families Testify
• Pardon for Argentina's "Dirty War" Declared Unconstitutional
• Argentine "Dirty War" Trial Focuses on Priest
Sam Ferguson is a JD candidate at Yale Law School and a former Senior Researcher at the Rockridge Institute under George Lakoff. He is investigating the problems of transitional justice and democratic consolidation after periods of military rule. He is currently living in Buenos Aires. |
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