“I’m still waiting for his return,” says Victoria Morales, the mother of one of the 44 sailors who died when the ARA San Juan submarine imploded in the South Atlantic in 2017.
The trial of four former Navy officers over the tragedy began on Tuesday in the southern city of Río Gallegos.
Morales, like many of the relatives scattered across Argentina, was unable to attend the opening hearing in the Santa Cruz provincial capital, located some 3,100 kilometres south of Tucumán, where she lives.
She did not follow proceedings by videoconference either.
“It’s too painful. The anguish left me with a heart condition,” Morales said in a telephone interview.
Her son, Esteban García, was 31 and the father of two small children when he embarked on the fatal voyage aboard the ARA San Juan in November 2017.
After an international search operation that gripped the country, the wreckage of the submarine was located a year later more than 900 metres below the surface, around 500 kilometres off the coast of Santa Cruz Province. It will likely never be refloated, and the exact cause of the sinking remains uncertain.
When the submarine was first reported missing, Morales and her husband were visiting their son and grandchildren at the Mar del Plata naval base.
“We saw the news on television and didn’t understand much at first. We went to the base believing the Navy would tell us the truth. Eventually we realised they were lying,” she recalled.
“We stayed there for a year hoping to see them return. My husband and I would go down to the seafront and hope every black dot on the horizon was them,” she said, her voice breaking.
Every November 15, the anniversary of the tragedy, they repeat the ritual.
“I prefer to think he’s on some endless voyage. We have no grave to grieve at, nowhere to take flowers or pray.”
The German-built submarine lost contact while sailing from Ushuaia to Mar del Plata after reporting an electrical failure and the start of a fire.
“For years we relatives believed we would see them return. Instead we were left staring out at the sea,” Morales said. “Now we hope there will be justice – some solace, some peace – so we can begin to heal.”
Prosecutors and the complainants argue the disaster was not an unavoidable accident.
“This was no act of God, but a foreseeable outcome given the state of the vessel that made the sinking possible,” prosecutors stated in court on Tuesday in the presence of the four defendants.
On Wednesday, former officer Claudio Villamide acknowledged there had been failures but insisted the submarine “was in navigable condition.”
Villamide, a former Navy captain who was dismissed by a military tribunal in 2021, held the highest rank among the accused.
“The past eight years have been filled with pain, uncertainty, anguish, anxiety and a sense of abandonment by every government,” Morales said, expressing hope the trial will “help close wounds.”
Río Gallegos, a windswept Patagonian city of around 95,000 inhabitants, has shown little outward sign of the proceedings linked to the worst peacetime disaster in the Navy’s history.
A cenotaph on the seafront commemorates the 44 crew-members, while outside the courthouse an Argentine flag bearing their faces honours what the Navy calls “heroes on eternal patrol.”
The hearings are expected to continue until July, with around 90 witnesses scheduled to testify. Proceedings will be held over four-day sessions with week-long breaks.
The four defendants face charges of breach of duties and aggravated negligent damage, crimes punishable by one to five years in prison.
“We’re waiting with hope that something will finally be resolved and that some of those responsible will pay,” Morales said. “But we know many others have been left out. There are more people who should answer for this.”
A separate investigation, still at a preliminary stage, is examining possible responsibility higher up the chain of command, including officials who served under former president Mauricio Macri between 2015 and 2019.
by Sonia Avalos, AFP
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