La Libertad Avanza, the party of President Javier Milei, has been criticised for its stance on human rights but remarks by one of its leading lawmakers have underlined that not all of them take the same view.
LLA deputy and journalist Marcela Pagano shared on her social media accounts this week a tribute to Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, two French nuns who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Critics of Milei’s party have branded several of its representatives “denialist” for their controversial views on the brutal military junta, which “disappeared” tens of thousands of victims in a campaign of state terror.
The topic came to the fore again last month when several La Libertad Avanza legislators visited former military officers jailed for life for crimes against humanity, including the notorious Alfredo Astiz.
Those visited include infamous 'repressors' (as they are commonly described locally) such as Astiz, Ricardo Cavallo and Raúl Guglielminetti.
The visit was reportedly aimed at “looking at the living conditions” of the detainees.
“We went to see former combatants who waged a war against Marxist subversion following the orders of a constitutional government,” wrote libertarian lawmaker Beltrán Benedit (LLA-Entre Ríos), who organised the visit, in a message disseminated on WhatsApp.
He also detailed that he was accompanied on the visit by fellow-deputies Lourdes Arrieta, Guillermo Montenegro, Rocío Bonacci, Alida Ferreyra and María Fernanda Araujo.
Benedit maintained that the charges against these prisoners “have not been proven, their sentence is not final and in many cases, they are made up.”
He also anticipated that he would file a plea claiming that “human rights are not respected because those who were part of it (the terrorists) today are judges who rule on the basis of revenge, ideology and business."
The meeting took place last month but it became known after a publication by the left-wing outlet La Política Online (LPO).
Bullrich approved visit
Bonacci revealed this week that the visit enjoyed the blessing of Security Minister Patricia Bullrich.
“It was a brainwave of Beltrán [Benedit], I guess with the aid of Guillermo [Montenegro] and it would seem on the basis of some chats which came out yesterday, although I have still not discussed this with the caucus, that it had been OK-ed by Patricia Bullrich,” she affirmed.
She even argued that some of the strict security protocols governing prison visits had been ignored.
“They simply opened the door to us, we went in and conversed with them. We were very cordially received and we deputies all had our mobile telephones,” she narrated.
Her statements contradict the official story that the trip was a personal initiative of the deputies, of which the government had no knowledge.
Bonacci, who decided not to appear in the photo of the prison visit, accused Benedit of concealing its true purpose.
EAAF praise
Pagano’s tribute to the disappeared French nuns who accompanied by praise for the work of the world-renowned Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF).
The EAAF is a scientific, non-governmental organisation that was founded in 1984 to help the families of victims of State terrorism and to provide evidence to the Judiciary in the recovery, identification and restitution of missing persons recorded between 1974 and 1983.
“Today we women deputies honour the memory of French nuns Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, identified 19 years ago thanks to the tireless work of the EAAF Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. Floral wreaths were placed in their memory and we embrace them as a symbol of unity in the fight for democracy,” posted Pagano’ her social media accounts.
Pagano also attended a recognition by the Chamber of Deputies of EAAF’s work. She was joined by a cross-party group including Margarita Stolbizer and Natalia de la Sota (Hacemos Coalición Federal); Cecilia Moreau and Victoria Tolosa Paz (Unión por la Patria); Cecilia Ibáñez (MID); Danya Tavela (Radicals), Mónica Frade and Marcela Campagnoli (Coalición Cívica) and Yamila Ruiz (Innovación Federal), among other female deputies, 26 in all. That is, it included legislators from different political spaces, even some opposing her caucus, of which she was the only representative.
“I’m convinced that this display of political unity in the tribute to the French nuns is the starting-point for us to unite as Argentines to build and defend the fundamental pillars of our nation,” Pagano emphasised.
‘Death flights’
In December 1977, Duquet and Domon were kidnapped and detained at the ESMA Navy Mechanics School detention centre. They were tortured and then executed during the so-called “death flights,” in which drugged detainees were thrown to their death into the sea.
The kidnappers were part of an ESMA task force commanded by Astiz, who was then a naval lieutenant.
On December 8 at the Church of Santa Cruz (Urquiza 925), in addition to Sister Domon, members of the Mother of Plaza de Mayo Esther Ballestrino de Careaga and Mary Eugenia Ponce de Bianco; and activists Angela Auad, Patricia Oviedo, Raquel Bulit and Gabriel Horane were all seized.
On that very day Remo Berardo was kidnapped at his home; as were José Fondovila and Horacio Elbert, at a bar where regulars of the Church of Santa Cruz used to meet.
Two days later, the operation was completed with the kidnapping of the founder of Mother of Plaza de Mayo, Azucena Villaflor, at her home in Avellaneda; and Sister Duquet, in Ramos Mejía.
The bodies of Léonie Duquet, Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino and María Eugenia Ponce de Bianco were found floating on a beach near Santa Teresita, between December 20 and 29, 1977.
With the return to democracy, they were identified. On August 29, 2005, the EAAF revealed that Duquet’s body had a bone fracture from a blow. She had been tortured. All four bodies had been buried in a nameless tomb in the cemetery in General Lavalle.
In 1990, a trial in absentia (without the presence of the accused in the proceedings) conducted in a French court sentenced Astiz to life imprisonment for the kidnapping, torture and death of the two nuns.
– TIMES/PERFI
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