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ARGENTINA: Judges involved in child-kidnapping brought to justice

Source: IPS | By Marcela Valente

As human rights cases from Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship move ahead in the courts, cases of judges and prosecutors who were accomplices in the crimes are coming to light.

Still waiting for answers are the The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo a group of grand-parents who are searching for their missing grandchildren.

In the years of the 'Dirty War' over 500 children were kidnapped as babies along with their parents or born into captivity to political prisoners, and raised in many cases by childless military or police couples.

Judges and Prosecutors gradually being purged from the legal system

Thanks to the memory of witnesses and survivors of the "dirty war", as well as the tireless efforts of human rights organisations, judges and prosecutors implicated in dictatorship-era human rights crimes have generally been kept from taking part in the trials.

And information provided by the survivors and witnesses is now being used to gradually purge these judges and prosecutors from the legal system.

Judge had been involved in 76 cases of kidnapping but still had his job

The most recent case is that of Otilio Romano, a federal court judge in the western province of Mendoza, who despite numerous accusations against him managed to stay in his post until late August.

There was evidence that Romano was involved in 76 cases of kidnapping, torture and forced disappearance between 1975 and 1983. Nevertheless, he evaded legal action for years.

But charges have now been brought against him for 17 crimes against humanity, and the Consejo de la Magistratura – a high council made up of judges, legislators and lawyers – decided to suspend and impeach him, on the grounds that he served the cause of state terrorism by failing to investigate crimes against humanity as a prosecutor during the regime.

Colleagues of his like Luis Miret, Rolando Carrizo and Guillermo Petra Recabarren, who had kept their posts until recently, were also suspended and are facing charges for denying justice to numerous victims of the dictatorship.

Judges were protected against crimes they had committed during the dictatorship

Carolina Varsky, a lawyer with the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), told IPS that her human rights group has long denounced the complicity of judges and prosecutors during the dictatorship, but that "only in the last decade has the issue begun to be discussed.

"Until well into the 1990s, denunciations (of the collusion) were disregarded by the judicial branch, which protected judges who were accomplices of the dictatorship," she said.

Many of the judges in question were actually appointed during the de facto regime.

But over the last decade, this issue began to be debated, and in the past few years it steadily gained momentum as human rights cases came to trial, said Varsky, the head of CELS' "Memory and the Struggle Against Impunity" programme.

Presidential pardons were over-turned

Human rights trials were resumed after the amnesty laws for military personnel adopted in the mid-1980s were overturned in 2005 and the presidential pardons granted to imprisoned members of the former military junta in 1989 and 1990 were struck down in 2007.

However, human rights groups complain that accomplices of state terrorism still form part of the justice system, and could even be sitting as judges in courts that are trying crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship.

Judges implicated in forced disapearance of children

There have been, for example, several cases of judges and prosecutors implicated in the forced disappearance of children, which was proven to be a systematic practice during the regime.

A total of 11,000 cases of forced disappearance have been officially proven, but human rights groups put the number at 30,000. In addition, some 500 children were kidnapped as babies along with their parents or born into captivity to political prisoners, and raised in many cases by childless military or police couples.

Some children were raised by the military

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who are searching for their missing grandchildren, have managed to restore the true identity of 104 of the children – now adults – so far.

Some of them were raised by the members of the military who stole them, while others were adopted by families in good faith.

Alan Lud, a lawyer for the Grandmothers association, explained to IPS that of the 104 grandchildren who have been located and identified, 30 percent were given in adoption through the courts, which is why the association is investigating adoption records from that time period.

The association has hopes of finding more cases of grandchildren whose real identities were hidden by means of corrupt judicial procedures. In the meantime, the Grandmothers have been on the alert, because some prosecutors and judges who were involved in those cases are still active.

Illegal adoptions in recent years

In the past few years, several dictatorship-era cases have come to light in which judges who were aware of the children's provenance awarded them in adoption to strangers in illegal arrangements that took only a few hours, without even looking for the children's biological relatives, such as grandparents.

One of the judges was recused in a case of theft of a child, because he himself had been an official counsel of minors in cases in which the children of victims of forced disappearance were illegally given in adoption.

Despite its shortcomings during the dictatorship, Argentina's adoption law even then required that every effort be made to locate a biological family member before children were given up in adoption, which was supposed to be a last resort.

Two of the judges who handled these irregular cases – and publicly admitted to having done so – have died: Delia Pons, who approved the adoption of three children of victims of forced disappearance, and Ofelia Hejt, who approved at least 15 illegal adoptions.

Ladies, I am sure your children were terrorists

The Grandmothers said in the film "Botín de Guerra" (Spoils of War) that Pons once told them: "Ladies, I am sure that your children were terrorists, and for me, 'terrorist' is a synonym for 'murderer' – and I do not plan to return the children of murderers.

"It would not be fair to do so, because you wouldn't know how to raise them properly, and because you have no right to do so," Judge Pons added, according to the Grandmothers.

After Pons died, and after a number of failed attempts to gain access to the adoption records in her court, the Grandmothers managed to get the files analysed, in order to find new cases of stolen children whose identities were changed with the late judge's complicity.

Another judge, Luis Vera Candiotti, was prosecuted this year for involvement in the theft of a child in 1977. Although he knew the little girl had been taken from her parents, who were victims of forced disappearance, he granted her in illegal adoption to the military officer who took her.

Children's background concealed by judges

Also under investigation now for the theft of children are former judges Juan Carlos Marchetti and Delfin Castro, accomplices in cases in which the children's background was concealed and they were given up in illegal adoptions.

There are other judicial officers whose names Iud preferred not to mention, because they are still active in the justice system. But they were complicit in crimes committed in children's courts during the dictatorship, when they were judges or clerks.

One of them, who is currently a federal appeals court judge, is implicated in several cases of illegal adoptions, including the case of the son of former Uruguayan political prisoner Sara Méndez. He was given in adoption to a policeman in Argentina.

Survivor of torture camp spent 25 years looking for her son

Méndez, a survivor of torture camps, spent 25 years searching for her son in Uruguay and Argentina until she finally found him in 2002.

Another case is that of prosecutor Juan Romero, who went to trial in July, accused of passing information to and helping a colonel accused of stealing the young daughter of victims of forced disappearance.

Romero had been questioned by Congress in the 1990s, thwarting his appointment as a judge, which was proposed by then president Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

Instead, the president named him prosecutor in a criminal court.

But he has now resigned as prosecutor.

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Trial over Baby Theft Opens at Last

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Margarita Barrientos - Photo: Urgente24Margarita Barrientos - Photo: Urgente24

ARGENTINA: One Poor Woman Who Feeds Thousands

Source: IPS | Marcela Valente

Margarita Barrientos is an internationally recognised community organiser. 

Her real wish is that there would be no more need for soup kitchens for the hungry, like the one she founded in the capital of Argentina.

This shouldn't have to exist

"This shouldn't have to exist," Barrientos told IPS at the Los Piletones soup kitchen, which she runs. "What there should be is decent work, so that every man and woman could go out and earn a living. But until that is possible, we'll have to keep this going."

The soup kitchen and the rest of the installations of the Margarita Barrientos Foundation are in Villa Soldati, a poor district in the south of Buenos Aires where the Los Piletones slum is located. The Foundation is reached by pitted, muddy dirt roads full of piles of garbage.

The 49-year-old Barrientos came to Buenos Aires alone when she was just 11 years old, from the northern province of Santiago del Estero where she was born into a Toba indigenous family. In the city she lived and worked on the streets and often went hungry. When she was 14 she met the man who is now her husband. They have 12 children – 10 biological sons and daughters and two children "of my heart," she says.

In 1996, in response to the hunger and dire poverty she saw around her, Barrientos starting distributing among her neighbours leftover bread and baked goods that a bakery donated to her husband along his daily route collecting cardboard and other waste products to sell for recycling.

Solidarity, not politics

Since she opened her soup kitchen, Margarita Barrientos has received 40 prizes and honours from the city, non-governmental organisations, and different churches, as an "exemplary citizen", "woman of the year", or "distinguished citizen."

Mauricio Macri, the centre-right mayor of Buenos Aires who was re-elected Sunday Jul. 31, invited her to run as a candidate for the national legislature in the October elections – a post she would stand a real chance of winning. But she was not tempted.

"I turned him down immediately," she says. "I never thought about going into politics. That's just not me. I believe in the people who help me with donations to keep this going, and they believe in me. If I were to accept a political position, I would be letting them down."

Barrientos only made it to third grade. Her husband is disabled – he lost one of his arms in an accident – one of their sons has a drug abuse problem, her family lives in Los Piletones, and she faces nearly all the same difficulties as the people she helps.

"You often feel discouraged. Living in the slum isn't easy. But with hard work and sacrifices, you can do anything in life," says Barrientos, who was named as one of the "women who change the world" by the Spanish NGO Mundo Cooperante.

Within a short time, she was cooking whatever she and her husband managed to scrounge up, for 15 people from the neighbourhood. But her budding project grew, and today 30 women work alongside her, providing cooked meals to 1,600 people a day, including 1,000 children, and offering other services as well.

The Buenos Aires and Argentine governments supply part of the food, and the rest is covered by private donations: of food, mattresses, clothing, blankets, furniture, computers, books, building materials and medicine.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

"Los Piletones" serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, but most of the guests don't eat there – they show up at the specified time and pick up pots or plastic bowls of food, which they take home to their families.

One woman standing in line with her four young children tells IPS that they are from Paraguay, and that her husband found a job and she was able to register their kids in school but that they do not yet have legal residency papers. She stays home to raise the kids, she says.

9.9 percent of Argentina's people live in poverty

In the kitchen, three huge pots are steaming. A young woman stands on a high stool to stir the food with a large wooden paddle, using both hands. Other women are busy cutting up chicken, peeling potatoes, or mopping the floor.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census, 9.9 percent of Argentina's 40 million people live in poverty, and 2.5 percent in extreme poverty. But trade unions and other independent bodies say the poverty rate is at least twice that high.

Across the street from the soup kitchen are the Foundation's other installations: a health centre that offers dental services, medical checkups, and gynaecological and pediatric services, and a well-stocked pharmacy.

People can pick up condoms

"People can pick up condoms here without asking," Barrientos says, pointing to a box in the waiting room. The nurse is a volunteer, and the doctors serve the Foundation through an agreement with two private universities.

There is also a pasta factory and a day care centre for children between the ages of seven months and five years. The nine teachers are paid by the city government, and the cook and cleaning woman are local volunteers.

Many of the children are raised by mothers on their own, some of whom work outside the home. "Women have the resiliency to handle things on our own," Barrientos says, laughing.

Next door is the library, computer room, and day centre and dining room for the elderly, which has a knitting corner and large TV set that is turned on but has no picture. "They cut off our cable service because we were behind on the bills, but now we're all caught up and I don't know why they haven't come to connect it again," she says, apologising to the people there.

Raul travels miles to eat

Raúl Cabrera, 58, comes every day from González Catán, ten train stations away on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. "I've been coming for eight years. I have lunch and take dinner home with me," he tells IPS.

He has seven grown-up children, and takes advantage of his day trips to Villa Soldati to visit the ones who live in this neighbourhood. Cabrera, who lives alone, manages to earn a few coins fixing bicycles.

Food is so expensive

"Food is so expensive. One kilo of bread costs 12 pesos (three dollars) now, and a kilo of beef is 30 pesos (seven dollars)," Cabrera says. He worked in the construction industry and as a garbage picker collecting and selling cardboard. Now he has neither a job nor a pension.

Barrientos says the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) has done a great deal to improve conditions for poor families in the area.

The AUH is a monthly cash transfer from the government that covers children up to the age of 18 of unemployed parents and informal sector workers, rural workers and domestics with incomes below the minimum monthly wage. The allowance is around 55 dollars per child, up to a maximum of five children, and is conditional on school attendance and up-to-date vaccinations.

But Barrientos does not see cash transfers as an effective tool, in the long run. "Nearly all of the people who come to the soup kitchen receive the AUH and take food home, but if they get everything for free, they won't understand what it means to make sacrifices and they won't have incentives to work," she argues.

She says this despite the fact that her Foundation asks for nothing in exchange for the assistance and services it offers. "A pregnant 15-year-old, who already receives the AUH for herself – why would she think of working?" she comments.

"Women are more socially-orientated than men"

But the 30 women who help Barrientos run the soup kitchen clearly know the value of hard work. Although they do not receive cash wages, they benefit broadly from the donations.

"Women are much more socially-oriented than men, who won't work if they aren't paid. Women like to take things on their shoulders and bring food home, and help their communities. These women are an example," she says, visibly moved.

One of the soup kitchen workers is Isabel Benítez, a 38-year-old widowed mother of four. When her husband was in the hospital and her family was barely surviving, her oldest daughter came here every day to pick up meals for the whole family.

We didn't have anything, not even food

"I didn't know Margarita, but my daughter brought home meals, blankets, mattresses. We didn't have anything, not even food. One day my daughter said 'mamá, there are women working there, why don't you go?' So I came," she tells IPS.

Benítez explained her situation to Barrientos, who told her: "Bring an apron tomorrow and you can start." She has been working in the soup kitchen for four years now, and says she receives "huge support."

"What I bring home is more than what I could earn, and I feel useful helping people who are worse off than me," she says.

"We learn so much from Señora Margarita, who does the impossible to make sure no one leaves with empty hands."

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