Videla admits to mass murder in Argentina

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Argentina ex-dictator admits dirty war "disappeared"

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla has admitted for the first time that the country's brutal 1976-1983 dictatorship "disappeared" leftist opponents, a euphemism for kidnapped and murdered, and said babies were taken from their parents.

Videla, 86, who was jailed for life in 2010 for murder, torture and kidnapping, has repeatedly justified the brutality of the military junta in the so-called Dirty War crackdown on left-wing opponents. Until now, he has also denied the forced disappearances.

Local media said that Videla admitted in interviews for a new book that the dictatorship killed 7,000 or 8,000 people.

"In every war people are crippled, killed and disappeared, their whereabouts unknown, that is a fact," Videla said in an interview broadcast on local television.

"How many there were can be debated, but the problem does not lie in the number but in the fact - a fact which occurs in every war - that we allowed the pejorative term of disappeared to ... remain as a term to cover up something dark that was wanted to be kept secret, and that is what is weighing - that there was something dark which has not been sufficiently cleared up."

"The error was using and abusing disappeared like a mystery," he added. "And that's not the case, it is the unfortunate result of a war."

Videla denied that babies were systematically stolen from leftist opponents and then put up for adoption, but said there were some cases in which babies were taken.
"I am the first to admit ... at this time children were taken, some with the best intention that the child would go to a good, unknown home," Videla added in the interview. "But it was not a systematic plan."

Human rights groups say up to 30,000 people were kidnapped and murdered or vanished during the dictatorship, which began when Videla and two other military leaders staged a coup on March 24, 1976.

"Let's say there were 7,000 or 8,000 people who needed to die to win the war against subversion," newspaper La Nacion quoted Videla as saying in a new book "Final Mandate," by journalist Ceferino Reato, based on a series of interviews with Videla.

"There was no other solution," La Nacion reported Videla as saying. "We were agreed that was the price to win the war against subversion and that we needed it not to be evident so that society didn't notice."

"For that reason, to avoid provoking protests inside and outside the country, it was decided that those people disappear. Each disappearance can certainly be understood as the cover-up of a death."

At the height of the 1970s bloodshed, Videla famously denied the kidnappings that were taking place, saying: "There are no disappearances, they're a nonentity, they don't exist."

Unfortunately, one of his ministers had a daughter who is now crown princess of the Netherlands.
The royal family denied Zorreguieta's involvement in these killings, citing Videla's now-admitted lies as proof.

The daughter bears no onus for her father's doings.

ruveyn

Hard and harsh wars require hard and harsh methods of fighting.

ruveyn

Conservatives love to brag that wars are won quickly and lives are saved whenever napalm is used.

In true "Conservative" fashion, Videla's successor started a war with the UK, to stir up patriotism and divert public attention away from Argentina's severe social and economic ills. The Brits weren't such easy pushovers after all.

The British government of Margaret Thatcher was a Conservative administration. They absolutely did the right thing by retaking the islands.

The Reagan administration hardly knew what to make of it, having considered both governments to be close allies in the war against liberalism.

In true "Conservative" fashion, Videla's successor started a war with the UK, to stir up patriotism and divert public attention away from Argentina's severe social and economic ills. The Brits weren't such easy pushovers after all. "Conservativism" consequently fell, although unfortunately not yet upon the ash heap of history.

Hitler himself would have been quite proud of that statement.

so would Wm. Tecumsa Sherman and George Patton, so say nothing of Curtiss LeMay and Arthur Harris. The allies killed 700,000 civilians in air raids during WW2. Read Sherman's speech on the nature of war.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.


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War is a cruel and nasty business. Get used to the idea.

ruveyn

so would Wm. Tecumsa Sherman and George Patton, so say nothing of Curtiss LeMay and Arthur Harris. The allies killed 700,000 civilians in air raids during WW2. Read Sherman's speech on the nature of war.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.


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War is a cruel and nasty business. Get used to the idea.

ruveyn