An infamous repressor from Córdoba province yesterday broke a pact of silence, pointing out three places where the remains of victims from the last military dictatorship may have been incinerated or buried.
The court that is trying the crimes committed at the La Perla clandestine detention centre ordered an immediate investigation.
“This is an achievement by our society. It is not a ‘scam,’” President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said at a rally yesterday.
The head of state’s words were a clear reference to Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri, who had said over the weekend that he would end “human rights scams” if elected president.
Human rights leaders were astonished yesterday by former military officer Ernesto “Nabo” Ba-rreiro’s revelation and some even ventured to speculate that his deposition sought to open the door to bargain penalties with the judges.
“A group of four repressors expressed their willingness to cooperate in order to have a more lenient sentence,” Human Rights Secretary Martín Fresneda yesterday acknowledged in conversation with the Herald. Fresneda is the son of disappeared parents and also played an important role as a lawyer in the trials for crimes committed in La Perla. “The law establishes that a reduction in the penalty can be given if the suspect cooperates with the investigation.” The head of the Human Rights Secretariat, however, was careful not to sound as if dictatorship-era repressors would be walking the streets anytime soon: “I doubt that they will be given something less than life.”
— Would the government agree to bargain penalties with repressors?
— This issue is in the hands of the judges. It is important that they start helping the authorities. We have to find the remains of those who were forcibly disappeared during the last dictatorship.
Federal prosecutor Facundo Trotta yesterday told the Herald that the repressors did not suggest any sort of plea bargain and only said they wanted to provide information because they “understood the pain of the relatives of the victims.”
After more than 35 years of concealing the truth though, both the prosecutor and Fresneda expressed scepticism — tinged with a bit of hope.
“This is the first time that a repressor breaks the pact of silence in the middle of a trial,” Trotta said. “This attitude may help other people facing charges for crimes against humanity to start revealing the truth.”
The confession
Barreiro is a well-known repressor from the last dictatorship and he has sometimes boasted of his role during the last military dictatorship.
In an interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo published last year, Barreiro said it was not the time to speak about the past.
“La Perla was not a kindergarten and that’s why we are being tried in court. But I was only a lieutenant then — don’t ask me to tell you what my superiors should be saying. I am in the middle of a dilemma. I would love to say everything I know but my bosses don’t want to talk,” Barreiro said.
The repressor faces charges for more than 518 crimes committed at La Perla, a clandestine detention centre where around 2,000 political prisoners were held in Córdoba province.
Days ago, Barreiro had requested the Federal Oral Court give him time to expand on his testimony as a suspect. Yesterday morning, the courtroom was packed with activists but Barreiro requested the judges Jaime Díaz Gavier, Julián Falcucci, José Quiroga Uriburu and Carlos Ochoa to empty the room.
There, he told the members of the court that he was representing a group of four repressors that wanted to provide information, including intelligence agent Luis Alberto Manzanelli, non-commissioned officer José Hugo Herrera and spy Héctor Romero.
Following Barreiro’s deposition, judges and prosecutors left the courthouse and arrived at the area surrounding La Perla — now a memorial. Barreiro led them to a first brick oven where remains were found by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) weeks ago. According to the repressors, around 14 people were killed there.
When they arrived to the oven, one of the repressors told the judges that he had been there in 1979. That could be the confirmation of a long suspected strategy in which corpses were burned to erase the evidence.
Barreiro and the others also said that a person had been buried near Ciudad América, a few kilometres from La Perla and near the city of Alta Gracia. The repressors said that they were not able to determine the exact place where the victim was.
Sources
Some see Barreiro and the other three repressors as “crusaders.” But yesterday Barreiro received a surprising sign of support from his superior, Luciano Benjamín Menéndez.
Menéndez quickly hugged Barreiro when he finished his statement before the tribunal. Whether it was a sign that Menéndez agreed with the step his subordinate had taken is far from clear.
Menéndez has long been considered one of the hawks of the dictatorship who advocated for executions rather than disappearances.
Barreiro was part of a parapolice organization called Comando Li-bertadores de América and a member of the death squad that operated at La Perla, where in 1977 he was the head of the political unit, meaning that he was one of the main people responsible for torture cases in that concentration camp.
In 1987, Barreiro led a military uprising against president Raúl Alfonsín during Easter. Following the military riot, the national Congress passed the so-called Due Obedience Law, which established that those who only followed orders could not be held accountable of crimes committed during the military regime. He was then dismissed from the Army.
In 2000, he moved to the US with his family but was extradited to Argentina when the trials resumed in 2007.
Barreiro is currently under arrest at the Marcos Paz penitentiary unit.
Several weeks ago, Federal Judge Ariel Lijo summoned Barreiro’s daughter to have a DNA test to determine if she is the daughter of disappeared parents. The subpoena led to a scandal in the federal courthouse located on Comodoro Py Avenue.
Barreiro’s wife is also an active member in the group Justice and Concord, which defends those jailed for crimes against humanity perpetrated during the 1976-1983 military regime.
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