ARGENTINA: Two Octogenarian Generals In Fight for Rights

. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (IPS), August 28, 2008: By Marcela Valente Retired Argentine General Antonio Domingo Bussi was sentenced to life in prison for a crime against humanity committed in 1976. But he won't be going to prison for now. A federal court in the northern province of Tucumán, where Bussi was stationed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, found him guilty of torturing and killing provincial Senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse, who was abducted from his home on March 24, 1976. Sitting in a wheelchair and with a nose tube, the 82-year-old retired general, Bussi -- who according to the judicial investigators can walk and was fit to stand trial -- had to be removed on a stretcher at the start of the trial. He wept several times during his testimony, but far from expressing remorse for the crimes of which he was accused, he defended them as part of the "war to annihilate the Marxist-Leninist attack." He said the suspects were "mobile targets" who could be arrested without a warrant to verify what kinds of activities they were involved in. To the indignation of the Vargas Aignasse family, Bussi repeatedly accused his victim of cowardice, and the prosecutor of acting out of a sense of "vengeance and spitefulness." Between bouts of shedding tears, he described himself as the victim of "political persecution," and thanked the soldiers who helped him "fight communism." Bussi is accused of some 500 forced disappearances. As the head of the repression against guerrilla groups in Tucumán, he set up and ran a number of torture camps. Retired General Luciano Benjamín Menéndez was also sentenced to life in prison, for the same charges. The 81-year-old was commander of the Third Army Corps from 1976 to 1979, with jurisdiction over 10 provinces in the northwest, including Tucumán. In his words, "Argentine society suffered a war unleashed by the hired killers of international communism," and "the terrorists…are now in power." Menéndez, who is in prison, had already been handed a life sentence in July for human rights violations committed in the northern province of Córdoba. Bussi, however, had never been sentenced. Menéndez will remain in prison, but Bussi is under house arrest. Thanks to two amnesty laws passed in the mid-1980s, the two men were able to elude justice for over two decades. However, the laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. Since then, 32 human rights abusers have been convicted and sentenced, according to human rights groups. Click to read more Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service.