Falklands War: Soldiers were accused of abusing soldiers in Santa Cruz barracks

Natasha Niebieskikwiat

02/11/2020 - 17:52

• Clarín.com
• Politics

The subrogant federal judge of Río Gallegos Javier Leal de Ibarra ordered the prosecution without pretrial detention of two soldiers who are accused of having imposed "illegitimate deprivations of liberty, vexation and illegal constraints", using firearms and committing "abuse of authority, using violence and threats " against three conscript soldiers who were in Puerto San Julián during the Malvinas war, in 1982, and who did not cross into the archipelago.

The military accused and seized each for 500,000 pesos are Reynaldo José Pascuzzi, first lieutenant at the time of the events, and today with residence in Resistencia, Chaco; and then captain Carlos María Alemán Urquiza , domiciled in the city of Corrientes. The victims are Hugo Vicente Sandoval, Eulogio Epifanio Contrera and Ernesto Raúl Sánchez.

In his ruling, Leal de Ibarra, who chairs the Federal Chamber of Commodore Rivadavia, contextualized the events after the armed occupation of the Falklands on April 2, 1982, and said that in that scenario the Resistance Artillery Group 7 moved to the south and served within the Theater of Operations of the South Atlantic. He pointed out that Pascuzzi held the position of Lieutenant first and that the German captain was the group's doctor. Both made "a despotic use of their role of command, imposed a rigorous disciplinary treatment on the aforementioned conscripted soldiers," said the judge.

"The evidence suggests that these events occurred within the 71-day period in which said group remained stationed in the town of Puerto San Julián (Santa Cruz); and that the original cause of these actions was that the victims left the camp in search of of food .- Discovered these actions and interpreted as disciplinary infractions, the accused subjected these subordinates - as the case may be - to extreme cold, forced labor, " says the judge, and then writes that they were made to dig water wells or clean wells of waste , which was continually filled and that received blows, and that subjected them to "a diet based on leftovers (sheep bones, bread scraps), to firing drills." The ruling echoes the accusations against Alemán Urquiza, that "he shot near Sandoval and Sanchez soldiers to force confessions" and that they were subjected to " stakes ammunition (subject to the ground, by means of ties) in the snow and weathering. "

Archive) Secret archives confirming that there were torture of soldiers in the Falklands. The declassified information will be sent in the next few days to the federal justice of Rio Grande, in Tierra del Fuego, where the case is processed. (AP / File)

The judge again points out that it is also "remarkable that these physical abuse used to be accompanied by verbal aggressions, such as" ... these garbage must be killed, they betray the Fatherland ... "(sic) .- Similar situations they occurred during the indicated period, until the moment the war conflict was deactivated and the soldiers were able to return to their place of origin.

Complaints and the open causes for cases of torture and ill-treatment during the Falklands War began formally in 2007 when the group of former CECIM-La Plata fighters supported a first group of former soldiers. The group made the complaint in the justice of Rio Grande, for corresponding in jurisdiction to the Falklands.

So far, it is claimed that there were more than 120 whistleblowers and 95 soldiers are reported . Although the stakes of people in the form of a cross, in the open and under enemy fire is one of the most resonant complaints, there were also other presentations such as the suffering of the picana with a field telephone, the obligation to get naked in ice water , or bury them to the neck naked, among others.

There is also another open controversy. Conscripted soldiers who were not on the islands fighting are not recognized as former Falklands combatants with exceptions. It is a claim that faces each other. Regarding CECIM's own complaint about the actions in the combat territory, the Supreme Court closed an investigation in 2015 about torture that was in the Rio Grande case.

But in 2019, the Federal Chamber of Appeals of Comodoro Rivadavia ordered that the process of the case investigating the alleged responsibility of former military officers in the imposition of torture to conscripts during the War with the United Kingdom continue.