The Minister of Defense,
Jorge Taiana
, ordered this Friday the removal of retired General
Rodrigo Soloaga
from his position as president of the Commission for Retired Cavalry, for the statements in which
he claimed his peers imprisoned for crimes against humanity in an act official
this week
"
I want to remember all the comrades of the Cavalry who are deprived of their freedom
as a consequence of having fulfilled their duties during a difficult time in our country", said Rodrigo Soloaga last Tuesday.
Dressed in the military uniform and taking the official word in an act for the Day of the Cavalry Weapon, the retired general Rodrigo Alejandro Soloaga made a strong defense of his companions: "I want to express our permanent and renewed accompaniment in this circumstance that they have to face and that they bear with stoicism".
"The only thing left for me to do is convey our permanent spiritual support, and the hope that they can soon be together with their families, and other loved ones, who stoically accompany this situation and have achieved, not without suffering, the necessary resignation," concludes Soloaga in a speech at the Campo Argentino de Polo.
Retired General Rodrigo Soloaga claimed responsibility in an official act for the actions of soldiers convicted for their actions during the last dictatorship.
Soloaga has opposed trials against the military from the beginning.
In 2004, he was the Army Chief of Staff and asked to retire.
The reason?
The then president Néstor Kirchner took down the paintings of Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Benito Bignone from the Military College of the Nation, which annoyed Soloaga.
Soloaga not only did not hide it, but he wrote it in a letter that he made public: "It runs counter to principles and convictions that I am not willing to negotiate, much less with the petty objective of endorsing behaviors that tend to devalue the institution and, in somehow, force her to abandon a story full of greatness, honor and dignity".
One of the first to react was
Victoria Donda
, a provincial official and daughter of those who disappeared from the last military dictatorship: "I am very concerned about the claim made last Tuesday by retired General Soloaga to his "comrades" deprived of liberty for crimes Against Humanity. This affects the memory of the victims of the dictatorship and is an apology for an aberrational crime".
"Given this situation, I asked President Alberto Fernández to sanction Soloaga and the military officials who allowed these statements incompatible with democracy. I hope that measures are taken so that it does not happen again," added Donda.
Claudio Morresi, a legislator from the Frente de Todos en la Ciudad and brother of a disappeared person, spoke along the same lines: "I repudiate the words of Brigadier General (r) Rodrigo Alejandro Soloaga. The army of San Martin, Belgrano, Mosconi and Savio did not gives accompaniment to criminals who are serving sentences for crimes against humanity".
In turn, the Secretary of Human Rights of the Nation, was also categorical: "This is to vindicate those convicted of crimes against Humanity, GE-NO-CI-DAS. In the forces of democracy, it cannot be allowed to give rise to these retired deniers."
DB
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