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U.S. Hushed 1978 Argentine Junta Murders
By RON KAMPEAS
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A few weeks after the bodies of seven women who led a crusade to free their loved ones washed up on a beach in southern Argentina in 1978, the U.S. government learned the probable culprits: the junta whose leaders it was cultivating.
It kept quiet about that discovery, a former U.S. diplomat now says. Raul Castro, then U.S. ambassador to Argentina, said he felt it was more important to work behind the scenes to improve the anti-communist regime's human rights performance than to rebuke it publicly.
``We were trying to do human rights on the quiet side of it,'' Castro, a former Arizona governor now in a private law practice in Nogales, Ariz., said in an interview.
Castro discussed the episode last week after the private National Security Archive published declassified documents it amassed indicating the U.S. government found that junta officials had been holding the women. The junta's responsibility in their deaths was not confirmed until after it fell in 1983.
The seven women were among the leaders of the ``Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,'' representing relatives of the thousands of ``disappeared'' - perceived enemies of the military regime who were kidnapped, never to be seen again.
Twelve leaders of the ``Mothers'' were kidnapped in December 1977. The junta blamed leftist rebels. Castro soon learned from his junta contacts that the women were in government hands and that the ``evidence'' blaming rebels was a fabrication.
In a Jan. 20, 1978, cable to the State Department, he said: ``Our sources generally agree that the operation was carried out by some arm of the security forces, but which specific group and the level of responsibility is unclear.''
Referring to the rebel group, Castro said: ``The supposed Montonero note claiming responsibility for the abduction has been generally discounted.''
Castro, who knew some of the missing, initially pressed hard for their release. But he said in a cable that further protests would be fruitless and only produce ``reticence if (the junta) is deliberately withholding information which would prove too damaging to reveal.''
On March 20, 1978, Castro cabled his Carter administration bosses that a number of bodies ``beached by unusual strong winds'' in southern Argentina included seven women from the group - among them, two French nuns - and that an Argentine official confirmed that the seven had been imprisoned ``under their broad mandate against terrorists and subversives.''
That prompted a single, strong protest by Castro to junta leader Gen. Jorge Videla. In his cables, Castro said the French discouraged further protests, believing they harmed trade with Argentina.
Castro discouraged telling families of the missing of his findings, saying in a cable ``this would be fruitless and might divert us from the opportunity that lies in the current situation.'' He urged Washington to ``avoid language that would stigmatize this government and instead focus attention on the prospects for improved observance of human rights in Argentina.''
The ``Mothers'' staged weekly protests in front of the government palace in Buenos Aires that drew hundreds - and international attention. After each protest, the group's leaders met Castro at the embassy and reported new disappearances. ``I had a direct line to the junta, and I would make inquiries,'' he said in the interview.
Castro's junta informants had told him that at least two of the leaders attending his weekly meetings were infiltrators from the government, but he kept their secret. ``I had to proceed with caution,'' he said.
Castro said the State Department hoped the junta would change through incentives, rather than reproach.
One such measure was for the United States to upgrade its ``no'' votes to abstentions on Argentine loan requests to the International Monetary Fund.
A transcript of a State Department debriefing by another diplomat, Tex Harris, suggests that officials justified the improvement in Argentina's status by citing ``evidence'' of rebel involvement in the kidnappings, when they knew better.
Harris complained in his May 1978 meeting with an assistant secretary of state that his information was ignored. ``Our files are bulging with student leaders, psychologists, psychiatrists, members of socialist discussions groups, etc. who have disappeared,'' he said.
Citing a police informant, Harris outlined what eventually happened to the ``disappeared.''
``The people are then being told that they are being transferred ... and must receive an injection before they go for health reasons. The people gracefully submit to the injection which contains curia which is a derivative of the poison used by Amazon natives in their blow guns. Evidently it has the effect of contracting the muscles.
``They are then placed in planes ... and are dropped in the mouth of the river where they sink and are quickly devoured by the fish.'' The river feeds into the Mar del Plata, the Atlantic Ocean resort 250 miles south of Buenos Aires where the bodies of seven women were found.
In the months after the murders, the Carter administration authorized $120 million in military sales to the junta, and approved more than 30 training slots for Argentine officers at U.S. military installations.
``The relationship was a cozy one between our militaries,'' Castro said in the interview. ``Their military had an entree into Washington, into the Pentagon.''
Much of the junta leadership is now under house arrest in Argentina, facing trial for abuses. Between 9,000 and 30,000 people disappeared during the 1976-83 regime.
Of the 12 activists who disappeared in December 1977, the fate of four, all men, is not known. A fifth, ``Gustavo Nino,'' is alive and was later identified as Navy Lt. Alfredo Astiz, an infiltrator. He is among those facing charges.
By RON KAMPEAS
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A few weeks after the bodies of seven women who led a crusade to free their loved ones washed up on a beach in southern Argentina in 1978, the U.S. government learned the probable culprits: the junta whose leaders it was cultivating.
It kept quiet about that discovery, a former U.S. diplomat now says. Raul Castro, then U.S. ambassador to Argentina, said he felt it was more important to work behind the scenes to improve the anti-communist regime's human rights performance than to rebuke it publicly.
``We were trying to do human rights on the quiet side of it,'' Castro, a former Arizona governor now in a private law practice in Nogales, Ariz., said in an interview.
Castro discussed the episode last week after the private National Security Archive published declassified documents it amassed indicating the U.S. government found that junta officials had been holding the women. The junta's responsibility in their deaths was not confirmed until after it fell in 1983.
The seven women were among the leaders of the ``Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,'' representing relatives of the thousands of ``disappeared'' - perceived enemies of the military regime who were kidnapped, never to be seen again.
Twelve leaders of the ``Mothers'' were kidnapped in December 1977. The junta blamed leftist rebels. Castro soon learned from his junta contacts that the women were in government hands and that the ``evidence'' blaming rebels was a fabrication.
In a Jan. 20, 1978, cable to the State Department, he said: ``Our sources generally agree that the operation was carried out by some arm of the security forces, but which specific group and the level of responsibility is unclear.''
Referring to the rebel group, Castro said: ``The supposed Montonero note claiming responsibility for the abduction has been generally discounted.''
Castro, who knew some of the missing, initially pressed hard for their release. But he said in a cable that further protests would be fruitless and only produce ``reticence if (the junta) is deliberately withholding information which would prove too damaging to reveal.''
On March 20, 1978, Castro cabled his Carter administration bosses that a number of bodies ``beached by unusual strong winds'' in southern Argentina included seven women from the group - among them, two French nuns - and that an Argentine official confirmed that the seven had been imprisoned ``under their broad mandate against terrorists and subversives.''
That prompted a single, strong protest by Castro to junta leader Gen. Jorge Videla. In his cables, Castro said the French discouraged further protests, believing they harmed trade with Argentina.
Castro discouraged telling families of the missing of his findings, saying in a cable ``this would be fruitless and might divert us from the opportunity that lies in the current situation.'' He urged Washington to ``avoid language that would stigmatize this government and instead focus attention on the prospects for improved observance of human rights in Argentina.''
The ``Mothers'' staged weekly protests in front of the government palace in Buenos Aires that drew hundreds - and international attention. After each protest, the group's leaders met Castro at the embassy and reported new disappearances. ``I had a direct line to the junta, and I would make inquiries,'' he said in the interview.
Castro's junta informants had told him that at least two of the leaders attending his weekly meetings were infiltrators from the government, but he kept their secret. ``I had to proceed with caution,'' he said.
Castro said the State Department hoped the junta would change through incentives, rather than reproach.
One such measure was for the United States to upgrade its ``no'' votes to abstentions on Argentine loan requests to the International Monetary Fund.
A transcript of a State Department debriefing by another diplomat, Tex Harris, suggests that officials justified the improvement in Argentina's status by citing ``evidence'' of rebel involvement in the kidnappings, when they knew better.
Harris complained in his May 1978 meeting with an assistant secretary of state that his information was ignored. ``Our files are bulging with student leaders, psychologists, psychiatrists, members of socialist discussions groups, etc. who have disappeared,'' he said.
Citing a police informant, Harris outlined what eventually happened to the ``disappeared.''
``The people are then being told that they are being transferred ... and must receive an injection before they go for health reasons. The people gracefully submit to the injection which contains curia which is a derivative of the poison used by Amazon natives in their blow guns. Evidently it has the effect of contracting the muscles.
``They are then placed in planes ... and are dropped in the mouth of the river where they sink and are quickly devoured by the fish.'' The river feeds into the Mar del Plata, the Atlantic Ocean resort 250 miles south of Buenos Aires where the bodies of seven women were found.
In the months after the murders, the Carter administration authorized $120 million in military sales to the junta, and approved more than 30 training slots for Argentine officers at U.S. military installations.
``The relationship was a cozy one between our militaries,'' Castro said in the interview. ``Their military had an entree into Washington, into the Pentagon.''
Much of the junta leadership is now under house arrest in Argentina, facing trial for abuses. Between 9,000 and 30,000 people disappeared during the 1976-83 regime.
Of the 12 activists who disappeared in December 1977, the fate of four, all men, is not known. A fifth, ``Gustavo Nino,'' is alive and was later identified as Navy Lt. Alfredo Astiz, an infiltrator. He is among those facing charges.
