Luis Maria Mendia

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Luis Maria Mendia (1925-) was the Argentine former chief of naval operations in 1976-77, with the grade of vice-Admiral. According to confessions gathered by Horacio Verbitsky and made by Adolfo Scilingo, condemned in Spain to 640 years of prison, Luis Maria Mendia was the ideologue of the "death flight"s (vuelos de la muerte) during which the Argentine state "disappeared" people by throwing them out in the ocean, thus making the retrieval of their corpses nearly impossible (and thus subsequent legal pursuits unlikely).

Luis Maria Mendia had not benefitted from the amnesty laws voted during the transition to the democracy (Ley de Punto Final and Ley de Obediencia Debida) but from an amnesty declared by former president Carlos Menem in October 1989. However, he is now before the courts for his role in the ESMA case, one of the largest concentration camp and torture center used by the military. The ESMA cause was reopened by Argentine justice following the Supreme Court 2003 decision declaring the amnesty laws anti-constitutional. Under house arrest because of his age (82 years old), Luis Maria Mendia has finally assumed in 2007 before Argentine magistrate Sergio Torres "complete responsibility" for the security forces under his direction. He called his subordinates "heroes" ^[1]. He has also been questionned on the case of the disappearances of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, for which Alfredo Astiz (alias "Angel of Death") is also judged.

1 1970s
2 Placintara document
3 French cooperation?
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] 1970s

Two weeks before the March 24, 1976 coup, Luis Maria Mendia gathered naval officers on March 10, under the orders of General and head of military forces Eduardo Massera, to prepare the repression against so-called "subversive delinquants." On March 24, day of the coup, he held another reunion, where he theorized the tactics used during the so-called "Dirty War," including the use of torture and of death flights. He also theorized the thief of babies, retained from their mothers and given to military families ^[2]. Mendia was known as "The Christian," as he liked to say to his colleagues: "Struggle against everything which is against Occidental civilization and the Church" ^[1] ^[3]

[edit] Placintara document

Sharing the same lawyer as Alfredo Astiz, Luis Maria Mendia was questionned by judges in 2007 concerning the ESMA cause. ESMA was one of the most important torture center of Jorge Rafael Videla's junta. During his testimony, he talked about the "Plan de Capacidades" (Placintara), a document signed by him and for which he took responsibility, that organized the illegal repression legitimized by the junta under the name of "Dirty War," in particular the "death flights" (openly stating: "physical elimination by using planes which, in flight, would throw out the prisoners drugged beforehand" The Placintara document was possible because of Isabel Perón's "anti-subversion decrees" signed before her overthrow in 1976 by Videla. Luis Maria Mendia's point was to show that the repression had started well before Videla's coup.

Critics accused him of trying to legitimize the military "National Reorganization Process" junta, as already done during the 1985 Juicio a las Juntas. Maria Mendia claimed that "Act 20840 [by Isabel Peron's government] and decrees then dictated appears to have served, according to my judgment, as legalization of the actions" carried out. "The military forces, the security and police forces did not invent anythong on March 24, 1976 [date of the coup], nor after this date," did he declare ^[4]. His juridical strategy thus clearly appeared to be in claiming that the crimes committed were in fact covered by a de jure government, which is hotly contested by human rights supporters.

Luis Maria Mendia insisted on responsibilities before the 1976 coup, citing the names of two desaparecidos kidnapped before the coup: Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego, for which Isabel Perón has been arrested start of 2007, and of French citizen Maurice Jeaguer. But he remained silent on the "death flights." ^[5]

[edit] French cooperation?

Luis Maria Mendia testified in January 2007, before the Argentine judges, that a French intelligence "agent," Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the abduction of the two French nuns. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction, but did admit being a former member of the OAS, and having escaped for Argentina after the March 1962 Evian Accords putting an end to the Algerian War (1954-62). French intelligence agents have long been suspected of having trained their Argentine counterparts in "counter-insurgency" technics (involving massive use of torture, as experimented during the Algerian War). Referring to Marie Monique Robin's film documentary titled The Death Squads - the French School (Les escadrons de la mort - l'école française), which demonstrated that the French intelligence services had trained Argentine counterparts in counter-insurgency technics, Luis Maria Mendia asked before the Argentine Court that former French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, former French premier Pierre Messmer, former French embassador to Buenos Aires Françoise de la Gosse, and all officials in place in the French embassy in Buenos Aires between 1976 and 1983 be convoked before the court ^[6]. Besides this "French connection," he has also charged former head of state Isabel Peron and former ministers Carlos Ruckauf and Antonio Cafiero, whom had signed the "anti-subversion decrees" before Videla's 1976 coup d'état. According to ESMA survivor Graciela Dalo, this is another tactic which pretends that these crimes were legitimate as the 1987 Obediencia Debida Act claimed them to be and that they also obeyed to Isabel Peron's "anti-subversion decrees" (which, if true, would give them a formal appearance of legality, despite torture being forbidden by the Argentine Constitution) ^[7]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Ex represor asume su responsabilidad por abusos en la dictadura argentina, La Jornada, February 2, 2007 (Spanish)
^ For this subsection, see Auto de procesamiento y detención del Almte Luis Eduardo Massera y nueve más, done in Madrid on October 10, 1997, by magistrate Baltasar Garzon (on Equipo Nizkor's website) (Spanish)
^ Telam news cable, February 2, 2007 1:55: Mendía admitió haber planeado la represión ilegal y reivindicó el "heroísmo" de sus hombres (Spanish)
^ "Para que quede claro", agregó, la ley 20840 y los decretos dictados entonces "parecieron haber servido -a mi juicio- como legalización del accionar que hasta la sanción de los mismos se venía desarrollando". Las Fuerzas Armadas "nada inventaron el día 24 de marzo de 1976, ni con posterioridad a dicha fecha" y "simplemente" aplicaron "a rajatabla la legislación vigente, dictada por un gobierno ’de jure’", sostuvo." quoted by Telam news cable, February 2, 2007 1:55: Mendía admitió haber planeado la represión ilegal y reivindicó el "heroísmo" de sus hombres (Spanish)
^ Las Fuerzas Armadas, fuerzas de seguridad y policiales nada inventaron el día 24 de marzo de 1976 ni con posterioridad a esa fecha “Impartí órdenes que fueron cumplidas”, Página/12, February 2, 2007 (Spanish)
^ Disparitions : un ancien agent français mis en cause, Le Figaro, February 6, 2007 (French)
^ “Impartí órdenes que fueron cumplidas”, Página/12, February 2, 2007 (Spanish)