RIGHTS-ARGENTINA:
Priest’s Life Sentence
Draws Widespread Praise
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, (IPS)
- The life sentence
handed down to former
police chaplain
Christian Von Wernich, a
symbol of the Argentine
Catholic Church’s
complicity with the
1976-1983 military
dictatorship, was
described Wednesday by
Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner as "a
good example for the
world."
"There are still certain
factions that have some
power…but the verdict
was an achievement in
the administration of
justice and is a great
defeat for those
sectors," said Kirchner.
The spokesman for
Argentina’s bishops’
conference, Father Jorge
Oesterheld, said
Wednesday that "we
Catholics hope that Von
Wernich will repent and
ask for forgiveness."
After a three month
trial in which more than
60 witnesses testified,
a court in La Plata, the
capital of the province
of Buenos Aires, found
the 69-year-old priest
guilty late Tuesday of
being an accomplice to
murder, torture and
kidnapping.
Survivors, the families
of victims and members
of human rights groups
burst out in applause
and cheers when Judge
Carlos Rozanski, who
presided over the court,
described Von Wernich’s
crimes as "crimes
against humanity
committed within the
context of the genocide
that took place between
1976 and 1983."
Human rights groups
estimate that some
30,000 people were
forcibly disappeared
during the seven-year
dictatorship.
The trial, which took
place three decades
after the crimes in
question were committed,
was the first against a
clergyman accused of
genocide, and exposed
the Church hierarchy’s
support for the regime’s
"dirty war" against
leftists, trade
unionists and others
deemed "subversive."
Although many priests,
nuns, Catholic lay
workers and even bishops
were among the regime’s
victims, the Church
hierarchy had close ties
to the dictatorship.
Tati Almeyda, a member
of the Mothers of Plaza
de Mayo Founding Line,
celebrated the verdict
and said it also
"brought to justice a
Church that was an
accomplice, which 30
years on has not yet
acknowledged the
atrocities committed."
"We did not think we
would live to see this,"
she added, visibly
moved.
Shortly after the ruling
was handed down, the
Argentine bishops’
conference said it was
"pained by the
participation of a
priest in these
extremely grave crimes,
according to the
sentence."
"We believe that the
steps taken by the
justice system in
clarifying these events
must serve to renew the
efforts of all citizens
towards reconciliation,
and are a call to
distance ourselves not
only from impunity but
from hatred and rancour
as well," said the
statement, signed by the
president of the
bishops’ conference,
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio
of Buenos Aires.
He also said that any
Catholic who
participated in the
"dirty war" "did so on
his own responsibility,
erring and sinning
gravely against God,
against mankind, and
against his own
conscience."
Von Wernich’s superior,
Bishop Martín Elizalde,
who has the
responsibility to decide
whether or not to
defrock the priest,
merely stated Wednesday
that "we are praying for
him, for God to assist
him and to grant him the
necessary grace to
comprehend and repair
the damages caused."
The statement, which
made no mention of
sanctions for the
priest, apologised for
the fact that "a priest,
by action or omission,
was so far from the
requirements of the
mission commended to
him."
Von Wernich’s defence
attorneys had argued
that there was "more
doubt than certainty" as
to his shared
responsibility in human
rights violations.
The priest, meanwhile,
gave vague testimony
that evaded the
underlying question of
his involvement. He said
"a false witness is the
devil, impregnated with
malice," and that "if we
want to arrive at the
truth, we must do so in
peace."
As chaplain for the
notorious Buenos Aires
provincial police,
headed by then police
chief Ramón Camps, Von
Wernich held the rank of
inspector and frequently
visited the regime’s
secret torture camps,
encouraging political
prisoners to provide
information in order to
avoid being tortured.
One of his victims was
journalist Jacobo
Timerman, the founder of
the newspaper La Opinión,
which was shut down by
the dictatorship. His
son, Argentina’s current
consul in New York,
Héctor Timerman,
testified that his
father remembered seeing
the priest standing next
to Camps while he was
being tortured.
The former chaplain was
also accused as an
accomplice in the
murders of seven members
of the Peronist
guerrilla organisation
Montoneros, which was
active in the 1970s.
According to several
witnesses, Von Wernich
asked the victims’
families for money in
exchange for a promise
that he would get their
loved ones out of the
country. Families of at
least three victims said
they gave him 1,500
dollars.
But police officer Julio
Emmed told the National
Commission on the
Disappearance of Persons
in 1984 that the
chaplain personally
witnessed the murder of
three of the seven
victims.
Lawyer Marta Vedio with
the Permanent Assembly
for Human Rights told
IPS that she was pleased
with the verdict. "We
were confident that the
court would find Von
Wernich guilty of the
seven murders" for which
he was convicted, she
said.
In the trial, Vedio
represented Mercedes
Molina, the daughter of
Ricardo Molina and
Liliana Galarza. Her
father, who had been
held in the provincial
police investigation
unit, one of the
clandestine prisons
visited by Von Wernich,
testified in the trial.
When Galarza was
abducted, she was four
months pregnant. She
gave birth to Mercedes
in captivity in 1976.
The baby was baptised by
Von Wernich, as he
himself admitted and as
the baptism certificate
shows. She was then
handed over to her
grandparents.
Survivor Luis Velazco
testified during the
trial that when one
desperate torture victim
begged the priest
"Father, please, I don't
want to die," Von
Wernich responded "Son,
the lives of the men who
are here depend on the
will of God and the
cooperation that you can
offer. If you want to
stay alive, you know
what you have to do."
Velazco also said the
priest told other
torture victims that
"pain is a way of
redeeming the evil
within oneself."
Expert witnesses
included 1980 Nobel
Peace Prize-winner
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
and former Jesuit priest
Ruben Dri, a theologian
and philosopher who was
one of the founders of
the Third World Priests
Movement in the late
1960s.
Pérez Esquivel said that
on various occasions he
notified the Church
leadership of the
atrocities that were
being committed during
the dictatorship, but
said he never received
any response.
"With honourable
exceptions, the Church
was the accomplice of
the military," he told
IPS.
In his book "The
Silence", Argentine
journalist Horacio
Verbitsky revealed that
in 1976, two months
after the coup, the
Argentine bishops’
conference met to
deliberate, and a small
group of bishops said
they were aware of cases
of kidnapping, torture
and murder.
But when a vote was
held, only 19 bishops
voted in favour of
publicly speaking out
against the human rights
crimes while 38 opted
for silence.
Verbitsky, who has
written other books on
the ties between the
Catholic Church and the
regime, argued that
unlike in other
countries of Latin
America, the Church in
Argentina has
traditionally identified
itself with the elites.
Von Wernich’s trial was
the third human rights
trial held this year.
In 2005, the Supreme
Court declared the two
amnesty laws approved in
the mid-1980s
unconstitutional, thus
allowing the prosecution
of human rights
violators to be
reopened.
In the first trial,
former police officer
Julio Simón was
sentenced to 25 years in
prison in connection
with a case of forced
disappearance, and in
the second, former
Buenos Aires police
chief Miguel Etchecolatz
became the first to be
convicted of genocide.
But during Etchecolatz’s
trial last year, a
former torture victim
Jorge Julio López, the
key witness,
disappeared.
President Kirchner
referred to López when
mentioning the lingering
influence of "certain
factions." |
