[Marine LCdr Astiz commanded the Argentine unit on S Georgia Island in
the 1982 Falkland Islands War. (Argentine marine officers use naval
ranks.) The Argentine junta may have stationed him there to make him a
national hero: a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The British knew his past
but released him as a military POW.]

Former officer unapologetic for acts during Argentina’s Dirty War

Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (January 15, 1998 6:25 p.m. EST
http://www.nando.net) — A notorious former Navy commander said he is
unrepentant for his role in pursuing leftists — thousands of whom were
killed — during Argentina’s “Dirty War” on political dissidents, a
magazine reported Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Alfredo Astiz, who has been accused of contributing to the
deaths of two French nuns and an Argentine-Swedish teen-ager, became a
symbol of repression during the military dictatorship that ruled
Argentina after a 1976 coup until 1983.

“I am not sorry for anything,” Astiz was quoted as saying in his first
interview, given to the weekly center-left political magazine
Trespuntos.

“The navy taught me to destroy, to plant bombs, to infiltrate and to
kill,” he said.

Astiz, 47, admitted in the interview that political prisoners were
summarily executed during the Dirty War.

He noted that leftist guerrillas captured by security forces in 1973 had
been pardoned and freed. “We couldn’t risk that happening again,” he
said. “There was no other way.”

In 1983, a government commission determined that approximately 9,000
people were arrested or kidnapped and subsequently disappeared during
the Dirty War.

Asked how many he had killed personally, Astiz replied, “Never ask a
military officer that question.” He denied that he tortured prisoners
“because it wasn’t my job, but I would have done so if had been ordered
to do so.”

Convicted and sentenced to life in prison in absentia by a French court
in the 1977 murders of nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, Astiz retired
from the navy in 1996 amid French government pressure.

Astiz was among lower- and middle-ranking officers granted immunity from
prosecution in 1987 for human rights abuses during the Dirty War.

Half a dozen high-ranking officers, including two former presidents,
were convicted of murder and torture in 1983 and were sentenced to
prison. President Carlos Menem pardoned them in 1990.

Interior Minister Carlos Corach described the comments attributed to
Astiz as “terrifying” and said he would ask Argentina’s attorney general
to determine whether charges could be brought based on the interview.

Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Carlos Marron ordered Astiz confined to a naval
base for 60 days. Authorities described it as a “disciplinary measure”
after Menem ordered “maximum sanctions” imposed on Astiz.

Astiz denied that he participated in the kidnapping of Argentine-Swedish
teen-ager Dagmar Hagelin, who vanished in 1977. He said he knew who was
responsible, but declined to identify the person.

The girl’s father, Ragnar Hagelin, told a radio station that he was
“amazed” by those comments. “Astiz is a coward, a liar and is crazy
because he has been rejected by society,” he said in a telephone call
from Sweden.

Astiz has been accosted several times in public by individuals who have
insulted him and criticized his role during the dictatorship.

In the magazine interview, Astiz described Army Chief of Staff Martin
Balsa as a “cretin” for having said publicly that military officers
should have refused to follow illegal orders to torture and kill.

“The armed forces couldn’t exist if they did that,” he said.

By WILLIAM HEATH, The Associated Press