Milei and Petri close military archives area and fire their professionals

As part of the thousands of layoffs which, until now, was carried out in the national State by the government of Javier Mileythere are some areas and offices that were directly emptied and are in serious danger of being dismantled. The closure of some of these agencies, in addition to entering into the general plan of personnel and budget cuts, means the elimination of very sensitive tasks for the development of judicial processes.

This is the case of the virtual dismantling of the Survey and Analysis Teams (ERyA) documentary that, for a decade and a half, have been operating in the field of Armed forces. A fact that threatens the development of trials for crimes against humanity that are carried out throughout the country. Not only is there a “chainsaw” for supposed tax reasons, but also there is a conscious political decision to attack the process of memory, truth and justice that survivors, relatives of genocide victims and human rights organizations have been leading for years.

Until a few days ago, the ERyA that functioned under the orbit of the Ministry of Defense were composed of thirteen workers. During its operation they came to develop more than 170 reports that became irrefutable evidence for important causes in which several genocidaires were convicted of kidnapping, torturing, raping, stealing girls and boys, killing, disappearing and committing all types of crimes against our 30 thousand disappeared detained companions. Of those thirteen members of the ERyA, ten were fired at the stroke of a pen.

Closing these offices is the intention of the reactionary Minister of Defense Luis Petriwho just paid homage next to the president mercy to the United States ambassador Marc Stanley and the general of the Yankee Southern Command Laura Richardson. As you know, The United States was a great promoter of all Argentine and Latin American dictatorships. the same Petriwithin the framework of the commemoration of March 24, accompanied the official story that the Armed Forces were little less than victims during the 70s and not what they really were: a genocidal machinery at the service of big capital.

“They are doing great damage”

This Friday, in the Buenos Aires Legislature, the workers fired from the ERyA They held a press conference to report their situation, demand their reinstatement and amplify their complaint in search of solidarity and support. It is worth remembering that the precarious situation of those jobswith repeatedly renewed term contracts without transfer to a permanent plant, it is inherited from all governments previous and allowed today Freedom Advances carry out this brutal attack against thousands of workers.

They participated in the press conference Alexandrina Barry y Victoria Montenegroboth daughters of disappeared people and legislators from CABA, the first of the PTS-FITU and the second of UxP. Also the lawyer Pablo Llonto. There was accompaniment from other relatives of the disappeared and human rights organizations. He also joined Erika Lederermember of the collective Disobedient Assembly made up of daughters and sons of genocidaires who fight for Memory, Truth and Justice. She has also just been fired from her job (in which she had been working for years) within the Ministry of Justice.

Representing the workers of the ERyA they took the floor Angelica Enz y Hernan Lopez. Vanina Agostinione of three people who were not fired for Petrialso spoke in solidarity with his colleagues.

When you speak, Enz stated that the layoffs of almost all the personnel of the ERyA They are “a clear manifestation that the area is disappearing”. In fact, “That’s what they told us”, he related. According to the estimates they make together with their colleagues, around thirty reports that were being prepared in the four offices coordinated for this purpose could not be sent to the different courts that requested them, complying with what is required by current regulations. “There are 30 open causes that will not receive these contributions” of historical and administrative archives, he graphed. Some of these causes have international relevance.

According to the information they have, from now on the requests from judges and prosecutors for causes against humanity will end up being answered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff itself of the Armed forces or directly through the hierarchies of the Armythe Armada and the Air Force. Something that Enz rated as “very serious”based on the fact that it would be the successors of the accused themselves who will decide what to report and what not (if they will report anything). “For more than ten years we have developed a very specific level of technical knowledge, which implies very great damage”he sentenced.

Your partner López He followed him in the use of the word. He said that, along with other workers, he had already been laid off in 2018 by the government of Mauricio Macri and his defense minister, Oscar “El Milico” Aguad. Years later he managed to be reinstated. “We are still assimilating the blow, but this is the first time in fifteen years that there will not be a civilian investigator within the Armed Forces”said the worker from the ERyA.

López supplemented the details given by Enz regarding the tasks carried out daily by the ERyA. And he ended by saying that “In this very difficult context we must be optimistic, I hope that we will resume our work, in whatever way possible”; and thanked them for the displays of solidarity and support in their fight.

For your part Augustineswho comes from coordinating the ERyA and today she is waiting to find out what plans the Government has for her and the other two “survivors”, she agreed with Enz y López about the relevance of the work they do and stated that their presence at the press conference was to “accompany all colleagues and to defend a public policy that we have carried out in the last fifteen years.”

“It is essential to open these files”

Before the workers of the ERyA the legislators had taken the floor Victoria Montenegro y Alexandrina Barry, conveners of the conference from the Buenos Aires Legislature. His colleagues were also in the room. Celeste Fierro (MST-FITU), Gabriel Solano (AFTER FIT), Andrés Lablunda, Delfina Velazquez y Victoria Freire (three of UxP).

“This occurs in the context in which the government requests reconciliation with the Armed Forces,” he said. Montenegro when opening the conference. “We want to denounce the emptying of a very sensitive area for the monitoring of trials. These workers They weren’t gnocchi of the State. “They are technical staff who worked every day to bring information to justice,” stated the person who presides over the Human rights commission of the Legislature.

Barryfor his part, related this attack on the team of archivists with other examples in which The State withholds information about the genocide in Argentina. Your personal case is one of those examples. “It’s very important make visible the defense of jobsthat there are no families left on the street, and here it is also important make visible the work that these colleagues do“he said as he took the microphone.

The legislator of PTS-FITU and reference of the Special Commission against Institutional Violence of the Legislature, recalled that a few weeks ago “there were rumors that the Government would grant pardons to the genocidaires”, but that it did not matter to them “in a country where we did the huge mobilization against 2×1” and where Thousands and thousands of us mobilized on March 24 To say that we are not going to take a step back”. In this framework, the Government “try to advance impunity with these things, in this way”he claimed.

For Barrythe files “are a fundamental material. For many years we have been demanding what the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo upon leaving the dictatorship, which was opening all those files”. And in that sense he remembered his own case, where that information was vital for the demand for truth and justice.

“It was recently known the sentence in the trial of the Brigades, in which I was a plaintiff for my parents and my uncles. The testimony of the survivors was fundamental, but the archives were also fundamental. For years we reported that the files were there and demanded their delivery. After a long time, it was only in 2013 that they gave us the files of the former SIDEwhere I discovered information that I only previously knew from survivors. How much would we have saved if the archives had been opened, preventing the survivors themselves from having to go to each trial to testify again and again?Barry wondered.

The daughter of the disappeared, who as a child was kidnapped at the hands of the genocidaires and the use of her image to tell a false story through magazines People, For you y Are from Atlantida Editorialsaid that during the Macri administration he again asked for more information about the files, but They only gave him “two pages”, demonstrating that “they have the power to do what they want. That is why the research work that these colleagues do is important.”

The same can be said of the archives of the former Investigations Directorate of the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires (the disastrous Dippba), which were discovered at the end of the 90s. “It was very important for trials against humanity but also about the violation of human rights during constitutional governments. In my case, I also found there, in addition to information about my parents, a file of mine from 1996, from when she was a member of HIJOS, where She was said to be a ‘subversive criminal’“, graphic Barry. And he ended by warning that “Those files cannot remain in the hands of those who are going to guarantee impunity”.

Lawyer Pablo Llonto reported that together with the doctor Mariana Maurer They filed a precautionary measure in the Federal Court 3 of the CABA, in charge of the judge Daniel Rafecasclaiming the reinstatement of the workers dismissed from the ERyAgiven that “They are the right people for the tasks they have performed. “This is the team that was formed to respond to justice and to the families.”. And he reported that “There is an intention to conceal, to continue hiding to benefit the genocidaires”.

Among the organizations present at the press conference were the Association of Former Disappeared Detainees, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Linehe Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)he Center of Professionals for Human Rights (CeProDHto which it belongs Barry), the Provincial Commission for Memoryhe Cachito Fukman Meeting, CALL, BADamong others.