Death Flights During The Dirty War in Argentina
According to the testimony of Adolfo Scilingo, convicted in Spain of crimes against humanity under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction in 2005, there were 180-200 death flights in the years 1977 and 1978; Scilingo confessed to participating in two such flights, with 13 and 17 people killed respectively.
As an added twist, victims were sometimes made to dance for joy in celebration of the freedom that they were told awaited them. In an earlier interview, in 1996, Scilingo said, "They were played lively music and made to dance for joy, because they were going to be transferred to the south. After that, they were told they had to be vaccinated due to the transfer, and they were injected with Pentothal. And shortly after, they became really drowsy, and from there we loaded them onto trucks and headed off for the airfield."
Scilingo says that the Argentine Navy is "still hiding what happened during the dirty war". In May 2010, Spain extradited to Argentina pilot Julio Alberto Poch. Poch, who was born in 1952, had been arrested in Valencia, Spain, on September 23, 2009 and was wanted in Argentina for his alleged participation as a pilot on the death flights. In December 2010 an Argentinean judge dismissed all charges against Poch for lack of evidence and ordered his release pending further investigation. In November 2011 the investigating magistrate indicted Poch for his role in the disappearance of 41 people, and ordered him held without bail.
Read more about this topic: Death Flights
Famous quotes containing the words death, flights, dirty and/or war:
“Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.”
—Ambrose (c. 333–397)
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“All parents occasionally have ambivalent feelings toward their children. We love our kids, but there are times when we don’t really like them, or at least we can’t stand what our children are doing. But most of us keep those feelings to ourselves, as if it’s dirty little secret. It doesn’t fit in with our images of what we should do and feel as parents.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red:
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:—
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”
—Francis Miles Finch (1827–1907)