(23 Jul 2004)
July 23 2004
1. Exterior shot of Comodoro Py tribunals
2. Sign
3. Police outside building
4. Jorge Rafael Videla arriving at tribunal
FILE
Date Unknown
5. Black and white STILL of Videla as president
6. General Videla in palace ceremony
7. Back and White file of people being searched during General Videla's dictatorship
Recent
8. Demonstrations demanding news on the missing people "desaparecidos"
9. Demonstration by the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" with photos of people missing during the dictatorship in Argentina
STORYLINE:
Former Argentinian dictator Jorge Rafael Videla made a rare court appearance on Friday to give testimony at an ongoing trial into the possibility of a region-wide coordinated plan in South America, during the seventies and eighties, to eliminate political enemies.
But Videla, who led the military coup which ousted President Isabela Peron in 1976, refused to make a statement when he was brought before Federal Judge Jorge Urso at the Comodoro Py courthouse in Buenos Aires.
Videla was the first of four generals to hold power during the country's military dictatorship.
It's claimed that the so called "Plan Condor" was formed by the military regimes that ruled Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay two decades ago.
Human rights groups say it involved joint operations and the exchange of information among the regimes which led to the kidnapping, arrest, torture and assassination of leftists other freedom-fighters in the six countries.
Those arrested were often returned to their country of origin without having recourse to a legal extradition process, and human rights groups claim many often then disappeared.
Jorge Videla was indicted in 2001 on charges he conspired with other South American military leaders to hunt down dissidents as part of the ongoing case.
For the past three years Videla has been under house arrest in Argentina, but has been protected by two Menem-era laws that made trying members of the military dictatorship virtually impossible.
Those laws were repealed last year.
The new legislation and the continuation of court hearings may give hope to the ageing mothers of the victims, who still circle the Plaza de Mayo each week demanding justice.
They have marched every Thursday since 1977, when they began challenging the dictatorship they blame for taking their children away.
Government officials say more than nine thousand people disappeared during the country's "dirty war" from 1976-83, but human Rights groups claim the figure is nearer 30 thousand.
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