The comptroller of the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), Cristina Caamaño, and human rights organizations agreed to highlight the importance of knowing the role that the intelligence services had during the civic-military dictatorship, by celebrating the approval of a Requirement Guide of Information to the exSide, aimed at collaborating in trials for crimes against humanity.
In an interview with Télam, Caamaño said that “one of the mandates of President Alberto Fernández -at the time of the AFI’s intervention- was to provide all available information to the Memory, Truth and Justice process.”
“Cleaning up the basements of democracy not only meant stopping the illegal practices that were recently committed, but also moving forward in reconstructing (how was) the role of the intelligence services in the systematic plan of kidnapping, torture, disappearance and theft of identities of children born in captivity,” the official remarked.
“Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández left as a legacy profound reforms in terms of civil control of the Armed Forces and federal Security forces”Cristina Caamano
At this point, he added that “we know that judicial processes for these crimes usually encounter a black hole when former intelligence agents appear.”
The “Requirements Guide of the Nation’s Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor’s Office on the Ex-SIDE Documentary Fund” -published on Friday in the Official Gazette- “seeks to build a bridge with the operators of the justice administration service to facilitate the requests that arrive weekly and that our specialized team responds to,” added Caamaño.
“Not only does it have the contribution of our people, but we put it into consideration of the Nation’s Human Rights Secretariat and human rights organizations, who play a fundamental role in cases of crimes related to State terrorism” Caamaño said of the guide.
“Alberto Fernández came to complete the task by cleaning up the basements of democracy, embodied in the intelligence services”Cristina Caamano
The AFI intervener recalled that the former presidents “Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández left as a legacy profound reforms in terms of civil control of the Armed Forces and federal Security forces” and that “Alberto Fernández came to complete the task with the cleaning up of the cellars of democracy, embodied in the intelligence services”.
Caamaño explained that “this Guide is the product of the work on the files produced by the Ex-SIDE during State terrorism, which we began as soon as we assumed the Intervention ordered by the President of the Nation, Alberto Fernández.”
“Basically, we realized that the federal courts and oral tribunals that requested information from us for judicial proceedings for crimes against humanity did not have the information on what type of documentation and what search criteria we have available to make the processes more efficient. requests and responses,” said the official.
Similarly, the preparation of this Guide was celebrated by human rights organizations that participate in the “Joint Table on Intelligence Documentation linked to Human Rights violations” such as the Argentine League for Human Rights.
“Caamaño’s intervention has interrupted a series of perverse logics of espionage and persecution and has also brought to light some of the files that were recoveredJosé Schulman-President of the Argentine League for Human Rights.
Its president, José Schulman, told Télam that “the intervention of the AFI has been without a doubt the most important contribution of the government of President Alberto Fernández to the fight against the basements and sewers of democracy.”
“Caamaño’s intervention has interrupted a series of perverse logics of espionage and persecution and has also brought to light some of the files that were recovered. A very small part of what the AFI collected for decades, but that small part is not only illustrative of what there was but of colossal importance,” he added.
In this point, Schulman recalled that “in December 2020, the President and the Comptroller gave each agency a collection of documents. As an institution that dates back to 1937, we had a very large collection of documents, a huge number of documents that were returned to us.”
“They were documents that the agency had collected from the league’s activity for years. Then meetings were held in which we participated and an effective use of the documentation that appears to provide evidence in the cases of trials and investigations for the crimes was agreed. of genocide that we believe could be very important,” he said.
“This guide is a tool that advances in the direction of greater accessibility to the intelligence archives of the Argentine State”Sol Hourcade-Coordinator of Memory, Truth and Justice of CELS
From the Center for Legal and Social Studies (Cels), Sol Hourcade, who coordinates the area of Memory, Truth and Justice, told this agency that “this guide is a tool that advances in the sense of greater accessibility to the archives of intelligence of the Argentine State”.
“Throughout the development of the process of Memory, Truth and Justice we have been able to verify the role of intelligence in the repression. We verified the central role played by the former SIDE -which since 1975 had been under the operational control of the Army- that acted in jointly with the Armed and Security Forces in the persecution of political opponents, and the civilian population in general, outside and inside the clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers,” he specified.
In addition, he added that “the SIDE, for example, was in charge of the clandestine center known as Automotores Orletti and there have already been several trials in which some of its organic and inorganic agents were investigated.
Hourcade pointed out that from Cels they hope that “access to the archive can provide significant information to what has already been learned from the testimonies of survivors and relatives of the victims, who never stopped searching for information.”
“The SIDE, for example, was in charge of the clandestine center known as Automotores Orletti and there have already been several trials in which some of its organic and inorganic agents were investigated.”Sol Hourcade-Coordinator of Memory, Truth and Justice of CELS
This guide presents “general and specific recommendations” on how information should be requested from the AFI.
General recommendations include “make the requests as detailed as possible, provide background information, and if possible include information on the procedural object of the case, since it would allow broader and more exhaustive searches.”
Specific recommendations include issues related to “the defendants, and the victims as well as organizations and other individuals.”
The recommendations were made under “of a survey carried out on the trades answered during the years 2020 and 2021 where some difficulties were detected when addressing the requirements”, as detailed in the regulations published in the Official Gazette.
On the other hand, the resolution indicates that the documentation surveyed to date has information from different areas of the AFI, and covers the period 1940-1985.
