February 27, 2018 ·
Weekly homage in the center of Cordoba to those disappeared. Photo Bill Hackwell
Luciano Menendez, former Argentine head of the Third Army Corps has died in a hospital in the city of Córdoba; he was 90 years old. He leaves behind a legacy of disappearances, murders, kidnappings, tortures, rapes and the theft of babies. Menendez died while serving 12 life sentences for crimes against humanity during Argentina’s military dictatorship of the 1970’s.
During that bloody period Menéndez was the highest authority in Córdoba and was responsible for the repression in Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, Mendoza, San Luis, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán. As chief repressor, Menéndez was in charge of one of four areas that the dictatorship divided the country into for its plans of extermination. He managed ten Argentine provinces creating a systematic plan of kidnappings, torture, the appropriation of babies and disappearances that were demonstrated in each of his trials beginning in 2008.
Under the nicknames of “Puppy”, “Jackal” or “Hyena”, he commanded the 3rd Army Corps between 1975 and 1979 and under his command was the notorious Intelligence Detachment 141 General Iribarren, which operated out of the clandestine La Perla detention center where it is estimated that 2500 detainees passed through.
Menéndez used to visit La Perla to witness the shootings at the edge of the pits. According to testimonies from the few survivors, he also appeared during interrogations and tortures. Menendez also created a “Pact of Blood” by making those officers under him participate in the kidnappings and shootings to ensure that in the future they would not turn on him.
After the return of democracy, Menendez managed to evade several cases against him covered by the laws of impunity. In 1990, a few days after one trial was about to began against him he received a pardon from then President Carlos Menem. The peculiarity was that the presidential pardon failed to comply with the constitution by pardoning a person who had not yet received any convictions.
In 2005 the Supreme Court declared Menem’s pardon unconstitutional and in 2008 the Menendez received his first sentence for crimes against humanity and was sentenced to life in common prison for kidnapping, torturing and killing four members of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) in 1977 who were detained in La Perla.
On various occasions when he spoke during his trials, Menéndez dedicated his time to defending state terrorism with a passion. “Our enemies were Marxist terrorists. We never persecuted anyone for their political ideas,” he said before being sentenced to life along with the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in 2010 for the execution of political prisoners in the Córdoba.
A revealing interview
In 1990 Mario Pereyra, newscaster of the most listened to radio station in Cordoba, was able to interview Menendez on his weekly news program, “What a Sunday.”
It was one of the most outrageous interviews of any of the hierarchy of the dictatorship made public. Menéndez, who at the time had not yet been convicted, had just been pardoned by Carlos Menem, in October 1989. It was also a measure that was about to be extended to all the commanders sentenced in the trial of the military junta who were still in military prison.
At the beginning of the dialogue, Pereyra presented his guest as “a controversial man, in our province, at the national and perhaps even the international level.” Once seated in front of this master of genocide, whom he addressed as “Dear General,” he acknowledged that “some tell me that in front of you I should be serious, almost angry, and others think I should be with a smile.”
In a condescending tone, Pereyra allowed the repressor to talk about “the Marxist aggression” which he said wanted to turn Argentina into “a communist country.” Pretending to be brave, Menéndez said that “the armed forces acted without any hesitancy, using all their weapons to achieve victory.”
Questioned by Pereyra about the situation of junta members Jorge Videla, Eduardo Massera and Orlando Ramón Agosti, he responded that, “it is a deep pain that my commanders are imprisoned for having defeated the subversion”. He went on to criticize the trials that took place during the Alfonsin presidency for interrupting the laws of impunity. “No country judges its victorious military,” he added.
Pushed about repentance, Menendez did not hesitate to say that “one must not repent to achieve victory for the homeland.” He denied that the military of the so-called “process of national reorganization” would have wanted to eternalize their power if it wasn’t because they were defeated in the Malvinas war.
Finally, and in the face of the interviewer’s complacency, he claimed that then president, Carlos Menem, would “stop the aggression we suffered”, although he warned that “when he lets the commanders go free and raises their budget I can then say that the aggression will have finally ceased. “Menem applies the National Constitution, Alfonsín violated it systematically,” he said.
After Menendez’s death, the organization of H.I.J.O.S. (grandchildren of the disappeared) released the following statement.
DEATH HAS DIED: Luciano Benjamin Menéndez died today at 11:20a. Unlike his victims, the time and the place of his death are known and his family can say goodbye. He came to be sentenced with common prisoners to a perpetual and effective prison term, the only place for a genocidal assassin. Today we say to the 30,000; PRESENTE!
Source: Resumen Lationoamericano, translation Resumen Latinoamerican North America Bureau