A Bloody Triangle: Police Suspected in Ex-Torture Victim’s Recent Disappearance in Argentina

No one has seen or heard from Julio Lopez since September 18. Many believe he is dead, or worse.

On September 19, in La Plata, Argentina, Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz, former Director of Investigations of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the country’s 1976-1983 dictatorship, was convicted of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

Etchecolatz is best-known for his coordinating of the torture and murder of seven high school students in September 1976, in what became known as the "Night of the Pencils." The students were targeted for leading protests against school budget cuts.

Julio Lopez, a 76 year-old bricklayer, was one of many witnesses to testify against Etchecolatz. On the morning of September 18, just hours before Lopez was slated to continue his testimony in court against the former-Director of Investigations, Lopez’s son found his father missing from their small house in La Plata. Accompanied by Nilda Eloy, a friend of Lopez’s who was kidnapped and tortured in the 1970s and is a member of the Association of the Ex-Disappeared, Lopez’s son went searching for his elderly father in their neighborhood and local hospitals. No trace of Lopez was found anywhere. "He was just gone, vanished," Eloy recounts.

September 18 was not the first time Julio Lopez has gone missing. On October 26, 1976, the year that inaugurated the military dictatorship that would rule Argentina until 1983, he was kidnapped in La Plata by military security forces for his Peronist politics and association with the leftist guerilla group the Monteneros. In captivity from 1976 to 1981, Lopez was held at two detention centers, the "Pozo de Arana," and the 5th Police State, where he was frequently tortured. In his testimony during the recent trial, Lopez explained how Etchecolatz, who as Director of Investigations was officially responsible for the supervision of detainees, would oversee torture sessions and personally beat prisoners until unconscious, Lopez included. Testimonies such as Lopez’ were key to Etchecolatz’s conviction.

After his release from detention, Lopez considered him self lucky to be alive. Between 1976 and 1983, a total of 30,000 Argentine citizens were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the ruling military junta. Since the country’s return to democratic rule in 1983, Etchecolatz is only the second person to be tried and convicted for crimes committed during this era—the first conviction took place twenty years ago, in 1976, with the sentencing of Julio Simon, aka "Julian the Turk," to twenty-five years for similar charges of kidnapping and murder. Two laws, the Full-Stop and Due Obedience rulings, passed in 1986 and 1987 respectively, seriously hindered previous efforts to prosecute ex-dictatorship members; these two laws were overturned by the national Senate in June 2005. Etchecolatz is the first person to be prosecuted since the 2005 ruling, and the first ex-junta member ever to have his past actions officially characterized, as Judge Carlos Rozanski said during Etchecolatz’s sentencing, as "crimes against humanity in the mark of genocide," part of a larger plan by the dictatorship of systematic extermination under the auspices of state terrorism.

Many observers see Etchecolatz’s conviction for crimes of genocide, and his sentencing to life in prison, as powerful symbols that the years of impunity for ex-junta members are over. The day after the conviction, independent media source Argentina Indymedia wrote, "this ruling sets a precedent that could change the course of all future trials against the crimes and criminals of the dictatorship."

It is widely believed that Lopez’s September 18 disappearance is the result of an immediate backlash against this precedent, and against efforts to punish ex-dictatorship members. During the trial, many of the one-hundred witnesses testifying against Etchecolatz received repeated death threats. In the past, human rights organizations such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of mothers of disappeared children who have fought uncompromisingly to expose their children’s murderers, have been subjected to death threats, beatings, and kidnappings. As Hebe Bonafini of the Mothers has said, "there is an organized campaign of threats against those who seek to bring the military regime’s leaders to trial."

Just who is responsible for these threats—and for Lopez’s disappearance—remains unknown. "The problem is," Nilda Eloy explains, "is that there are thousands of ex-torturers and repressors free and unpunished in Argentina today. We don’t have information about how many of them are still active. It could have been any one of them that kidnapped Julio."

Many Argentines believe the Buenos Aires Provincial Police are responsible for Lopez’s disappearance. Guadalupe Godoy, Lopez’s lawyer during the Etchecolatz case and member of the League for the Rights of Man, explains that "while unfortunately there is no evidence indicating who is responsible for Lopez’ kidnapping, all signs point to the Provincial Police."

Godoy and others think it is highly likely Etchecolatz has remaining loyalties within the police force which he ran during the dictatorship. It has also been alleged that he has connections to neo-Nazi groups associated with the Provincial Police.

Further, it is believed to be possible that the Provincial Police may have targeted Lopez not only out of old loyalties, but also self-interest: until September 26 of this year, when they were dismissed to save face after allegations of Provincial Police involvement in Lopez’s disappearance, there remained in active service seventy Provincial police officers who had worked, directly or indirectly, under Etchecolatz during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Critics point out that these officers could see their former boss’s conviction as opening the possibility of their own prosecution. Following this logic, Lopez’s disappearance could be intended to intimidate future witnesses and prosecution efforts.

While allegations of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police’s involvement in Lopez’s disappearance remain speculative, at the very least, it appears they have violently supported Etchecolatz in the past. During a September 9, 1998 protest demanding Etchecolatz be punished for his role in the "Night of the Pencils," Federal Police attacked the crowd and followed the fleeing protestors to a nearby University, where, prevented from entering by Argentine law, they bombarded the building with teargas.

Despite the tentative connections linking Etchecolatz, the Provincial Police, and Lopez in a sordid and bloody triangle, some detractors doubt Lopez has been kidnapped at all. They claim it is equally possible he has gone into hiding, or even committed suicide as a result of emotional trauma brought on by testifying. Lopez’s family members reject both scenarios as highly improbable.

On September 28, 20,000 people rallied in Buenos Aires to demand Lopez be returned alive. The government is offering $64,000 (US) for information as to his whereabouts. Nonetheless, many of Lopez’s supporters are critical of the government effort. "The government will not say if they are or are not investigating the Provincial Police," says Godoy. "I take this to mean they aren’t. It seems clear that the government is searching for a body, but not those responsible."

Those hoping for Lopez’s safe return fear the worst. On September 20, only two days after Lopez went missing, a body was found under a bridge in La Plata, the town from which Lopez disappeared. The body was riddled with bullet holes, and burned so badly investigators have yet to be able to identify it.

If Lopez has in fact been kidnapped by forces associated with Etchecolatz or the military dictatorship, as many in Argentina believe, it seems unlikely the September 28 marchers will get there demand. What are the chances, Eloy worries, of being disappeared twice and surviving both times?

Wes Enzinna is an independent journalist currently living in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Comments are welcomed at wes_enzinna@hotmail.com. Photo from Argentina.indymedia.org