GUESS WHAT – NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY – (AT LEAST IN ARGENTINA) — A LESSON FOR US (BUSH/CHENEY!)

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I’ll make this easy on myself and lift the following text right out of today’s blog entry from http://www.truthout.org.  It seems that Argentina’s dirty war victims (1976-1979) are at last getting some “justice.”  The following are excerpts from http://www.truthout.org (Nov. 28, 2009).

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“Buenos Aires, Argentina – In July 1977, when Ana Maria Careaga was just sixteen years old, she was kidnapped off a major intersection in Buenos Aires by forces from Argentina’s last dictatorship. She was taken to what she later found out was “Club Atletico,” a torture center and secret prison in a federal police station just blocks from the bustling downtown. According to court documents, for three and a half months, she was savagely tortured – beaten, hung by her wrists and ankles, and electrocuted. According to Careaga’s testimony in court documents, her guards continued to beat her even after she told them she was pregnant.”

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“On Tuesday, November 24, more than 33 years after the dictatorship took power and forcibly disappeared between 9,000 and 30,000 citizens like Careaga in Argentina’s “Dirty War,” 15 defendants accused of operating the Atletico and two other secret prisons appeared in court.”

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“The Atletico case is the latest in a wave of actions against the last dictatorship since Argentina’s Congress repealed a series of amnesty laws in 2003. The laws had shielded officials of the dictatorship from prosecution. Since the amnesty laws were repealed, however, it has taken prosecutors and judges years to move forward with cases, as they stall in the pretrial phase.”

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“The defendants, mostly retired police officials, have been charged on an array of counts against 181 victims, including kidnapping, torture and murder. All of the crimes took place between 1976 and 1979, the most repressive period during the dictatorship’s rule, which lasted until 1983.”

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“Careaga is still also frustrated by the investigation into Argentina’s Naval Mechanic’s School, or the ESMA, Argentina’s largest clandestine center, where it is estimated that as many as 5,000 people were killed.”

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“During Ana Maria’s detention, her mother Esther began to work with a group of women, known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, to help find Ana Maria and other disappeared children. Though Ana Maria was released in September 1977, Esther continued to work with the mothers. In December, Esther was herself kidnapped with two other mothers and taken to Argentina’s ESMA. She has not been seen since.”

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The point of all this is really very simple.  Never, ever let anyone tell you that it’s “too late” to convict Bush and Cheney and their cronies of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.  If Argentina can wait 33 years to bring government criminals to justice then I’ll be Goddamned if I’ll accept anything less than the same treatment be meted out to the “Bush Crime Family”.

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Amen, brothers!

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Pete/Marin

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