Former executives implicated in the arrest of 24 factory workers in 1976
Three former Ford Motor Co. executives were charged yesterday with crimes against humanity committed in 1976 during the last military dictatorship. The executives were accused of targeting 24 union workers, who were then kidnapped by the task groups of Argentina’s last dictatorship.
Pedro Müller used to be the manufacturing manager in 1976. Guillermo Galarraga was the human resources chief and Héctor Francisco Jesús Sibilla was the security boss when the military coup occurred. All of them provided assistance in detaining workers of the Ford company, said judge Alicia Vence.
Judge Vence accused them of giving the names, the ID numbers, pictures and the home addresses to the military forces who hauled 24 employees off the factory floor in General Pacheco, Buenos Aires province. Most of the workers were kidnapped while they were working or arriving at the factory. Some of them were illegally arrested in their homes. All the detentions took park between March 24 and August 20 1976.
Their place of work became their place of detention. The workers were taken to the dining room which was located in a part of the compound called the “recreational centre.” In that place, a military camp was set up where the detainees were beaten, blindfolded and questioned. After some hours there, most of them were sent to police stations or military prisons which were part of the so-called Zone IV, the repressive circuit in the northern part of Buenos Aires province.
Vence believed Müller, Galarraga and Sibilla were responsible not only for targeting these workers but also for letting the military forces establish a clandestine detention centre at the back of the factory.
According to the magistrate, the Ford executives also benefited from those kidnappings. “The illegal detentions and the torments were used to indoctrinate the disobedient members of the union representatives,” she argued.
“The managers of this company combined their efforts with the leaders of the military regime. Müller, in his managing role and obviously advised by Galarraga and Sibilla, made an agreement with the Zone IV commander, Santiago Omar Riveros, who ordered his subordinates to detain certain employees who could put the factory productivity in danger,” the judge said.
She also described a meeting held on March 25, 1976 between Galarraga and some union leaders. Galarraga told the workers to forget any kind of labour complaints. When Juan Carlos Amoroso, one of the union leaders, complained, Galarraga replied: “Amoroso, give my regards to Camps.” Although Amoroso did not understand what the human resources executive meant, Ramón Camps was a well-known name in the repressive structure of the dictatorship. He was the Buenos Aires province police chief and the man in charge of all the clandestine detention centers that worked there.
The judge also said that the company can be identified as an accomplice of the dictatorship. “Its managers were aware of the ideological cleansing which was in progress in the plant,” she added. She also said that Enrique Julián Courard, then president of Argentine Ford Motors Co, should have also been charged but he died in 1989 in Chile. Czech national Müller is 82-years-old, whereas Galarraga is 90 and Sibilla is 87. Due to their age, they will not be included in a preventive detention regime until they face the trial. They will remain under house arrest.
Ford Co. released a statement yesterday arguing that it was aware of the charges against the men but tried to show that it was not responsible for the abductions in its own plant. “Ford Argentina is not a party to the case but has always kept a collaborative and open attitude with the authorities and will provide all available information that may be required to clarify this situation,” the company said.
This case is part of a wave of prosecutions focusing on corporate support for the military who took power in 1976. Vence also highlighted the importance of considering that human rights are not solely violated by state agents but also by companies, which facilitate those crimes. As a macabre and unforgettable example, she mentioned the factories which benefited from the detainees in the Nazi concentration camps.
—Herald with AP
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