|
|
|
|
|
Page: [1]
Page: [1]
-
The death flights (Spanish: vuelos de la muerte) were a form of forced disappearance routinely practiced during the Argentine "Dirty War," begun by Admiral Luis Maria Mendia. Victims of death flights were first drugged into a stupor, hustled aboard fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, stripped naked and pushed into the Río de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown. Extrajudicial killings have been conducted in a manner substantively similar to those of the Argentine death flights, during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, the Vietnam War, and other conflicts. Death flights during the Argentine WarAccording to the testimony of Adolfo Scilingo, convicted by a Spanish court of crimes against humanity under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction in 2005, there were 180-200 death flights in the years 1977 and 1978; Scilingo confessed to participating in two such flights, with 13 and 17 people killed respectively.As an added twist, victims were sometimes made to dance for joy in celebration of the freedom that they were told awaited them. In an earlier interview, in 1996, Scilingo said, "They were played lively music and made to dance for joy, because they were going to be transferred to the south. After that, they were told they had to be vaccinated due to the transfer, and they were injected with Pentothal. And shortly after, they became really drowsy, and from there we loaded them onto trucks and headed off for the airfield."Scilingo says that the Argentine Navy is "still hiding what happened during the dirty war". More recently, Spain has agreed to extradite pilot Julio Alberto Poch to Argentina. Poch, 57, was arrested in Madrid on September 23, 2009 and is wanted in Argentina for his alleged participation as a pilot on the death flights. Use in other conflicts AlgeriaDeath flights were claimed to have been used during the Algerian War by French paratroopers of the 10th Parachute Division under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers. After it was discovered that th...
|
|