9 Argentine Junta Leaders Face Their Accusers in Courtroom

Nine grim-faced men who once ruled Argentina marched single file into a hushed courtroom here Wednesday and were accused by a prosecutor of organizing “the greatest genocide” in the country’s history.

Seven wore the uniform of the Argentine armed forces--four generals and three admirals. Two of the highest-ranking generals, men who served as Argentine presidents, wore gray business suits in gestures of contempt for their accusers.

The nine officers sat straight-backed and silent. A woman spectator wept into a small white handkerchief.

The Past Confronted

Thus, with drama and pathos, did Argentina’s young democracy confront its lawless past. Never before in Latin America has an elected civilian government brought military predecessors to trial for their violations of human rights.

The nine officers, three of them former presidents and the six others members of three successive juntas that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983, are accused of directing state terrorism that repressed Marxist guerrillas at the cost of thousands of lives.

“The guerrillas kidnaped, tortured and murdered,” prosecutor Julio Strassera charged. “How did the state choose to respond? By kidnaping, torturing and murdering on a vastly greater scale.”

All nine former commanders refused to attend 17 weeks of public trial in which 833 witnesses documented 709 cases of kidnaping, torture, theft and murder by the armed forces and military-commanded police.

First Time in Court

The nine defendants appeared in court for the first time Wednesday, surrendering reluctantly to the court’s order to appear for the prosecution’s closing arguments. The summation continues through next Tuesday, when Strassera will ask specific sentences from the six judges, who also act as jury. Defense summation begins Sept. 27.

“Three words summarize the military repression: fierceness, clandestinity and cowardice,” said Strassera. “We shall never know how many innocent people died.”

One legacy of that so-called “dirty war” is a Spanish word-- desaparecido, those who has disappeared at the hands of state-employed terrorists.

There are about 9,000 Argentine desaparecidos, by documented count of a presidential commission whose files became the basis of the prosecution case. Most of them vanished during the presidency of Jorge R. Videla, who led a 1976 coup and ruled until 1981.

Videla, who was brought to court from a nearby cell in civilian clothes topped by horn-rimmed glasses, is the most intransigent of the nine defendants. He refused to hire an attorney, forcing the court to appoint a public defender.

Civilian Authority Disputed

Videla disputes the authority of civilians to try him, saying he “refuses to confirm in any way an absolutely worthless process instigated against the armed forces with political motives.”

It is thought that Strassera will request life imprisonment for Videla, Adm. Emilio E. Massera, and their fellow junta member, Lt. Gen. Orlando R. Agosti. The same sentence will reportedly be asked for Gen. Roberto E. Viola, president for most of 1981, and Adm. Armando Lambruschini. Lt. Gen. Omar D. Graffigna, the air force chief in the Viola junta, was least implicated during the trial, and is the only one of the nine at liberty pending its outcome.

Gen. Leopoldo F. Galtieri, who came to court in a light gray three-piece suit Wednesday, replaced Viola at the end of 1981 and was himself ousted in June, 1982, after the disastrous Falkland Islands war. Strassera will seek lesser punishment against Galtieri and his junta colleagues, Adm. Jorge I. Anaya and Lt. Gen. Basilio Lami Dozo, but all three face courts-martial for losing the war.

The charges against the three juntas were ordered by President Raul Alfonsin in 1983. A civilian court assumed jurisdiction after delays by military tribunals.

Deputy prosecutor Luis Moreno characterized Argentina’s tragic war against itself: “They didn’t even respect the limits which normally are observed in war against a foreign enemy.”