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Published in Le Monde Diplomatique, Southern Cone edition, Buenos Aires, December 2000. LabourNet translation: Greg Dropkin The systematic violation of human rights does not arise from “excesses” committed by some sadistic military officers, but is the result of an economic logic. It was the companies which benefitted from these crimes, although they did not actually get their hands dirty. Industry, along with foreign consortia, was thereby able to accumulate astronomical profits. The companies obtained internal peace, as anyone who demanded a wage rise or protested was automatically termed a “subversive”: Gaby Weber investigated the case of Mercedes Benz. During the Argentinian dictatorship at least 13 members of the union Internal Commission at Mercedes Benz disappeared. (1) Currently there are two legal attempts to prove industry’s complicity in the acts of genocide. The first takes place in Germany, the second in Argentina. In September 1999, based on the journalistic investigation, the “Republican Lawyers’ Association” (RAV) lodged a criminal prosecution in Germany for murder, kidnapping and serious injuries, against former members of the Military Junta, against Juan Tasselkraut, the then Head of Production at the branch of Mercedes Benz in González Catán, a province of Buenos Aires, and against unspecified Daimler Chrysler managers in the parent company head office at Untertuerkheim. While the criminal prosecution was not allowed in Germany against Daimler Chrysler, German justice did allow proceedings against the company branch in González Catán and the current director of the firm, Tasselkraut. (2) In November 2000 Juan Carlos Capurro, lawyer for the Legal Action Committee of the Argentinian workers’ union CTA (Central de Trabajadores Argentinos), lodged the Mercedes case with the Secretariat of Human Rights in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Capurro represents the former workers who have been meeting for some months to discuss the events of that period. (3) Capurro will petition the Argentinian government for an investigation of criminal proceedings against the powerful German auto firm and for compensation to be paid to the surviving union delegates. The lawyer points out that until 1986 the company continued paying the majority of wives of the disappeared their husbands’ salaries and, latterly, offered them payment as if they had worked up until that time. They were never given - as the law indicates - any death certificate, inheritance or judicial authorization. The company’s behaviour is unique in Argentina, Capurro stresses. Ford for example, where after the Coup members of the Internal Commission were taken to the torture camps in company lorries, immediately sent telegrammes ordering them to turn up for work, but they were sacked. The German firm, nevertheless, did not telegramme those who were carted off by the repressive forces, and continued paying their salaries. However, they did not do so for relatives of those workers who had to leave the factory to escape the repression. “One wonders what source the company relied on to distinguish amongst those who did not turn up for work, as to which workers were detained and taken to a torture centre and which were not detained?” asks Capurro. For the families, were these payments acts of pity or rather an investment to stifle accusations and soothe consciences? Nowadays, the fact is that most of them are not interested in raking over these things. Until recently the Mercedes case has been bathed in silence in Argentina. The families have a bad experience after receiving these payments from the company, in that many see them as responsible as participants in what happened to their loved ones, and they would have accepted these payments with a certain shame. The company gave the son of the murdered union activist Vizzini the chance of professional training in Stuttgart. For many years, this worker has been employed in the González Catán plant. “I can’t say anything,” explains his mother, Juana Vizzini. She also received her husband’s salary until 1986. In the Mercedes Benz subsidiary at González Catán, a union committee independent of the official union SMATA was formed from 1974 onwards. Juan Martín was its spokesman. With SMATA’s consent, the company definitively and without prior warning sacked Martín and another 115 workers. Soon after the Monteneros kidnapped Production Manager Heinrich Metz, these dismissals were revoked. But the situation changed with the Coup. There was no security then for anyone and those, like Martín, who continued fighting for workers’ rights exposed themselves to bitter reprisals. Martín recalls “We demanded that workers be paid the rate for their job. They should not have to spend more than a set number of hours working with dangerous machinery. But the company did not want to know anything about this and ignored the bonus for night work. So, we decided to refuse overtime.” Straight after the Coup, strikes were prohibited and an overtime ban became equivalent to open rebellion, behind which the military saw an organisation directed from Moscow and Havana or by “International Communism”. Soldiers armed with rifles were posted outside the automotive plants, with lists of trade unionists’ names. In Ford the military mistreated union delegates, later taking them off in company vehicles to torture centres. But while the kidnapped Ford delegates survived torture and prison, almost all the Mercedes delegates were murdered. Five weeks after the Coup, Martín was arrested at his place of work. He was interrogated at San Justo police station: “They asked me why I was making trouble for my bosses, fighting for workers’ rights, and if I knew the terrorists. I had no response to many of the questions, but I answered concerning the situation at Mercedes. They tortured me with an electric prod. I felt like my head was flying. I wanted to identify everyone, if only it would be over. But, I didn’t know any terrorist. What could I do?” Meanwhile workers were gathering in front of La Tablada barracks where they assumed Martín would be found, and demanding his freedom. By taking this action in the midst of a dictatorship, they risked their lives. This massive resistance was not mentioned in the press. For two long days they kept up their encampment facing the barracks and this courageous stance saved Martín’s life; after some 19 days in prison he was freed without any explanation. “When I got back to the factory, all the comrades went out into the road to greet me. Four thousand workers! My eyes filled up with tears.” Martín did not want to stay on at the plant and asked for severance. The Head of Personnel told him that there was no problem if he continued working for the company, since as far as they could discover Martín was the “cleanest worker” in the entire firm. He didn’t clarify his source of information. Martín suffered the effects of torture, losing his ability to concentrate. Eventually, Mercedes agreed to release him and paid a small severance. Esteban Reimer and Hugo Ventura followed Martín in the Internal Commission, in the “Group of Nine” as it was called. Reimer and Venture were summoned to appear on 4 January 1977 at the company headquarters in Buenos Aires, on Libertador avenue, says María Luján Reimer. They brought with them a long list of demands: “That night my husband told me that the talks with the executives had been amicable. All the demands were accepted. That is suspicious, he said. Why, after such bitter battles, suddenly concede the workers’ demands without resistance?” Esteban Reimer took his 1 year old son to bed, while his wife,5 months pregnant, washed up. At 1 a. m. there was beating on the windows: “Police”. They had barely opened the door when 9 armed men burst into the house. We come in the name of the 1st Army Commando, they said. A list appeared and they asked if he was called Reimer. When he said yes, they ordered him to get dressed and go with them. They searched the house, throwing books and records on the floor and tearing up a photo of Eva Perón. Before leaving they crossed the name “Reimer” off the list. Mrs. Reimer searched for her husband in the local police stations. But no-one would admit to having seen him. The next morning she went to the bus stop, where her work colleagues were waiting. A mass meeting had been called that day to inform them about wage talks which had taken place the previous evening. “They didn’t want to go to the factory,” said Mrs. Reimer, “because various workers had already been arrested, and nothing more had been heard of them. Management undertook to look into the fate of my husband and the other member of the Internal Commission, Ventura, who had also been kidnapped during the night.” María Ester Ventura says that at first the military wanted to arrest her brother in the house next door, because that was the address which had been given to the Personnel Dept. Also, the military asked for “Victor Hugo”, but his friends called him “Hugo”. Only the company called him “Victor Hugo”. Immediately after her brother’s kidnap, she went to the company headquarters in Libertador avenue. There, she says, she met the same people who had negotiated with her brother about wages and shifts the previous day. She asked them to go to the authorities and request an investigation of her brother’s whereabouts, a demand for Habeas Corpus. Rather than bothering theselves with the fate of the kidnapped workers, they asked her about her brother’s contacts. Over the following months, at least 13 union delegates were murdered. They were not arrested at the company, but at night in their homes, thereby avoiding the chaos and resistance of workers in the factory. Only Héctor Ratto managed to avoid noctural arrest, as he was recently married and the company did not know his new address. Ratto assumes that this circumstance saved his life. The Police tried to arrest him on 12 August 1977 at the factory gate. But instead of Héctor Ratto they picked up Juan José Ratto, whom they hooded and handcuffed in the Security hut at the entrance. When they realised their mistake, Héctor Ratto had already gone in to work. Security staff and the Production Manager Juan Tasselkraut tried to get him to leave the plant, saying that his wife had had an accident and was waiting for him at home. Ratto spotted the trap, since his colleague Del Connte had been kidnapped at his house the previous night. Ratto stated later during the trial of Junta commanders, that through Tasselkraut the Police had obtained the address of the worker Diego Núñez, who was arrested in his house the following night, to be taken to the torture centre Campo de Mayo where he was murdered. In the afternoon of 12 August they took away Héctor Ratto with two Army trucks. The workers’ resistance had already been greatly weakened by the previous disappearances; their pressure had diminished. He was taken to Campo de Mayo barracks, where he recognised the voices of his colleagues Gigena, Del Connte, Mosquera and Leichner. Ratto was released a year and a half after his arrest. Together with Martín, he is a witness for the Nuremberg prosecutor in the case against Mercedes Benz. Ricardo Hoffmann, in those days linked with the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PRT) guerrilla movement in Mercedes, said that “none of those who disappeared from Mercedes were involved with the guerrillas. They were just trade unionists.” When Hoffman didn’t turn up for work on 18 May 1977, Mercedes sacked him for “unauthorised absence”, as set out in Argentine labour law. Obviously, the company distinguished very precisely between those who were held in concentration camps and those who went underground. Those who hid were sacked, while they continued paying the salaries of the disappeared for ten years. Hoffman was able to emigrate to Italy, using money and contacts of the PRT. The other union delegates lacked these resources and could not leave their families. They were arrested in their homes and disappeared. In Berlin, I interviewed the then director of the factory, sent over from Germany, Klaus Oertel. He remembered the disappearances perfectly. He supposed that the kidnappers of his colleague Heinrich Metz or those who gave them information were company workers: “there is no doubt,” he says. The company and the then Production Manager Juan Tasselkraut, deny their collaboration with the repressive forces. Tasselkraut still works for Daimler Chrysler in Buenos Aires. Oertel left Argentina at the end of 1977, retired and lives in the US. SMATA did nothing to protect the members of the “Group of Nine”. They were seen as opposed to the official union line. When I began the investigation, I asked SMATA and the Matanza party about the case of the Mercedes disappeared. They immediately recalled the case but did not want to make any statement, recommending that I go to the company itself “where they have all the documentation”. I went to the SMATA headquarters in Belgrano street, where there is a great plaque in the entrance hall, recalling comrade Dirk Kloostermann, murdered by the Montoneros. I asked the Press Dept. for the other plaque, recalling those who were murdered for their union activity. There was subversion in those days, they told me, the disappeared were not murdered for being SMATA militants. The Mercedes Internal Commission in González Catán has continued to the present day under SMATA control. There is no resistance. “How could there be?” asked Ramón Segovia, working in Mercedes for almost 20 years: “Not only did they murder the left delegates, they also appointed one of the repressive agents as Security Chief; nobody opened their mouth again.” He’s talking about Rubén Luis Lavallén, now 64. He was in charge of the Investigation Brigade in San Justo. That’s where the detained Mercedes Benz workers were taken. This secret torture camp was wound up in June 1978. The last prisoners were Claudio and Mónica Logares and their daughter Paula. Claudio and Mónica disappeared. Commissioner Lavallén removed Paula after just 23 months. Using false papers he registered her as his daughter. And went in search of a new job. On 1st July they put him in charge of Security at the Mercedes Benz plant. It was a very well paid job. Later, the director Elías openly explained that “We hired him because he struck us as an active, efficient and decent policeman”. Lavallén was the first repressive agent to be investigated for the kidnapping of minors, and journalists began turning up at the factory gate. Mercedes wound up their contract through a generous payoff and a certificate, dated 5 April 1984, which reads: “. . . he deserved the very best labour rating.” Later, Lavellén was condemned to four years imprisonment, of which he served 20 months. These days Daimler Chrysler, Europe’s largest industrial conglomerate, does not like to talk about those events. “It’s a long time ago,” explains the “Corporate Communications” Director. They could have carried out an internal investigation of the facts. They didn’t. They could have apologised for the fact that terrible crimes took place under their roof. They didn’t do that either. They bet that the mainstream press is not going to say anything bad about their client so as not to lose out on advertising. They were not wrong. Published in Le Monde Diplomatique, Southern Cone edition, Buenos Aires, December 2000. (1) Caddeo, Ruben Oscar, disappeared 5 April 76
(2) Case number, Nürnberg public prosecutor 407 Js 41063/98 3) An internet website is being prepared: |