, another of our grandsons stolen by State terrorism, kidnapped along with his parents on April 15, 1976, when he was only five and a half months old. In April of this year, Pablo was contacted by members of Abuelas, and about a month ago he voluntarily agreed to undergo the immunogenetic examination that managed to determine, with 99.99 percent certainty, his belonging to the Athanasiu Laschan family group.

His parents Frida Laschan Mellado was born on August 10, 1947, in Chile. Ángel Athanasiu Jara was born on September 15, 1954, also in the trans-Andean country. Both were militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

During the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, Frida held a position at the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA). In March 1974, after the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet, Frida suffered political persecution.

In fact, in September 1973, she had already spent a few days at the police station in the city of Lautaro and later in Santiago de Chile. Subsequently, once released, she went into exile in Buenos Aires, where she reunited with Ángel—who had escaped to Argentina some time earlier—and both began to militate in the PRT-ERP.

They lived for eight months in the Federal Capital and then moved to San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén, until mid-1975. Upon receiving warnings that they were being watched, Ángel and Frida, who was already pregnant, decided to return to Buenos Aires.

On October 29, 1975, their son, Pablo Germán, was born. In April 1976, the couple and the little boy were kidnapped from the hotel where they were living, in an operation carried out by security forces within the framework of Operation Condor.

The case Pablo Germán was registered as the biological son of a couple with close ties to the civic-military regime, with a birth date of January 7, 1976. So close were these ties that his appropriator is currently detained in the context of a case involving crimes against humanity.

Since the kidnapping of Ángel, Frida, and Pablo, the Athanasiu and Laschan families filed various complaints and even traveled to Buenos Aires to find the whereabouts of the disappeared young couple and the baby.

They searched for them fruitlessly in prisons, asylums, and orphanages. In 1982, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo filed the complaint regarding his disappearance—it was one of the Association's first—before Federal Court Number 1, currently presided over by Judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría.

In April of this year, faced with information indicating that he could be the son of forcibly disappeared persons, and with the collaboration of the Human Rights Directorate of the Ministry of National Security, our institution approached the young man to invite him to provide his genetic sample.

Yesterday, finally, Pablo Germán was notified by the National Commission for the Right to Identity (CONADI) that he is the son of Frida and Ángel. We continue to wait for them Today, it has been exactly one year since we announced the identity restoration of the 106th grandson, Pablo Gaona Miranda.

Later, that of the daughter of María de las Mercedes Moreno and, sadly, we had to communicate that the pregnancy of Mirtha Noelia Coutouné did not reach term. There are 109 cases resolved thanks to the perseverance of the struggle, but there are still hundreds of families waiting for the reunion with the grandsons and granddaughters stolen by State terrorism.

Time passes, many of our fellow fighters are departing without the joy of an embrace. The search is increasingly urgent. Therefore, to those who doubt their origin, we, the Abuelas, say that the moment to resolve your identity is now, that you should not wait any longer.

Knowing who you are and where you come from will lift a weight off your shoulders and will alleviate all that pain you have carried inside for more than 30 years, from the precise instant in which you were brutally separated from your true parents. http://www.abuelas.org.ar/comunicados/restituciones/res130807_1420-1.htm

Source: Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo Buenos Aires, August 7, 2013

Date: 08-07-2013

On April 15, 1976, the students and MIR militants Frida Elena LASCHAN MELLADO, married to the Chilean student* Miguel Angel ATHANASIU JARA, and their newborn son Pablo ATHANASIU LASCHAN were detained in Buenos Aires.

The young couple had left Chile after September 11, 1973, after Frida Laschan, a CORA official in Lautaro, was detained by the Carabineros of that city and prosecuted by the Military Prosecutor's Office.

Both felt fear and surveillance in Argentina. The Commission is convinced that this couple and their son were victims of forced disappearance in Argentina, in violation of their human rights, within the context of the aforementioned situation.

However, it cannot affirm, without a margin of error, the responsibility of Chilean state agents in these events. *: This is an error on the part of the Rettig Report; Miguel Angel Athanasiu was of Chilean nationality.

Source: (Rettig Report)

Your Honors: we will now refer to what happened to the Chilean citizens Ángel Omar Athanasiú Jara and Frida Elena Laschan Mellado, 25 and 29 years old respectively, who were a couple and participated politically in their country, Athanasiú Jara as a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement and Laschan Mellado as a member of the Agrarian Reform Corporation during the Allende government.

After the coup d'état, on September 13, 1973, Frida Laschan was detained by Chilean repressive forces in the city of Lautaro, remaining deprived of her liberty for a few days at the local police station.

Later, she was detained again in Santiago de Chile, from where they transferred her back to Lautaro until she was released without charges. On both occasions, she was subjected to interrogations in which they insistently asked her about Ángel Athanasiú, who had gone underground and was wanted by the DINA and the military authorities of that country.

As a result of the persecution, Athanasiú and Laschan decided to emigrate to Argentina, where they reunited in March 1974 and settled, initially, in the city of Buenos Aires. In Argentina, Athanasiú continued his activity within the MIR and became involved with the JCR, where he was known by the pseudonym "Germán." In the first months of 1975, the couple moved to San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén province.

However, a few months later, they were forced to flee upon noticing that the Carabineros were monitoring them through the correspondence they maintained with relatives in Chile. As a result, as a security measure, they stopped writing to their families and moved back to the City of Buenos Aires.

On October 29, 1975, in this city, their son Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan was born. Likewise, around those days, Ángel and Frida began the residency application process, surely without imagining the dangers to which they would expose themselves in the future by carrying out such procedures.

It is proven in the debate that on April 15, 1976, Ángel Athanasiú, Frida Laschan, and Pablo Germán were kidnapped by Argentine forces dressed in civilian clothes at their home, located at Calle Tucumán 2285, 4th floor, apartment 12, in the Federal Capital.

In the operation, Jorge Alberto Basso, another member of the MIR, was also kidnapped. Basso was a Brazilian-Argentine citizen, a member of the Workers' Communist Party of Brazil, who had traveled to Chile escaping the Brazilian dictatorship.

There he joined the MIR but, after Pinochet's coup, he was forced to emigrate to Argentina due to the persecution he suffered. It was also proven that, like Ángel Omar Athanasiú Jara, from our country Basso continued to participate politically in the MIR and had contact with the members and leaders of the party based here, such as Edgardo Enríquez.

The place where they were kidnapped was under the responsibility of General Cesario Ángel Cardozo, as head of the Federal Police in charge of Area 1, which is subsumed within the Federal Capital sub-zone, whose person in charge was General Jorge Carlos Olivera Róvere, who in turn reported to General Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason, as the highest authority of Zone I.

The kidnapping of the Athanasiu-Laschan family occurred in the context of the successive disappearances of MIR members in Buenos Aires, which took place in the first semester of the so-called National Reorganization Process and as a product of the coordination of Chilean and Argentine repressive forces.

The Popular Resistance Movement of Chile notified Frida's father by letter of what had happened, and from that moment on, he traveled to the city of Buenos Aires to desperately search for his daughter, his son-in-law, and his grandson.

He tirelessly toured detention centers and children's asylums. He went to the house where they lived and found it completely empty. In addition, he filed requests for their whereabouts with the Argentine Federal Police, three habeas corpus petitions, and, when possible, declared what happened before the CONADEP.

Likewise, together with Frida's brother, they reported what happened to the Vicariate of Solidarity in Santiago de Chile, the United Nations High Commissioner, the UNHCR, and the Red Cross. Despite the efforts made, in none of the cases could they obtain any information about them, as what happened was concealed.

Years passed and Frida and Ángel's relatives received some rumors that they had been killed or that they had been deprived of their liberty in Orletti. However, they were never able to determine what happened to the two of them.

To this day, they remain forcibly disappeared. Regarding their son Pablo Germán, it is proven that he was appropriated by the Argentine Federal Police inspector, Enrique Andrés López, and his wife, Carmen Clementina Saunier, who registered him on June 7, 1976, in the city of Rosario, as their own son, under the name Carlos Andrés.

In August 2013, he recovered his identity, after more than 37 years. His appropriators are being tried for this at the Oral Federal Criminal Court No. 5 of this Capital. It should be mentioned here that Enrique Andrés López is also being prosecuted in the federal justice system of Rosario for the commission of crimes against humanity against 25 people, within the framework of the last military dictatorship.

Recently, Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan committed suicide. According to the description we have made, taking into account the particular characteristics of the events that harmed Ángel Omar Athanasiú Jara, Frida Laschan Mellado, and Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan and the context in which they occurred, we understand that the regional coordination in their execution is proven in these events, within the framework of the illicit association we call "Operation Condor." Evidence The described facts arise from the joint interpretation of various elements.

Among them, the testimony of Haydeé Athanasiú Jara, the conclusions of the Rettig Report, and the documentation of the Vicariate of Solidarity incorporated into the trial, which account for the political participation of Frida Laschan and Ángel Athanasiú in Chile and the persecution to which they were subjected in that country.

Likewise, these documents and the CONADEP file of the victims allow us to note that as a result of that persecution, the young couple emigrated to Buenos Aires at the beginning of 1974, moving a year later and for a few months to San Martín de los Andes.

In this sense, the letters written in the victims' own handwriting to their relatives, provided by Haydee Athanasiú, show the life of the young couple in Argentina, the trips, and Frida's pregnancy from the beginning of 1975.

In addition, they account for the feeling of anguish they felt for not being able to reunite with their family due to the danger that stalked them. Frida, in a letter dated May 24, 1975, expressed it in the following way: "We feel so alone that it makes us suffer and the sad thing is that we are alone and without possibilities.

We dream of the day when we can all meet calmly... anyway, someday this will pass, I hope it is not too late." Document 1. At the same time, the letter from Ángel Athanasiú, dated July 11, 1975, notes that the last note they received from their family had arrived 12 days later and had been opened by the Carabineros.

In that note, he tells his sister that they had returned to live in Buenos Aires. And furthermore, he asks her not to answer, because it could be dangerous since they were being watched. Document 2. The political activity of Ángel Athanasiú from Argentina and his connection with the JCR was demonstrated by the SIDE intelligence report No. 5/76.

This document was found in the raid carried out at the house of Albano Harguindeguy on April 28, 2012. In addition to proving the connection of Ángel Athanasiú, who is indicated under the name "Germán," it also shows how, from our country, intelligence was carried out to locate the members of the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta.

It is also appreciated the express recognition that many of them, at the time of drafting the report, had already been victims of the criminal plan, such as Edgardo Enríquez and Ángel Athanasiú; or were so in the months immediately following, such as Mario Santucho and Patricio Biedma.

Document 3. On the other hand, the residency procedure that Athanasiú and Laschan initiated in Buenos Aires was proven by the report of the Vicariate of Solidarity incorporated into the CONADEP file of Frida Laschan, and by the account that Federico Laschan Mellado makes in the letter he addresses to the United Nations High Commissioner, included in the documentation incorporated and sent by the Vicariate of Solidarity.

Document 4. At the same time, the birth of Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan is proven by the CONADEP files of the three victims, by the documentation provided by the aforementioned Vicariate, by the habeas corpus filed in favor of Frida and Pablo in September 1976, and by the case "Chorobick de Mariani, María Isabel s/ complaint." Document 5.

Likewise, these documents account for the kidnapping of Ángel Omar Athanasiú Jara, Frida Laschan Mellado, and Pablo Germán Athanasiú on April 15, 1976, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. In this regard, the habeas corpus that appears in case No. 194, filed in favor of Frida Laschan and her son in September 1976, as well as the submission of Federico Laschan Kaiser in September 1977 sent by the Vicariate of Solidarity, specify that the operation took place at the family home, by people dressed in civilian clothes.

In this sense, the report of the Vicariate of Solidarity in relation to Ángel Athanasiú, sent by that entity to the present debate, adds that these people were members of the Argentine security forces.

At the same time, the CONADEP files of Frida and Ángel allow us to note that, together with them, the Brazilian citizen Jorge Alberto Basso was kidnapped, which coincides, in turn, with what the SDH file of the latter says, in which his political activity in Brazil and his personal data are also detailed.

Likewise, the witness Guillermo Bruno Serrano, who was a member of the MIR and was working for that organization from Buenos Aires, told us particularly about the political activity that Jorge Alberto Basso carried out in our country.

In this regard, he said that Basso was the contact between Edgardo Enríquez and other members of the party, which allows us to note the link with Ángel Athanasiú. Let us remember that both were kidnapped together.

On the other hand, the secret document of September 15, 1976, prepared by Alberto Baldomero Obregón and cited several times, confirms that the disappearance of the Athanasiu/Laschan family and Jorge Basso occurred within the framework of the direct and coordinated persecution of the Chilean DINA with the Argentine security forces, directed against the members of the MIR who were in our country.

Document 6. In relation to this, Bruno Serrano said that at the beginning of 1975 he noticed the presence in Buenos Aires of Chilean agents and Marcia Alejandra Merino, better known in Chile as "La Flaca Alejandra," who had been a leader of the MIR and who, after being detained in Chile in 1974, had gone to work for the DINA.

The witness stated that her presence in Argentina had to do with the external reinforcement of the DINA and the cooperation between the forces of both countries. On the other hand, within the documentation incorporated from the Vicariate of Solidarity, there is a letter dated May 9, 1976, and signed by the Popular Resistance Movement of Chile, through which Federico Laschan Kaiser, Frida's father, learned of the kidnapping of his daughter, his grandson, and his son-in-law.

According to the statements that emerge from the testimony of Ximena Subercaseaux Sommerhoff in the "Operation Condor of Chile" case, the Popular Resistance Movement was a movement that responded to the structure of the MIR.

This reinforces the link of Athanasiú with the MIR. At the same time, within that set of documentation, there is an account where he himself tells of the efforts he made to find his daughter, all of them producing negative results.

This is also pointed out by Frida's brother, Federico Laschan Mellado, in a letter addressed to the UNHCR; and it is also reflected by the report of the Vicariate of Solidarity that is in the CONADEP file of Frida Laschan.

As in all cases, what happened was concealed. In this sense, from the documentation sent by the Provincial Commission for Memory, it can also be noted that all requests for whereabouts to find them were answered negatively.

The appropriation and subsequent appearance alive of Pablo Germán Athanasiú is proven through the records in the "Investigation file of López; Saunier and Cimetta" of the aforementioned "Chorobick de Mariani" case.

Through the expert report of the National Genetic Data Bank, it was possible to determine that the person who was registered as Carlos Andrés López was, in truth, Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan. In addition, in the aforementioned case, there are: the payroll of the personnel of the Rosario Delegation of the Argentine Federal Police between December and June 1976; the personal file of the Argentine Federal Police of Enrique Andrés López; and the birth registration No. 828 of the Provincial Directorate of the Registry of Persons, Rosario Delegation.

Document 7, Document 8A, Document 8B, and Document 9. These documents demonstrate that López was serving in the Argentine Federal Police at the time he registered Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan as his and Carmen Saunier's son.

Such a circumstance, combined with the conclusions that emerge from the so-called Obregón Document, reinforces the idea of the participation of the PFA in the kidnapping and disappearance of Frida Laschan and Ángel Athanasiú.

Finally, the declaration of the successors of Ángel Omar Athanasiú, from Civil Court No. 63 of this city, also proves the events described above. As a result of the mentioned evidence, it is proven that the kidnappings of Frida Laschan Mellado, Ángel Omar Athanasiú Jara, and Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan were executed under the framework of repressive coordination provided by Condor.

The same must be said of the kidnapping and disappearance of Jorge Alberto Basso, which, although they will be the subject of another debate, the interest of the governments of Chile and Brazil in his kidnapping, as a member of the MIR and former member of the Brazilian POC, was also demonstrated in this trial.

Ultimately, the proven facts are added to the rest of the evidence already mentioned in this closing argument and to those we will cite later; and they demonstrate the existence of the Condor criminal association and its operability.

Source: mpf.gob.ar no date

In October 2008, as a journalist for La Nación, I traveled to Buenos Aires and Uruguay. I was following the trail of Pablo: the son of the Chilean couple forcibly disappeared under the Argentine dictatorship during Operation Condor, Miguel Angel Athanasiu Jara and Frida Laschan Mellado. Before that, I had had a long conversation in the city of Los Ángeles with Miguel Ángel’s sisters.

In Buenos Aires, I arrived at the house of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. A large, ground-floor house at Virrey Cevallos 592, near the Congress. I held another long conversation with the lawyer in charge of the case.

I brought some information. He provided me with just as much. But he asked me to refrain from publishing the harsher, more direct details. I respected that. The Abuelas and Judge María Servini were investigating.

The Abuelas had contacted Pablo, but they did not yet know if he was the one they were looking for. There were other possible leads. But there were also several coincidences with that Pablo.

Finally, I leaned toward one. That is the story that La Nación published on October 10, 2008. A story that today falls apart because that Pablo G. is not the son of Miguel Ángel and Frida. I had to choose, and I chose.

The story had several features of credibility. So much so that the Abuelas were going to travel to the city of Piedras in Uruguay to take DNA samples from that Pablo G. He was Pablo Guedes Calandria. His appropriating father was said to be a Uruguayan non-commissioned officer, Asdrúbal Guedes.

The story of that Pablo is told in that 2008 article. The Uruguayan mother who, before dying, confesses to him that he is the son of forcibly disappeared guerrillas.

María Elena Athanasiu, Miguel Ángel’s sister, clarified it for me today. "Pablo is not the Pablo from your article." Her Pablo, her beloved nephew, has both of his appropriating parents alive today. He, an Argentine federal police officer, is in prison for crimes against humanity.

She, his non-biological mother, is alive in Argentina. As for who the real Pablo Athanasiu Laschan is today, he certainly had the names of that police officer and his wife, "I cannot give them to you, I know them, but Pablo must be protected a lot.

He is living through a very difficult situation today. The Abuelas are keeping him protected. He knew at age 16 that his biological parents had been forcibly disappeared in Buenos Aires," said María Elena. But he has his life built with those who are his non-biological parents today. "He is a professional who loves music."

She, María Elena, and her other three sisters are still crying with joy at the news. "We have been harassed by the press," she maintains, but they do not want to become front-page figures. "We have already forgiven. So much time has passed. We just want to be happy with this discovery. Pablo knows that he has his four aunts here." They keep their brother and Frida in their hearts, always.

In the Operation Condor case in Chile, Miguel Ángel and Frida do not appear as victims. The cases only investigate victims for whom legal actions have been filed. "We do not know if Miguel Ángel and Frida were killed by the DINA in Buenos Aires or by the security services of Argentina.

It is not known. Nor who made them forcibly disappear," affirms María Elena. It could have been a joint operation, as there were many.

Source: La Nacion, Thursday, August 8, 2013

Date: 08-08-2013

LORENA PIZARRO: FINDING OF A GRANDSON IS A “SATISFACTION MIXED WITH PAIN FOR THE BARBARITY”

A strange feeling of “satisfaction mixed with pain for the barbarity of the dictatorship” was expressed this Wednesday by the president of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees (AFDD) of Chile, Lorena Pizarro, after learning of the finding in Argentina of a grandson by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, the son of two Chilean students.

For this reason, she asserts that this happy news is also a message not to forget the horror of state terrorism and to continue fighting to end impunity across the entire continent.

“This news pleases us, surprises us, and fills us with satisfaction. (Although) every time a grandson appears, even if he is not the son of Chileans, it is to face once again the tremendous injustice that forced disappearance meant. And what was practiced mainly in Argentina, which was the kidnapping of minors,” she told Nación.cl.

The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo announced this Wednesday the restoration of the identity of Pablo Germán Athanasiu Laschan, son of a couple of Chilean students—Ángel Athanasiu Jara and Frida Laschan Mellado—and appropriated during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983), who became the 109th grandson to discover his true origin in the neighboring country.

"STATE TERRORISM"

Pizarro highlighted that “every day that a new grandson is found, that he is rescued, anywhere, it fills all the relatives of the disappeared of the continent and the world with satisfaction, but it is always mixed with the pain of the barbarity of the dictatorships.”

And she clarified that these cases remind us of the “horror of state terrorism that was implemented so brutally in Argentina.”

"THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY CHILEANS FORCIBLY DISAPPEARED IN ARGENTINA"

However, she admitted that this case “touches us” in a special way “because they were two Chilean students forcibly disappeared in Argentina. But it is also a grandson, a grandson who is recovered.”

Lorena Pizarro clarified that they did not have prior data on the progress in the search for the son of the Chileans, because “the work of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo is very stealthy, very serious, very rigorous. And that is what allows them to find the children, who in reality are now adults.”

Recalling that the AFDD has always had “links with the Abuelas,” Pizarro highlighted that the important thing is that the grandsons are found. “We know this case, just as we know the other cases, because they are not the only Chileans forcibly disappeared in Argentina or in other dictatorships of the continent. Operation Condor is the result of that.”

END IMPUNITY

The Chilean leader also highlighted that “the best way to commemorate the 40 years since the coup in Chile is to end impunity on the continent.”

In Latin America, “the genocidaires and the violators of human rights have maintained a pact of silence as cowardly as the attitude they had during the years of the dictatorship, so cowardly that they tarnish the name of the Chilean Armed Forces.”

“This calls us to reflect on the importance of ending impunity so that it never happens again. Because in Chile, 40 years later, today we are surprised that a grandson of Chilean families who searches for his disappeared appears, but there are many who still have and we have a pending answer, but above all, we need justice to be done,” she pointed out.

Source: La Nacion, Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Date: 07-08-2013

Operation Condor: 15 Argentine genocidal officers convicted for crimes against Chileans

Within the framework of “Operation Condor,” in the oral trial for crimes against humanity and the public trial for the transnational illicit association for the kidnapping and murder of leftist militants, 15 former Argentine generals and colonels and one Uruguayan (alive) were tried and convicted as guilty of genocide, since others, including the dictator Rafael Videla, died in common prisons.

Unlike the Chilean case, where after the lawsuits by the relatives of the victims of Operation Condor since 1998, no one has been convicted. For Pinochet, in April 2000, in less than 24 hours, the Concertación government and the binomial Congress approved Law 19.662 to grant him amnesty through parliamentary immunity, even though he did not hold public office.

Furthermore, criminals convicted in Punta Peuco are in a 4-star prison. In Chile, there are still no convictions for the murderers of the Condor Plan.

After 3 years, the Argentine courts verified that two DINA networks were operating; one in Buenos Aires, the other in Mendoza. Furthermore, Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, a MIR leader, was kidnapped in Asunción, Paraguay, in May 1975, along with Amílcar Santucho, an Argentine PRP leader.

The Condor plan “implied the making available of human, material, and technical resources between the dictatorships, with the objective of facilitating the destruction of their opponents, whether individuals or organizations.”

In this trial in Buenos Aires, through the verdict and the reading of the historic sentence, it was proven that 24 Chilean victims were executed, kidnapped, and massacred. Among them, 11 MIR militants: Edgardo Enríquez Espinoza, Luis Elgueta Díaz, José de la Maza Asquet, Miguel Orellana Castro, Ángel Athanasiú Jara, Frida Laschan Mellado, Angélica Delard Cabezas, Gloria Delard Cabezas, María Magnet Ferrero, Patricio Antonio Biedma, and Luis Appel de la Cruz. 3 Socialist militants: Juan Hernández Zaspe, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, and Manuel Tamayo Martínez. 4 Communist militants: Cristina Carreño Araya, Alexei Jaccard Siegle, Patricio Rojas Campos, and Oscar Oyarzún, in addition to: Luis Zaragoza Olivares, Luis Espinoza González, Oscar Urra Ferrarese, Susana Ossola de Urra, and Rafael Ferrada. In addition to the 4-year-old boy, Pablo Athanasiú Laschan.

There were 171 cases of genocide, 222 people testified, including 133 abroad. Relatives gathered at Argentine embassies to be informed via video conference of the sentences of the Federal Oral Tribunal No. 1, composed of Adrián Grünberg, Oscar Amirante, Pablo Laufer, and Ricardo Basílico.

The prosecutors, Pablo Ouviña and Mercedes Moguilansky (ad hoc), addressed the repression in the Southern Cone. The oral trial was a union of four cases that were processed separately during the investigation. One of them was the clandestine center Automotores Orletti, which was the epicenter of the persecution of Uruguayans.

The plaintiffs are survivors and relatives of victims and the National Secretariat for Human Rights. The convicted are: Humberto Lobaiza, Felipe Alespeiti, Antonio Vañek, Eduardo Delío, Federico Minicucci, Néstor Falcón, Eugenio Perelló, Carlos Caggiano Tedesco, Santiago Riveros, Reynaldo Bignone, Luis Pepa, Rodolfo Feroglio, Enrique Olea, Miguel Furci, and Manuel Cordero (Uruguayan).

At the Argentine embassy in Chile, relatives, testifying witnesses, human rights organizations, Octavio Brugnini, the ambassador of Uruguay, and diplomats from Peru and Brazil gathered to watch, via video conference, the reading of the sentences, which ranged from 8 to 25 years for each criminal, plus costs.

The verdict was unanimous by the magistrates, being the first convictions for Operation Condor in South America.

The Argentine ambassador to Chile, José Octavio Bordón, before the relatives of the Chilean victims of the Condor Plan, asked for “forgiveness in the name of the States that committed genocide.”

Source: elclarin.cl, May 27, 2016

Date: 27-05-2016

Conviction of the appropriators of grandson 109

A former intelligence agent of the Federal Police and his concubine received sentences of 8 and a half years and 5 years in prison for having registered as their own the son of Frida Laschan Mellado and Ángel Athanasiu Jara, two Chilean militants forcibly disappeared in Argentina during the last dictatorship.

The former police commissioner who handed over the baby was also sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison.

The former Federal Intelligence agent Enrique López and his partner, Carmen Saunier, were convicted—eight years and six months in prison for him and five years for her—for having registered as their own the son of Frida and Ángel, militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), who were kidnapped in the country.

Pablo Germán Athanasiu Laschan did not know his true history until 2013, when a genetic study confirmed that he was the son of the couple who still remains forcibly disappeared. The Federal Oral Criminal Tribunal 5 (TOF5) also imposed a sentence of seven years and six months in prison on the person who handed them the baby: former commissioner Juan Dib, López’s boss at the Rosario delegation of the PFA.

Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo had filed the first complaint for the disappearance of Pablo Germán in 1982, in the court currently directed by Judge María Servini de Cubría. In April 2013, faced with information indicating that he could be the son of the disappeared, the Abuelas approached him, and the result of the DNA studies confirmed that Ángel and Frida were his parents.

Pablo Germán, who did not get to know his grandparents because they died before the confirmation of his identity, killed himself last April at the age of 37.

"We are facing the most serious facts that the applicable penal scale can admit," pointed out the prosecutor general in charge of the Specialized Unit for cases of appropriation of children, Pablo Parenti, and the prosecutor general before the Federal Oral Criminal Tribunal 7, Miguel Ángel Osorio, who had requested 15-year prison sentences for the two former federal police officers and 11 years for Saunier.

The Abuelas' legal team had requested 15 years in prison for López, 10 years for Saunier, and 14 for Dib.

Source: pagina12.com, December 21, 2015

Date: 21-12-2015

Plan Condor: the stage of the Chilean victims

Connections between the dictatorships of the Southern Cone are being investigated.

In recent weeks, Chilean witnesses testified in the "Plan Condor" trial, where 23 military chiefs of the South American dictatorships are being judged. It is expected that in the coming weeks, prosecutors and judicial authorities will travel to Paraguay to investigate the disappeared militants of that country.

José De la Maza Asquet was a 27-year-old Chilean who escaped the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He was married and a veterinary student at the University of Chile. He also divided his hours with militancy.

He was a student leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). After the fall of President Salvador Allende in 1974, he began to be persecuted by Pinochet's forces and took refuge in the province of Tucumán.

Three years later, he was arrested in the center of San Miguel de Tucumán and nothing more was ever heard of him. Before Federal Oral Tribunal No. 1, his friend José Patrocinio Luna testified a few days ago. In the Plan Condor trial, 23 military chiefs are being judged for crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorships of the Southern Cone against militants of opposing ideology.

“José came escaping from Chile, I don't remember the date well,” Luna told judges Oscar Amirante, Adrián Grumberg, Pablo Laufer, and Ricardo Ángel Basílico. “We became very good friends, comrades. We built a community kitchen and did very strong social militancy,” said the witness.

From the front row of the public, his two children listened to him. Luna was born in the province where Independence was declared and was part of the “Tucumanazo,” a massive social protest that occurred between November 10 and 14, 1970.

De la Maza decided to enter Argentina clandestinely after being persecuted by security agents in the Chilean cities of Santiago and Rancagua. In Tucumán, he continued to militate and joined Peronist groups.

On November 1, 1977, police arrested him in the center of the Tucumán capital. According to judicial sources, De la Maza was betrayed by a Chilean agent of the Chilean Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

Luna answered questions from ad hoc prosecutor Pablo Ouviña and the judges, who wanted to know about his links with De la Maza. The witness said that he was imprisoned for a few months in 1978 and that he later went into exile. Luna said that the lawsuit for his case has been initiated in Tucumán, in the investigation stage.

The trial is in its second year—it began in March 2013—and according to judicial sources who spoke to Infojus Noticias, the closing arguments are expected to be in March 2015. The investigation of the trial, led by prosecutor Miguel Ángel Osorio, is still working on the case, and it is likely that more facts will be incorporated for the oral debate.

The trial is going through the stage of the Chilean victims; the previous one was that of the Uruguayans. It is expected that in the coming weeks, prosecutors and judicial authorities will travel to Paraguay because the next stage of the trial will deal with disappeared militants from that country.

Two weeks ago, José Luis's sister testified in the trial. Ximena De la Maza Asquet testified via video conference from Chile. “We traveled to Tucumán to find out where my brother could be, we went to police stations and institutions, but all the leads were false.

We never heard from him again.” That hearing had a special guest: Judge Baltazar Garzón listened to Ximena's statements from the public seating in the Amia Room.

In dialogue with Infojus Noticias, the Spanish magistrate assured that day: “This trial is very important legally, for the search for truth and the reparation of the victims of dictatorial governments.

And politically, it shows the decision of a State, the Argentine one, and the cooperation of others like the Chilean one, to impart justice to the people who were violated in their fundamental rights.”

On October 10, 1998, in a historic decision, Garzón indicted Augusto Pinochet Ugarte for alleged human rights violations in Chile, his native country, applying the principle of Universal Justice. He accused him of being one of the ideologues of an “international organization, which conceived, developed, and executed a systematic plan of illegal detentions (kidnappings), torture, forced displacement of people, murders, and/or disappearance of numerous people, including citizens of Argentina, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Chile, and other states.”

On April 8, 2004, in one of the expansions of the indictment, the Spanish judge included the case of José Luis de la Maza Asquet in his accusation against Pinochet. The Chilean genocidaire died on December 10, 2006.

At the end of March, the Chilean journalist Laura Elgueta Díaz testified, ratifying before the TOF her detention in the clandestine center Club Atlético, which operated in the facilities of the Federal Police.

During the hearing, she pointed to the DINA agent—now deceased—Enrique Arancibia Clavel as one of her torturers, who is indicated as the author of the murder in Argentina of the Chilean general Carlos Prats. Elgueta Díaz also testified about the disappearance of her brother Luis Enrique Elgueta. Odette Magnet did the same for the disappearance of her sister, María Cecilia Magnet.

For the moment, there are 23 Chilean victims being addressed in the trial: Edgardo Enríquez Espinosa; Luis Enrique Elgueta Díaz; Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez; Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez; Juan Humberto Hernández Zaspe; Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler; José Luis De la Maza Asquet; Miguel Orellana Castro; Cristina Magdalena Carreño Araya; Ángel Athanasiú Jara; Pablo Germán Athanasiu Laschan; Frida Elena Laschan Mellado; Carlos Patricio Rojas Campos; Carmen Angélica Delard Cabezas; Gloria Ximena Delard Cabezas; José Luis Appel de la Cruz; Luis Arnaldo Zaragoza Olivares; Luis Alejandro Espinoza González; Oscar Julián Urra Ferrarese; Susana Ossola de Urra; Rafael Antonio Ferrada; Oscar Orlando Oyarzun Manso; María Cecilia Magnet Ferrero.

Source: infojusnoticias.gob.ar, 04/27/2014

Date: 27-04-2014

Grandson 109 recovered from the Argentine dictatorship is the son of Chilean parents

The organization Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo reported on Wednesday that the 109th grandson, whose identity they managed to restore, is the son of a Chilean couple kidnapped by the dictatorship in Argentina in April 1976.

“Pablo Germán Athanasiu Laschan (37 years old) was kidnapped along with his parents on April 15, 1976, when he was 5 and a half months old, within the framework of the 'Plan Condor,'” of repressive coordination of the South American dictatorships, according to a statement from the humanitarian organization.

The Abuelas are still looking for some 400 babies stolen from their parents, political prisoners of the dictatorship (1976-1983).

The parents of the recovered grandson, Frida Laschan Mellado and Angel Athanasiu Jara, were militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

The woman held a position in the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA) during the government of Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in 1973 through a coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet.

Laschan Mellado suffered political persecution during the Chilean dictatorship, being detained in the police station of the city of Lautaro and later in Santiago.

Once released, the woman went into exile in Buenos Aires, where she reunited with Athanasiu Jara, who had escaped some time before. “Pablo Germán was born on October 29, 1975, and was registered after his kidnapping as the biological son of a couple with close ties to officials of the dictatorship,” it was highlighted.

His appropriator is currently detained within the framework of a case for crimes against humanity.

Since the kidnapping, the Athanasiu and Laschan families made various complaints and even traveled to Buenos Aires to try to find out what had happened to the couple and the baby.

Last April, Pablo Germán was contacted by the Abuelas and a month ago he voluntarily agreed to undergo the immunogenetic test that managed to determine, with 99.99% certainty, his belonging to the Athanasiu Laschan family group.

Source: losriosaldia.cl, August 13, 2013

Date: 13-08-2013

FAMILY OF CHILEAN KIDNAPPED BY ARGENTINE DICTATORSHIP: “IT IS LIKE A SOAP OPERA”

5 years ago, Televisión Nacional interviewed in Chile the closest relatives of Pablo Gabriel Athanasiu Lascham, who was kidnapped at 6 months of age by agents of the Argentine dictatorship to later be handed over to an adoptive family illegally.

At that moment, his aunts hoped that at some point, the human rights organizations of Argentina would be able to find the whereabouts of their nephew and that he could recognize his true origins, just as happened this week when the real filiation of the “kidnapped baby,” who is now 38 years old, was proven with DNA data.

“This is like a soap opera,” said, on that occasion, María Elena Athanasiu, sister of Ángel Athanasiu Jara, who was detained in 1976, along with his wife Frida Lascham Mellado, by Argentine repressors within the framework of Operation Condor.

Both were captured with the little boy in a home in Buenos Aires because they belonged to an Argentine leftist organization, after having fled from Chile where they were militants in the MIR.

“When one thinks and looks back at everything that has happened. It is impressive, everything that happened, this child who I don't know where he is. It's like I had always thought… this 30 years ago, right… what I thought was that at some point the truth would be known,” she added.

When Pablo Gabriel was 8 years old, he learned he was adopted; at 16, he learned he was the son of the forcibly disappeared; and in April of this year, he agreed to voluntarily undergo a DNA test to know his true identity, since he currently lives under another name, which has not been revealed by the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo organization.

“This child would one day like to know this family, to know that we are a normal family, and that here he will only find affection, respect, love…. No conditions, unconditional love,” said María Elena Athanasiu.

“In our family heart, as a sister, there is no resentment, there is no rancor, there is no hatred. There is a lot of forgiveness and understanding that we had to be part of a stage in the history of our country,” she added on that occasion.

Source: La Nación.cl, Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Date: 07-08-2013

Received by memoriaviva on 12-21-2010

I wish to clarify that the forcibly disappeared detainee Mr. Miguel Angel ATHANASIU JARA, who appears in your records as an Argentine student, is of Chilean nationality, originally from the city of Mulchén, eighth region. Currently, 2 of his 4 sisters live in the city of Los Angeles (eighth region).

Att. Cirilo Daza