Death flights
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The so-called death flights (Spanish: vuelos de la muerte) were a form of forced disappearance routinely practiced during the Argentine "Dirty War," theorized by Admiral Luis Maria Mendia. Victims of death flights were first drugged into a stupor, hustled aboard planes or helicopters, stripped naked and pushed into the Río de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown. Extrajudicial killings have been conducted in manners substantively similar to those of the Argentine death flights, during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, the Vietnam War and in other conflicts.
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[edit] Death flights during the Argentine Dirty War
According 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 respectively.[1]
As an added twist, victims were sometimes made to dance for joy in celebration of the freedom that 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."[2]
Scilingo says that the Argentine Navy is "still hiding what happened during the dirty war".[3]
[edit] Use in other conflicts
[edit] Algeria
Death Flights was used during the Algerian War by the French Paratroopers in 10th Parachute Division under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers. As the corpses sometimes came back to the surface, they began to attach concrete blocks to their feet. These victims were known as "Bigeard's shrimps" ("crevettes Bigeard"), after one of the para commanders, Marcel Bigeard. [4] [5][6]
[edit] Vietnam
Similar expulsions of live prisoners from helicopters took place during the Vietnam War,[7] and were alluded to in the movie Blue Thunder.
[edit] References
- ^ Spain tries Argentine ex-officer.
- ^ Macabre new details emerge about Argentina's 'dirty war'.
- ^ 'Death flight' captain says Argentine navy is hiding horrors.
- ^ Film testimony by Paul Teitgen, Jacques Duquesne and Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc on the INA archive website.
- ^ Des guerres d’Indochine et d’Algérie aux dictatures d’Amérique latine, interview with Marie-Monique Robin by the Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League), January 10, 2007
- ^ Prise de tête Marcel Bigeard, un soldat propre ?, L'Humanité, June 24, 2000 (French)
- ^ Des guerres d’Indochine et d’Algérie aux dictatures d’Amérique latine, interview with Marie-Monique Robin by the Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League), January 10, 2007
