Operation Massacre(46)
It looks like Fernández Suárez will be able to sleep soundly. For nearly four months, no one asks him for any explanations.
But when the bomb explodes, it’s not two thousand kilometers away, it’s not across a border that has already been opened and closed for three survivors.
It’s in the Chief of Police’s very office.
At the start of October 1956, Naval Information Services inform him, confidentially, that one of his own men has denounced him.
Fernández Suárez does not need to walk ten paces to find the culprit. It is Jorge Doglia, Esq., head of the Police Judicial Division.
—The only case during my tenure —F. S. will later say, deeply dejected— of a man from the street becoming a chief inspector.
This is true. For the police, Doglia is a “man from the street,” just like Fernández Suárez, who appointed him. A man genuinely committed to civil rights and liberties (thirty-one years of age, a Radical Intransigente at the time), Doglia the lawyer has taken that fleeting slogan from ’55 seriously: “The Rule of Law.” But right after he assumes his post, he learns that the prisoners giving him their statements complain of torture and bear traces of their punishment. He brings the problem to Fernández Suárez, who first pretends to be shocked and later mocks him openly.
The he goes to the second-in-command, Captain Ambroggio, and shows him photos of the prisoners who, by the look of it, have been whipped with wires. The second-in-command looks at the photos with a critical eye.
—That’s not wire —he explains.— That’s rubber.
Now Doglia knows what to expect. The problem is systemic, so the only thing he can do is document it. In August or September he meets Livraga. Then he goes to Naval Information Services and all his cards are revealed.
There is a heated exchange between Doglia and the Chief of Police. Fernández Suárez openly threatens him. On the tenth of October, Doglia presents his indictment again, this time before the Governance Ministry of the Province.
Doglia’s indictment has two parts to it: the first refers to the system of torture; the second, to the illegal execution of Livraga. On this point, Doglia cannot know more than what Livraga himself tells him, which is that they wanted to execute him and a bunch of other people, the majority of whom he did not know by name, and that he and Giunta escaped.
Fernández Suárez strikes back by accusing Doglia of “having gone to an organization outside the department to report acts committed in the heart of the police department.” He fabricates a shameful allegation with the support of the Governance Ministry and the Attorney General, Dr. Alconada Aramburú. On January 18, 1957, Doglia’s name will appear in the papers, flanked on one side by the name of a policeman who was a drunk, and on the other by the name of a policeman who had committed acts of torture. All three of them were removed from their offices “for ethical reasons.”
But Doglia spoke to Eduardo Schaposnik, the socialist representative for the Advisory Board, and at the beginning of December, in a secret session, the charges are made again, this time from Schaposnik’s lips.
On December 14, it is Livraga himself who appears in court to sue “whoever was responsible” for attempted homicide and damages.
Fernández Suárez starts seeing ghosts. On December 18, in a fit of courage, he appears in front of the Advisory Board to rebut Schaposnik.
33. Fernández Suárez Confesses
—There are charges here —exclaimed Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez— but no proof!
It was eleven o’clock on the morning of December 18, 1956. The Governance Minister and the six members of the Province Advisory Board had come together in a secret session; they were listening to the Chief of Police’s response to Schaposnik’s accusations: