Horacio Verbitsky

Horacio Verbitksy (born 1942 in Buenos Aires) is a prominent Argentine investigative journalist and author. He writes for the left-leaning Argentine newspaper "Página/12" and heads up the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a human-rights organisation.

Life

During the seventies he was a member of Montoneros, a guerrilla organization [http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2007/11/04/noticia_0023.html Verbitsky y su militancia en Montoneros: "Participé en enfrentamientos armados y, por suerte, no murió nadie"] , interview of H. Verbitsky, in "Perfil", November 4, 2007 es icon] . According to him, he participated in shootings, but during which "luckily" nobody died . He also stated that he had no important functions in the Montoneros organization .

Along with Mario Firmenich and five other Montoneros, he was indicted for allegedly being involved in the planning and execution of the bombing of the Superintendance of Security of the Federal Police, on July 2, 1976 — a few months after the military coup — which caused 21 deaths among intelligence officers. The case was however closed in 2007 because of statute of limitations. [ [http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=973164 Fallo favorable a Montoneros de la Cámara Federal] , "La Nacion", 21 December 2007 es icon] Verbitsky quickly attained to international fame when he published the account of the 1976-1983 dictatorship's brutality, courtesy of a confession by naval officer Adolfo Scilingo. The subsequent book – "The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior" – became a bestseller. It was republished following Scilingo's trial and conviction on human rights abuses in Spain.

In 2001, Verbitsky was one of four winners of the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards [http://www.cpj.org/awards01/verbitsky.html] for his reporting and his work in defending press freedom in Argentina.

Bibliography

*"The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior"
*"Ezeiza", Contrapunto, Buenos Aires, 1985 (on the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, available in Spanish [http://www.elortiba.org/ezeiza.html here] )
*"The Silence", extract transl. in English made available by Open Democracy: [http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war"] , July 28, 2005 (concerning the Cité catholique fundamentalist group, etc.)

References

See also

*Dirty War
*1973 Ezeiza massacre