Page 14 - Argentina - Carter, Regan, and Bush VP

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my other side was number 102, a lawyer !whom they had taken from
his office in the Palermo area the same day. they took us. I
could see him as well as I could see my husband: he was
olive-skinned, had black wavy hair and a beard and was of
average build. He wore a mask. Later I overhead that he was a
veterinarian, and that his sister, a teacher who had been
brought in a month before, had—according to what I've heard—
recently married a widower with children. They were going to
hold her until her brothers appeared and she did not know where
they werd. They took her from the room a few days before I
left, and I suppose they released her. They called one of the
prisoners "peg-leg." He was very near me, and 'by his voice
seemed to be an older person and very weak. One night the
guards got drunk and began to bet that they could make him
stand on his peg-leg. They brought him into the middle of the
room and ordered him to do it. He begged them, said it was
impossible, that he was going to fall. Then they began to kick
him, punch him, and they stood him up. Of course, he fell.
They stood him up ajgaln, he fell again, and so on, throughout
the night. It was a most macabre spectacle. The guards went
crazy, they beat him without interruption and the poor man was
begging them to stop. There was the sound of blows to the
lungs, the abdomen, the noise of broken bones. They stopped
when he fell unconscious. Afterwards he was delirious for two
or three days until they called the doctor. The doctor said he
had many broken bones and ordered him to be taken away. I
didn't hear him again. In early December, a transfer occured.
Apparently they were taking away those who had been there the
longest; however, they included among them the lawyer who was
next to me; in all, some 40 persons. They adjusted the
handcuffs, the shackles and the hoods. They assembled them
together, were taking them out when the noise of an airplane
was heard that seemed to be landing nearby. (I shall explain
that the sound of airplanes was very frequent. I also heard a
train, and a helicopter, two or three times every day). After
a time, the sound of an airplane was heard again, then nothing
more. A guard asked another where they were being taken, and
he answered: "Fishfood". They were very few people left in the
room, and they changed our places. Fortunately, my husband and
I continued to be next to each other with the same consecutive
numbers. But I shall explain that there were three or four
with the number 100, others with 400, 700, 900, etc. On the
following day, they began to bring in a large number of new
people and this continued for succeslve days, until they had to
put us on the floor, in the guard's passageway. Many of them
were taken out at night and were ordered to get dressed.