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. Death flights had also been used during the 1957 Battle of Algiers by General Marcel Bigeard. Disappear redirects here. ... This article especially refers to the Argentine dirty war; however, the term has been used in other contexts, for example in Turkey; see also lead years Dirty War (in Spanish: ) refers to a program of a state-sponsored illegal repression on domestic citizens in response to strikes, social unrest, violence... Luis Maria Mendia (1925-) was the Argentine former chief of naval operations in 1976-77, with the grade of vice-Admiral. ... Río de la Plata in relation to Uruguay and Argentina A satellite view of the estuary The Río de la Plata (from Spanish: Silver River), also known by the English name River Plate, as in the Battle of the River Plate, or sometimes [La] Plata River, is the... DVD cover The Battle of Algiers (in Italian, La Battaglia di Algeri) is a 1966 black-and-white film by Gillo Pontecorvo based on the Algerian War of Independence from 1954 until 1962 against the French occupation. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Use in the Algerian War

Paul Teitgen, former General Secretary of the Algiers Police, who had been himself tortured by the Gestapo, resigned on September 12, 1957, in protest against the widespread use of torture and extra-judiciary killings ordered by Generals Marcel Bigeard and Jacques Massu, who had received full powers during the 1957 Battle of Algiers to crush the insurgency by whatever means necessary. They threw out hundreds of prisoners into the sea, from the port of Algiers or by helicopter death flights. 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") ^[1][2][3][4] The   (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; Secret State Police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Michael Jackson. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Jacques Émile Massu (May 5 in Châlons-sur-Marne, 1908 – October 26, 2002 in Conflans-sur-Loing) was the French paratrooper general sent to Algeria during its War of Independence from France. ... DVD cover The Battle of Algiers (in Italian, La Battaglia di Algeri) is a 1966 black-and-white film by Gillo Pontecorvo based on the Algerian War of Independence from 1954 until 1962 against the French occupation. ...

Use in the Argentinian 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^[5]. Adolfo Scilingo is serving 640 years (maximum 40) in a Spanish jail after being convicted on April 19, 2005 for crimes committed between 1976 and 1983 during military government Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional in Argentina. ... Universal jurisdiction or universality principle is a controversial principle in international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other relation with the prosecuting country. ...

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 pentonadal. And shortly after, they became really drowsy, and from there we loaded them onto trucks and headed off for the airfield."^[6]

Scilingo says that the Argentine Navy is "still hiding what happened during the dirty war".^[7] Argentine Navy Jack Argentine Navy Service Emblem The Navy of the Argentine Republic (Armada de la República Argentina, ARA) is the navy of Argentina. ...

References

Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc (short: Hélie de Saint Marc; born in Bordeaux, 1922) is a French former resistant, then military officer, and was notorious for participating in the Generals Putsch against Charles de Gaulle. ... In Polynesian mythology, Ina is a lunar deity (daughter of Kui or Vaitere) Ina, also known as Ine, was king of Wessex from 688 to 726. ... El-Watan (Arabic, The Homeland), is an Algerian newspaper started on October 8, 1990, as Algeria moved from a one-party state towards democracy (a process that was impeded by the outbreak of the Algerian Civil War). ... Marie-Monique Robin (1960-) is a French journalist, who was awarded the Albert Londres prize in 1995 for Voleurs dyeux, on organ theft. ... The Ligue des droits de lhomme (Human Rights League) is a French NGO founded on June 4, 1898, by the republican Ludovic Trarieux to defend captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew wrongly accused of treason - this would be known as the Dreyfus Affair. ... LHumanité (Humanity), formerly the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party (PCF), was the only French newspaper owned by a political party. ...

See also

• Dirty War
• Forced disappearance