Argentina's Kirchner seeks probe after former army officers admit torture

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 8 (AFP) - Argentine President Nestor Kirchner ordered a probe Monday after an ex-dictator and several army officers confessed their administrations had tortured civilians between 1976 and 1983.

Kirchner has charged investigators with determining "possible sanctions and, or penalties that could be brought against" former dictator Reynaldo Bignone, and retired generals Albano Harguindeguy and Ramon Diaz Bessone.

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The former dictator and military chiefs made their startling confessions during an interview with the French television network Canal Plus.

Bignone, who has been arrested for kidnapping babies, admitted that 8,000 people had disappeared during his term of office in 1982, and said torture had been approved by the country's Catholic Church.

The church has vigorously denied Bignone's allegations.

The former dictator also claimed French instructors had given lessons to Argentine military officers on kidnapping, torture and instruction in how to secretly execute civilians.

Some 30,000 people disappeared in Argentina during the country's so-called dirty war, according to estimates by human rights groups.

"How could you get information (from a detainee) if you don't press them, if you don't use torture?" Diaz Bessone asked in the Canal Plus interview.

The former general admitted that many of those who were kidnapped were secretly assassinated.

"You think that we could have (legally) shot 7,000 people?" he added.

Diaz Bessone said it would have been no use jailing some individuals because they would have taken up weapons to rail against the military authorities again if they had ever been liberated.

Bignone, Diaz Bessone and Harguindeguy have been accused of grave human rights violations by tribunals that investigated the period, but benefited from an amnesty by former president Carlos Menem in 1990.

However, Congress recently repealed the amnesty laws and Kirchner has said his administration will not seek to protect anyone accused of human rights violations.

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