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LS. DEFT. OF STATE, A/RPS/IPS
iaigwet P. Grafcld, Director
^Release ( ) Excise < ) Deny

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>edassify:( ) In Part )Classtfyas_ ( )EMendas_ ( ) Downgrade to
jate_________ Declassify on__________Reason ?

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MEMORANDUM TO THE FILES ﾃつｻ*ﾃつｫ"^&tfM?*Ii

FROM: ' POL - William Hallamn

SUBJECT: Clandestine Detention Centers

I recently had a long conversation with a gentleman from
La Plata who is the father of two disappeared persons and who
has worked very hard to learn a few facts about how the repression
is handled by Argentine authorities and who has tried to create
for himself and his remaining family an understanding of what
might have happened to its missing members. He has also been
active in marshalling the families of disappeared persons in
La Plata and must of course be regarded as an observer with a
strong anti-government bias. He is, however, a professional man
and I would rate his sanity and analytical powers as high. My*
contact described in considerable detail (even sketched a map)
a clandestine denteuion center which existed near La Plata until

f this year. The facility was reached by driving

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about February o

straight through La Plata on the street that leads in from Buenos
Aires out toward an abandoned railroad station in a small area
known as Arana. Crossing the railroad tracks at Arana station
and passing a YPE station a short distance away one comes upon
a former ranch called '\a ^rmonia". The ranch was acquired by
the Army during Peronist times and has been for the past years
used for maneuvers by the Seventh Infantry.

My contact visited the place_during a brief period in January
between the time that two buildings were dynamited and the place
was apparently abandoned as an interrogation and holding center
and the time it was retaken for more usual Army purposes and

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entrances were blocked by strands of barbed wire.

As an interrogation center "Va Tarmonia" was a fairly porous
place.and for long there had been stories, widely pi&G&d circulated
in La Plata of the use feir which it was being put. Therse stories
principally came from low ranking policemen and Army enlisted
troops who let slip comments which quickly made the rounds. The

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former buildings or "casco" of the old estancia formed part of
the complex. There were two large well constructed buildings
which were used as torture centers. One of them had been
dynamited before the visit of my contact. Another was intact.
Two buildings were apparently used as cell blocks. One had been
partly destroyed by irrgirt-dynamite, but one wall remained and parts
of the cells along it. Behind the cells area was a wall pitted
with bullet marks.

From a person who formerly worked at the facility people
in La Plata learned that executions had routinely been performed
by firing squad with prisoners lined against the building in
which contained cells. The same, person explained how bodies could
be disposed of in trenches by putting down a layer of bodies and
then covering them with a layer of rubber tires. The tires were
set afire and the smell they gave covered the smell of burning
flesh and quickly disposed of bodies. The same person who gave
this information was able to give the names of several young people
from locally prominent families whom he claimed personally to have
seen at the facility. The names of young people disappeared but
were not those of members of the family of my contact. ( My contact
estimates that in La Plata some 1,500 people disappeared since the
military government took office. Activist groups however have been

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able only) to document and list 600 cases. According to my contact,
there is still a great deal of fear in La Plata -- which from all
accounts was more heavily hit on a per capita basis'than any other
Argentine city. Its very large university was decimated.) Not
everyone picked up in La Plata however was taken to "Arana"

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b-eﾃつ｣aﾃつ｣e t-hore initial interrogations. Others were taken to the
"robos^y hurtos" police station on 55th Street between 12th and
13th Avenues. Others were taken to the "puente 12" near Ezeiza

airport. Others were taken to the Naval School at La Plata, and

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ixoV) were H_

others still (especially those from Ensenada and BarixcO
taken to the headquarters of the local Marine battalion at 50th
and 122nd Streets near the outskirts of the city in a place called
"the forest of La Plata." This perhaps reflected the preferences
of the several groups that made raids in La Plata, fea^tr the
Army, the Federal Police and the Navy routinely ran operations
in the city. My contact was reasonably certain that Army raids
were directed from the Palmero Headquarters of the First Army
Command via an intermediate headquarters at Viejo Bueno, located
near the Army facilities at Mont ingolo.

All these places were, however, (including Arana-La Armenia)
seemed to have been primarily torture-interrogation centers at
which prisoners remained for short periods. There were other
holding places for those who would be kept longer. One was ,

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located at an Argentine Air Force warehouse between -the suburbs ^f*"^

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of Quilmes and Bernal between the town of Quilmes itself and the ﾃつ｣ﾃつ｣ﾃつ｣Sﾃつｻ
River Plate. According to seepage into La Plata from Army and

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police underlings ,fcke facility would hold about 400 people. It *<-*?>*~
was laughingly referred to as "Las Malvinas". Orders would be

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given to drivers for example to make a run to "Arana" to pick up
prisoners to hauled to "Las Malvinas".

Less is known about another longer term holding facility
located somewhere in the Banfield area. Persons who drove
prisoners were overheard to remark that they had to make a
"run to Banfield," leading to speculation that their destination
could be a large police; property located in that area or possibly
a series of houses believed to have been rented by the police.

Here specualltion overtakes even the hearsay evidence of the
drivers who were heard to speak of "Banfield." Two women who
had relatives held in a prison for common criminals near Ezeiza
airport brought the following story: They took a train to the
small Ezeiza village railroad station located a few kilometers
from the airport. They were aware that nearby was a large,
recognized prison for women and a large facility for men. They
started toward a building which they believed was the one they
saw. They inquired of a passerby just short of the building
who told them no -- that was the place where the "secret prisoners"
were held. If they were looking for their relatives in jail they
should head out in another direction. The women went ahead, having
but a short distance to go, but when they arrived a caretaker came
out and told them that there was no one present -- that the place
was closed. He directed them to the well known prison they sought.
Other stories circulate in La Plata about prisoners held at the
Azul Army Regiment and the Magdalena Army Regiment and an old
war ship moored somewhere along the River Plate. This is, however,
speculation based purely upon rumor.

(Embassy officer Kenneth Sackett, who interviews PEN prisoners
in various prisons in conncection with the Right of Option Program

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commented when he was told about this speculation, however,

that from what he has been told "every town in Argentina with

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a population of more than 2,000 must have had/interrogation

center some where just at the town's outskirts -- probably

a military installation of some kind or another." His comments

was based upon many conversations with prisoners from all over

Argentina who described their initial interrogation experiences

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