On Friday, Argentina’s Defense Minister Jorge Taiana removed retired general Rodrigo Soloaga as President of the Cavalry Retirees Commission for publicly supporting the military personnel convicted of committing crimes against humanity during the dictatorships of Jorge Videla (1976-1981) and Reynaldo Bignone (1982-1983).
RELATED:
In a commemorative act for Cavalry Day, Soloaga expressed support for his cavalry comrades who served during the Videla and Bignone regimes -which he did not refer to as a dictatorship but as “difficult times”- for resisting with "stoicism" their current detention.
Taiana stressed that Soloaga's words oppose all democratic principles. “Under any circumstances, we can tolerate this conduct,” he stressed, adding that Soloaga's behavior violated the military discipline regulations and the "Memory, Truth, and Justice" policy.
“The Argentinian state has been developing these policies since 2003 to vindicate the victims of the dictatorship and their relatives. Those who attack these policies will receive the corresponding disciplinary sanctions," Taiana stated.
Soloaga requested retirement when he was chief of the General Staff of the Argentine Army in 2004. He made that decision to be able to publicly repudiate the withdrawal of the dictatorship cadres from the Military College, which was ordered by President Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007).
"This action contravenes the principles and convictions that I defend," Gen. Soloaga claimed at that time.
During the administration of President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), Soloaga returned to active service by the Military Personnel Act. Nevertheless, President Alberto Fernandez's administration did not reconfirm this designation.
"The forces of democracy can not afford to give rise to retired deniers like Soloaga,” Human Rights Secretary Horacio Pietragalla stated and welcomed that several civil organizations condemned Soloaga’s statements.