ARGENTINA, THE
DEATH SQUADS, AND
CHRISTIAN ACTIVISM

The names of the two Argentine naval officers who testified about Argentine death squad atrocities to ABC, NBC and CBS in May of 1995 are Antonio Pernias and Juan Carlos Rolan (both naval Captains). Both officers also testified to this effect before the Argentine Senate in June. Their testimony was later corraborated by Captain Adolfo Scilingo, another naval officer (a captain), in testimony he gave to well-known Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky in the fall of 1995. All three - Pernias, Rolan, and Scilingo - detailed the practice of dumping leftist political prisoners (men women and children - some barely into their teens) alive over the Atlantic from the bellies of Argentine naval planes. Accompanying each of the death flights were Protestant pastors and / or Catholic priests whose job it was to "comfort" not the victims but the occasional squimish death squad functionary with various Scriptures from the Bible about the necessity of separating the wheat from the chaff. The death flights were carried out every Wednesday over the course of several years.

Argentine business leaders, military officers, Catholic prelates, and conservative evangelicals - including leaders in many of Argentinas largest pentecostal bodies - have condemned Pernias, Rolan, and Scilingo for speaking out. After all, they say, what was done was done for the sake of a noble cause - saving Christianity and the "free enterprise system" from the communist conspiracy and the scourge of Liberation Theology.

What a way to build the kingdom of God, but this is what "Political Christianity" is all about! God save the church from people who would protect it in such a fashion!

Antipas Ministries
S.R. Shearer

• Please see "The Triumph of Memory" in NACLA Report on the Americas, volume XXIX, No. 3, Nov/Dec 1995, pg. 10.