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74 2 A r é v a l o Beruti In t . A v . B u ll r ic h Av. Cerviño Clay Charcas Demaría Av. Dorrego Guatemala Güemes Juncal A v . J . B . J u s t o Nicaragua F . J . S . d e O r o G o d o y C r u z Paraguay Av. Santa Fe J. F. Seguí S in c la ir Soler avio M. Nicolas Est. Palermo Est. Pza. Italia F G S M FGBM LÍNEA D 41 LOCATION: AV. BULLRICH AND AV. SANTA FE TRANSPORTATION: BUSES: 12, 15, 29, 36, 39, 41, 55, 57, 59, 60, 64, 67, 68, 93, 95, 108, 111, 118, 128, 152, 160, 161, 166, 194. SUBWAY STATION: PALERMO (D LINE). TRAIN STATION: PALERMO (SAN MARTÍN LINE). 41 . Patricios First Infantry Regiment The Patricios First Infantry Regiment functioned as the First Army Corps headquarters during the dictatorship . A Clandestine Detention Center also operated there from 1976 to 1977 . Although not all witnesses agree as to the precise location of the center within these premises, several testimonies do attest to its existence . The Clandestine Detention Center According to the testimony of Rodolfo Peregrino Fernández, a former member of the Federal Police who testified before the Argentine Commission for Human Rights in Madrid (see “Coordinación Federal, ” p . 17), the Patricios Regiment contained cells where illegally detained prisoners were held: “The First Army Corps: in the headquarters of the Command Unit, located in the neighborhood of Palermo in the city of Buenos Aires, and whose main entrance is on Santa Fe, just a few meters from Av . Bullrich , the entrance hall of the main building led into a reception room . Behind a door that opened up onto a kind of gallery, there was a staircase that led down to the basement . Two small rooms below had been prepared as cells . They were used to hold people who had been kidnapped and were of special interest to Colonel Rowaldes [chief of the detention center’s Special Task Group*] . Another officer had told him that Rowaldes was assistant to the commanding officer of the First Army Corps, charged with matters of ‘subversion .’ The day the declarant visited this prison , he managed to catch sight of at least two men” (Peregrino Fernández , 1983) . The book El escuadrón perdido (The lost squadron) by Captain José Luis D’Andrea Mohr (1998) contains information about conscripts disappeared from this site . Early in the morning of July 20, 1976, Darío Oscar Bedne left his home and made his way to the regiment, where he was performing MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE PATRICIOS REGIMENT. PALERMO 75 his military service . Later that morning, his family received a telephone call from the barracks asking why he had not shown up . When his father went to the barracks , another conscript informed him that Darío had indeed entered the building in the early morning hours . Nonetheless, Captain Conforti, Lieutenants Ferrero and Del Torchio, and the Regiment’s leader, Colonel Lobaiza, all denied it . Rubén Raúl Maggio was drafted into the regiment on March 19, 1976 . On March 25, a day after the coup, family members met another conscript who asked them why Rubén had not returned to finish his term of duty . When Rubén’s parents went to inquire at the barracks, they were told that he was considered “absent without leave . ” Some time later they found out through other conscripts that Rubén had been punished by a captain and had never gone off duty . Control of Clandestine Detention Centers in the city As part of its repressive strategy, the Armed Forces divided the nation’s territory into five zones, which were in turn divided into subzones and areas of influence . In 1975 the government of Isabel Perón passed a series of decrees aimed at the “annihilation of subversion” and granted the Armed Forces control of all the nation’s security forces . The Armed Forces created a Defense Council presided over by the Minister of Defense, subdivided the nation’s territory, appointed officers in charge of each zone, and established the methods to be used against the guerrilla movements . The five zone command units corresponded to the Army Corps jurisdictions that covered the entire national territory . These jurisdictions were as follows: • Zone 1 (until 1979): the city of Buenos Aires, the northern and central regions of the Province of Buenos Aires (excluding certain towns) and the province...

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