Disturbed by growing denialism, women whose fathers committed heinous abuses urge other perpetrators to break their ‘pact of silence’ over their crimes

Sins of the father: daughters of men who killed for Argentina's regime speak out

“Do you think I’m a monster?” Her father’s question was one that Analía Kalinec had been struggling to avoid since childhood.

But as she confronted him in the prison where he was held under trial for some of the worst crimes in Argentina’s history, it was one she could no longer ignore.

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“Not as my father,” Analía told him. But to herself she thought: “Regarding everything else, yes, you are a monster.”

Analía, a 37-year-old psychologist, didn’t realize at first the implication of that brief exchange in 2009. “I got home and told my husband my father and I had really connected. It wasn’t until later that I realized my life had just changed forever.”

Her father, Eduardo Kalinec, is a former police officer who was known as “Doctor K” at the three death camps where he committed heinous human rights abuses during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

It’s not clear how he earned the nickname. “The torture rooms were called surgeries. Maybe that’s why they nicknamed him doctor,” said Analía. About 2,000 people are believed to have died in those three camps, of an estimated total of 30,000 killed by the military.

Kalinec was given a life sentence in 2010 on five counts of murder and 147 counts of abduction followed by torture. His trial was part of decade-long historical reckoning, in which around 700 other former officers have received similar sentences.

Over the past year and a half, however, that reckoning has once again been challenged by sympathisers with the former regime.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eduardo Kalinec as a young policeman. Photograph: Courtesy of Analia Kalinec

Since coming to power in December 2015, the centre-right government of president Mauricio Macri has started lending a friendly ear to relatives of convicted officers lobbying for their release.

In their meetings with government officials, these lobbyists portray convicted human rights abusers as “political prisoners” and unrecognized heroes of a “war against subversion” during the 1970s and 80s.

Disturbed by the growing normalization of such opinions, Analía and the daughters of other men who kidnapped, tortured and killed for the dictatorship have decided to speak out.



“We have chosen to face the truth, no matter how painful it is,” said Analía.



Sitting with her in an interview with the Guardian are two other daughters from her group: Liliana Furió, 54, a film-maker, and 40-year-old lawyer Erika Lederer.

All three have been ostracized by their own families for denouncing their own fathers, but they hope that by going public they can encourage other perpetrators to break the “pact of silence” over their crimes.

Liliana’s father, Paulino Furió, is an 84-year-old former army intelligence officer serving a life sentence under house arrest.

Liliana repeatedly begged her father to reveal the secret locations where the military buried their victims. “Now it’s impossible because he’s developed senile dementia,” she said.

But the last time she pleaded with him to divulge the grave sites, his response was chilling: “God has forgiven me. I don’t regret anything,” he said.

“What’s the point of their silence? Everything’s already proven. There are relatives waiting to bury their dead, grandmothers looking for their grandchildren,” Liliana pleads.

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Perhaps the cruelest secret kept by the dictatorship-era criminals is the fate of the babies born in captivity to mothers who were later murdered by the regime.

It is estimated that about 500 such infants were given to military families to raise as their own. So far, only 122 have been reunited with their biological families.

For all three woman, it was a supreme court decision early last month that brought matters to a head. Based on a legal technicality, the justices ruled that dictatorship torturers were eligible for early release, Kalinec among them.

“I couldn’t stop crying over the injustice of releasing someone like my father, despite how much I love him” says Analía. “He’s exactly where he should be.”

A massive response from society, including protest marches across the country, quickly forced Congress to pass an overnight law neutralizing the supreme court ruling on May 10.

For now, 350 dictatorship perpetrators who would have been set free by the ruling remain behind bars, but Erika Lederer’s father is now beyond justice.

Lieutenant Ricardo Lederer was an obstetrician at the Campo de Mayo military base outside Buenos Aires, where it is estimated 5,000 people were slaughtered.

According to court testimony, Lederer, inspired by Nazi-style eugenics, intended to “improve the race” through his work. Young female captives were kept alive at his “maternity clinic” until they gave birth, only to be murdered shortly afterwards.

The babies were given to military families to be raised, and many only discovered their true identities decades later.

In 2012, a man named Pablo Gaona Miranda found out through DNA testing that he was the son of a couple murdered by the dictatorship.

Lederer had signed Gaona Miranda’s birth certificate in 1978, falsely stating he was the son of a military couple. Cornered by his past, Lederer killed himself. “My father never showed any repentance,” says Erika.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Erika Lederer with her father. Photograph: Courtesy of Erika Lederer

Emboldened by the public reaction against last month’s supreme court’s decision, Erika penned a striking Facebook post last month: “The children of perpetrators who never approved their crimes, who shouted ‘murderer’ to their faces, should unite.”

All three women grew up under the violent shadow of their fathers’ crimes.

Alarmed at the discovery of her father’s past, Erika submitted to a DNA test to see if she herself could be the child of missing people. The test, however, turned out negative. “I had to accept I was his daughter.”

Liliana remembers frequent beatings from her father. “These guardians of order were the paradigm of misogynist, patriarchal machismo. They not only tortured women, they raped them and then appropriated their children. They’re the serpent’s egg.”

The three women made contact after Erika’s Facebook post, and have bonded over their shared history. Other children of perpetrators have come forward since, encouraged by their Facebook page, Disobedient Stories.

“Until now we were misfits – we felt fear and shame having to reveal who we were,” says Liliana.

Their main hope is that their coming out will inspire at least some of the hundreds of convicted perpetrators to provide information.

“My father is only 65 years old, completely lucid, very intelligent and he has a prodigious memory,” says Analía.

Analía has not spoken to Eduardo Kalinec since that prison visit eight years ago, when she could not bring herself to call him a monster to his face.

Her last contact was a letter urging him to speak. “I hold out my hand and wait for you on the other side of the street,” Analía wrote.