Appointment as the new director of the Penitentiary Service Provincial Lieutenant Colonel (RE) José Alberto Bernhardt generated the repudiation of human rights entities and legislators for his participation in the last dictatorship civic-military in it Operational Center of Military Intelligence of Battalion 601. In addition, they demanded that Governor Omar Perotti revoke his appointment.
Bernhardt -whose appointment was made official this Friday- replaced Walter Ataide in the position, after the Minister of Security, Jorge Lagna ordered the departure of Jorge Bortolozzi from the position of Secretary of Security, who made trips abroad in the midst of the situation of violence that Rosario is going through, to fulfill commitments as a member of the Lions Club.
The Sons Group was one of the first to express its rejection of the appointment of the former soldier through its Twitter account: “We express our rejection of the appointment of the retired TC José Alberto Bernhardt, a former member of the 601 Intelligence Battalion during the genocidal dictatorship. The neuralgic site from where the clandestine operations carried out by the task groups were defined.
Another voice that spoke out against Bernhardt’s appointment as head of the Penitentiary Service was the national senator María de los Angeles Sacnun (FdT), who posted on her Twitter account: “Impossible to remain silent against the appointment by the Pcial Penitentiary Service of Lt. Col. (RE) José Bernhardt, who reviewed in the operational center of Military Intelligence. The Never Again is not a mere declamation but a State Policy that must sustaine”.
Along the same lines, the national deputy Eduardo Toniolli (Evita Movement) who wrote: “With her fight -determined and persistent- the Argentine people earned the right not to have to suffer guys like José Bernhardt as civil servants“.
The Rosario Assembly Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) repudiated “the appointment of a repressor as director of the Santa Fe Penitentiary Service” and receives supporters demanding that Governor Perotti revoke this official measure that “offends and damages the entire struggle for memory, Truth and Justice, unavoidable flags of our democracy from 45 years ago to the present”.
The provincial deputy for the Social and Popular Front, Carlos del Frade, joined the rejection of Bernhardt’s appointment and questioned his participation in the dictatorship: “The appointment of former Lieutenant Colonel José Bernhard as head of the Penitentiary Service is inadmissible. is part of the permanent recycling of repressors in the democratic history of Santa Fe. In our book “Killing, stealing, fighting to live”, from 2004, we gave accounts for part of this permanent return of sorcerers. Bernhard was the man who transferred the detainees from La Calamita, as ex-commissioner Luis Galanzino denounced at the time. The book is in the digital library that is on our page.”
He also added his criticism former deputy and current head of the Directorate of Human Rights and Memory of Rosario, Alicia Gutiérrez: “Once again a repressor of the 601 Battalion in a position of a democratic government of Santa Fe. Obeid and Reuteman already put it.”
Another of the voices that questioned Bernhardt’s appointment and called for its revocation was the Rosario Autonomous CTA, from where they posted on their Twitter account: “The Rosario Autonomous CTA expresses its strongest rejection of the appointment as director of the Provincial Penitentiary Service of Genocidal Army Colonel José Alberto Bernhardt, active repressor of the Military Dictatorship from 1976 – 1983. We demand that his designation be revoked”.
“These political definitions undermine democracy and the path for Memory, truth and justice that the Argentine people have built with courage and conviction. Out with genocidal repressors!”, added in the Twitter thread
Bernhardt resumes public activity after several years without doing so, since he had been Undersecretary of Public Security of Santa Fe during the management of the late former Governor Jorge Obeid, between 1995 and 1999. After Obeid’s term ended, and already under the government of Carlos Reutemann, served as one of the advisers to the former Formula One driver, who died in 2021.
Bernhardt returned to active duty under the governmental orbit when Obeid assumed the governorship again in 2003. At that time he was sworn in as Undersecretary for Emergencies until December 10, 2007. Currently, he was serving as head of security for a country of Saint tome.