Former Molinos manager goes on trial over dictatorship kidnappings

A court in La Plata will try a former manager of Molinos Río de la Plata, one of the companies accused of collaborating with state terrorism during Argentina’s last military dictatorship, over the kidnapping of three of the firm’s workers.

Emilio Jorge Parodi was the personnel manager at the company’s factory in Avellaneda, Buenos Aires province, in 1976. He is accused of being a necessary participant in the abduction of three workers who remain disappeared to this day.

Francisco Fernández, Roberto José Rivolta Bonino and Santos Ojeda, the victims, were members of the union organization Agrupación 17 de Octubre and were kidnapped while entering or leaving their workplace on the early morning of July 7, 1976.

At the time, Molinos Río de la Plata was one of Argentina’s largest companies, primarily producing flour, oil, and products derived from them. It grew considerably during and after the 1976-1983 dictatorship and remains one of Argentina’s most important food producers.

A 2016 report by the then Ministry of Justice and Human Rights examining the involvement of civilian-run companies in human rights violations during the dictatorship said Molinos Río de la Plata “participated in the kidnapping of its employees” by providing information about them and facilitating access to them by the armed forces.

The trial against Parodi will begin Thursday. 

In recent years, several people who held positions of power at major companies during the dictatorship have been convicted or tried for collaborating with state terrorism. In 2023 businessman Marcos Levin was found guilty of torturing and kidnapping 17 of his employees in 1977.

The accusation

Parodi, 85, has been in pre-trial detention since 2023 and is the only person accused in the case.

When ordering the oral trial, Judge Ernesto Kreplak said the kidnappings of Ojeda, Fernández and Rivolta Bonino “could not have been executed without the defendant’s collaboration,” as he allegedly made the factory’s facilities available to the captors and facilitated the victims’ arrests.

“These circumstances made it possible to specifically identify the victims — amid a considerable flow of workers entering and leaving — and for the repressive forces to apprehend and detain them, and finally to transport them away from the workplace,” Kreplak said in his ruling.

“The defendant played a role in these events not only by being aware of them but also by contributing to their occurrence,” the judge added.

The human rights organization Center for Social and Legal Studies (CELS, by its Spanish initials) said in a statement that the trial will address only three abductions, even though “the repression against the workers of Molinos left, at least, 27 disappeared and murdered employees and union representatives.”

The three kidnappings

Ojeda, 24 at the time, was a union representative and was abducted at 5 a.m. on July 7, 1976, as he was leaving work. CELS said he was taken away in a car by armed men dressed as civilians who identified themselves as members of the security forces. Witnesses said the same men had previously asked Parodi to identify Ojeda.

Rivolta Bonino and Fernández were kidnapped between 6 and 8 a.m. as they were about to begin their workday. Witnesses said that when Fernández went to clock in, his time card was missing.

“That’s why he received a call from the company’s security guard post, where the people who kidnapped him were waiting for him,” Marcelo Arnoldo Flamenco testified in the case.

CELS said Molinos Río de la Plata became one of Argentina’s most profitable companies, particularly during the dictatorship. “After layoffs, voluntary retirements and disappearances, its profits increased exponentially,” the organization said.

“The workers who were most active in the labor struggles were persecuted, and many of them are now disappeared,” it added.

According to the Justice and Human Rights Ministry’s report, after the March 24, 1976, coup, company executives “offered several employees” who were involved with the union “the chance to receive money in exchange for their resignation.” Only some accepted. The kidnappings followed.

The same report states that 21 former Molinos employees disappeared, four are confirmed to have been murdered, and one was kidnapped but survived. All had engaged in union activities. A daughter of one of them was also stolen from her family.