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Argentina's ex-strongman Reynaldo Bignone took the witness stand Tuesday in his trial for alleged human right violations during the country's ruthless military dictatorship.
Bignone, 81, a former army general who was part of the military junta, served as Argentina's de facto leader from 1982 to 1983, right before the country shifted to an elected presidency.
He is charged with the kidnapping and torture of 56 people who were held in secret detention centers at the Campo de Mayo military base, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires during Argentina's "dirty war" against leftists.
In 1983, Bignone handed over power to social democrat Raul Alfonsin, the country's first elected president after seven years of dictatorship.
In addition to the kidnapping and torture charges, the Bignone is accused of having stolen children from some of the kidnapped detainees. Five other retired military officers also are being prosecuted during the trial, which is expected to run through early March 2010.
Bignone is accused of having had a hand in the imprisonment of some 5,000 prisoners who were held at the Campo de Mayo barracks.
As the accused entered the court room Tuesday, human rights activists along with relatives of the dead held up posters bearing photographs of some of the victims, who vanished some three decades ago without a trace.
Human rights activists estimated that 30,000 Argentines "disappeared" during Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship, and some 500 babies born during their mothers' captivity were taken away, of whom fewer than 100 have discovered their true identity.
But in an interview with a French journalist made public on the eve of the trial, Bignone said that the number of victims had been greatly inflated.
"They say that the regime disappeared 30,000 people, but it was only 8,000," he said in the interview with French documentary reporter Marie-Monique Robin.
He told Robin that France's occupation of Algeria provided the template for the dictatorship's anti-leftist "dirty war."
"The only difference was that Algeria was a colony, while ours took place here in our own country," he said.
