Elena Angélica Dolores Holmberg Lanusse (24 May 1931 – disappeared 20 December 1978), better known as Elena Holmberg, was an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

diplomat who was kidnapped and assassinated in 1978. Distinguished for being the first woman to graduate from the Institute of Foreign Services of the Nation, Holmberg was an important official of the military dictatorship which took power in 1976, and is generally believed to have been detained-disappeared and then killed by the regime to which she belonged.

Biography

Elena Holmberg came from a traditional family, the sister of retired Colonel Enrique Holmberg and cousin of General Alejandro Lanusse (former president of the Argentine Republic). She worked as a career functionary at the Argentine Embassy in France. Due to friction with the staff of the "Pilot Information Center" (a group of

Argentine Navy The Argentine Navy (ARA; ). This forms the basis for the navy's ship prefix "ARA". is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Argentine Army, Army and the Argentine ...

intelligence officers headquartered in Paris, where ,

Alfredo Astiz Alfredo Ignacio Astiz (born 8 November 1951) is a convicted war criminal and former Argentine military commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla ...

, and were also assigned), the diplomat was summoned to

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

to report to her superiors. There she was kidnapped by on 20 December 1978 when she left the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

to meet a group of French journalists. People released from the Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy (ESMA) declared that at that time certain officers of the detention center alluded to their participation in the disappearance of Elena Holmberg. On 11 January 1979, her decomposed body was found in the

Luján River The Luján River ( Spanish, Río Luján) runs from its source near Espora about west of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to its outflow into the Río de la Plata north of the city. The first ''Megatherium ''Megatherium'' ( ; from Greek () 'great' + ...

in Tigre, Buenos Aires Province. It was later identified by her cousin Lanusse. Holmberg's family and journalist Andrea Basconi have asserted they believe that Admiral Emilio Massera was the one who directly ordered her death, believing that she possessed compromising information about his contact with members of the

Montoneros Montoneros (, MPM) was an Argentine far-left politics, far-left Peronism, Peronist, Camilism, Camilist and Catholic Church, Roman Catholic revolutionary Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla organization, which emerged in the 1970s during the "Argentine ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmberg, Elena 1931 births 1978 deaths Argentine women diplomats Assassinated diplomats Female murder victims Enforced disappearances in Argentina Formerly missing Argentine people Kidnapped diplomats Missing person cases in Argentina People killed in the Dirty War

Biography

See also

References