According to an investigation, four Argentine military officers convicted of crimes against humanity allegedly collaborated with South African Armed Forces in the late 1970s.

They are Jorge Acosta and Alfredo Astiz, who are in prison, and the deceased Jorge Perrén and Rubén Chamorro.

All belonged to the Argentine Navy and were active in the most important clandestine detention center of the dictatorship, the ESMA, in Buenos Aires.

According to an article in the magazine Anfibia, the Navy sent them to South Africa to keep them hidden among international complaints of human rights violations.

At the time, the African nation was internationally isolated because of its apartheid regime.

Pretoria sought to get closer to South American governments with similar anti-communist tendencies, which were also questioned for their human rights situation.

Anfibia argues that after the arrival of the Argentines, the South African military began to employ one of their tactics: the Death Flights.

In the so-called "Border War" against revolutionary movements in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, many prisoners were thrown alive into the sea from airplanes.

This was admitted in court by South African Colonel Johan Theron, who revealed that the victims were overdosed with tranquilizers and loaded onto planes taking off from Namibia.

It is the same method used by the Argentine Navy for ESMA detainees, according to investigations, confessions of repressors and testimonies of survivors and witnesses.

Anfibia points out that there is still no concrete evidence of the direct participation of Astiz, Acosta, Chamorro and Perrén in the South African operations.

But it underlines the coincidence of dates and that Theron was living in Pretoria at the same time as the Argentine sailors.

Moreover, he recalls that Astiz once revealed in an interview that in South Africa "he spent the happiest days of his life".