Brazilian musician identified as victim of 1976 killing by Argentina military
Source: The Guardian
Brazilian musician identified as victim of 1976 killing by Argentina military
The bossa nova pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior went out for cigarettes after a concert in Buenos Aires – a forensic team has finally revealed his fate
Harriet Barber in Buenos Aires
Sun 14 Sep 2025 10.00 BST
Last modified on Sun 14 Sep 2025 10.01 BST
Early on 18 March 1976, Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, a Brazilian pianist who had played alongside some of Latin America’s greatest musicians, disappeared from the streets of Buenos Aires.
For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery, sparking desperate searches, raising suspicions of government complicity, and inspiring international documentaries. Now the mystery has been solved, with forensic scientists formally identifying Tenório Júnior’s body – and confirming he was a victim of Argentina’s bloody dictatorship.
“He left his hotel in the centre of the city and the earth ate him,” said Carlos “Maco” Somigliana of the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). “Nothing more was ever known – until now.”
Tenório Júnior, known to most as Tenorinho, was regarded as one of the leading figures of the bossa nova movement – Brazil’s celebrated fusion of samba and jazz. One critic praised him as a pianist with “hands of gold” and an “enormous future”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/14/francisco-tenorio-cerqueira-junior-murdered-argentina-military
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to Argentina while it had its own military dictatorship during its horrifying Dirty War, which followed Brazil's military dictatorship.
This martyr was clearly an accomplished, disciplined, intelligent person who was clearly no political threat to anyone. The article makes a point of the fact he was apolitical. He was snatched in what was a snap judgement by an idiot that he "looked" like a "dissident" to him, the vicious system in place now in the US under Trump's ICE operations.
How horrifying it is to learn he, too, was sacrificed by the Argentinean military sadist, Alfredo Astiz, who preyed upon so very many souls in his own country.
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'Angel Of Death' Among 29 Given Life Sentences Over Argentina's 'Dirty War'
November 30, 201711:08 AM ET
By
Scott Neuman
Front row, left to right: Jorge Eduardo Acosta, "The Tiger"; Alfredo Astiz, the "Angel of Death"; pilot Georges Mario Daniel Arru; and Carlos Octavio Capdevilla, known as "Tommy," are seen during their sentencing hearing Wednesday in Buenos Aires.
Javier Gonzalez Toledo/AFP/Getty Images
Two former naval officers were among 29 people given life sentences Wednesday in Argentina for their involvement in human rights abuses carried out during the country's "Dirty War," a brutal period of military dictatorship from 1976-1983.
Former Capts. Alfredo Astiz, known as the "Angel of Death," and Jorge Eduardo Acosta, aka "The Tiger," were given life sentences in the largest and longest trial of its kind in Argentina's history. It opened in 2012 and focused on crimes against 789 victims at the Naval Mechanics School, or ESMA, which was turned into a secret torture center.
Astiz has refused to apologize for his crimes, saying during the trial that he would "never ask for forgiveness."
Astiz was convicted on charges of kidnapping, torture, murder and stealing minors. As The Associated Press notes, his nickname "came from his cherubic looks and for his work delivering dissidents to the military junta as an undercover agent. He previously was convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering two French nuns and a journalist and was already serving a life sentence."
NPR's Philip Reeves reports:
"This is the first time a court in Argentina has issued a judgement against those involved so-called death flights, in which dissidents were drugged and tossed out of aircraft into the sea.
"Victims included rights activists, relatives of others detained or killed, and two nuns. The court sentenced two former pilots to life for taking part in these flights."
More:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567414044/angel-of-death-among-29-given-life-sentences-over-argentinas-dirty-war
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Re: Argentina's own 20th century history toward "dissidents" from U.S. records:
Inside Argentina’s Killing Machine: U.S. Intelligence Documents Record Gruesome Human Rights Crimes of 1976-1983
Foreign Ministry official Elena Holmberg and renowned writer Haroldo Conti were among those who disappeared at the hands of security forces during the Argentine dictatorship
Buenos Aires Police Chief told CIA "he wanted no prisoners for interrogation, only cadavers"
Junta leader General Rafael Videla sought to hide mass murder to protect Argentina’s image
Before coup, CIA analysts predicted rise of "hardline mentality... to dominate the Army”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Patricia Derian reported that “Argentina has the worst human rights record in South America”
Washington D.C., May 30, 2019 – On August 20, 1976, Argentine security personnel dynamited the bodies of thirty people – ten women and twenty men – who had been detained by the Federal Police and executed in the town of Pilar, north of Buenos Aires. The explosion scattered human remains over a wide radius. This gruesome display of repression was intended to send a bloody message to other alleged militants to cease their activities five months after the military coup, according to a CIA intelligence report posted today by the National Security Archive. But military junta leader General Rafael Videla was “annoyed that the bodies were left so prominently displayed,” sources told the CIA, because it “reflects adversely on the good name of Argentina."
Not that Videla opposed the mass murders, noted the CIA. “Videla is in agreement that subversives should be killed, but [believes] that the entire matter should be dealt with discreetly.”
For the duration of the “dirty war” during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, Argentine officials took extensive steps to hide their atrocities through the use of secret torture centers, disappeared victims, and faked battles with insurgents to cover up human rights crimes. Ceaseless efforts by the families of their victims, human rights organizations, courageous prosecutors and judges and survivors of the abuses have lifted the veil on the scale of repression and institutionalized brutality of the Argentine military.
Now, recently declassified U.S. intelligence reports provide comprehensive new information on the killing machine run by Argentina’s security forces during the military era. Officials from the CIA, FBI, and other U.S. government agencies recorded vivid details of the “extensive use of torture” by Argentina’s military regime to quell the leftist insurgency during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, according to a posting today of now-declassified U.S. intelligence materials by the National Security Archive. The recently released records describe “brutal methods employed by the military” during the period. "While numerous innocent people were tortured and killed by paramilitary units, most of the victims were at least supporters of the ERP or the Montoneros,” the CIA reported.
More:
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/southern-cone/2019-05-30/inside-argentinas-killing-machine-us-intelligence-documents-record-gruesome-human-rights-crimes-1976
Thank you for filling in some information we've all been missing about what has happened in our own "New World" history so much of the rest of the world has already known, Eugene.
What a shame. Rest in peace, Tenório Júnior.