Argentine Nobel Prize winner to Barack Obama: Don't visit March 24

Buenos Aires: A former Nobel Prize winner in Argentina says President Barack Obama should skip his planned March 24 visit to the country because it's the 40th anniversary of a coup that installed a military government that had US backing.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel tells The Associated Press that he plans to publish an open letter to Obama this week.

Esquivel won the prize in 1980 for his defense of human rights during the dictatorship. Obama won the prize in 2009. The two have communicated previously on issues like the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Esquivel says he welcomes Obama, but that he should not visit on the anniversary of the 1976 coup. Human rights groups estimate that 30,000 people were killed or disappeared during the 1976 to 1983 military government.