Dirty War in Argentina

Dirty War in Argentina

Argentina is a country in the South America bordered by several other countries and the Atlantic Ocean. It was discovered by Juan de Solis in 1515 and was a Spanish colony from 1620 until it declared its independence in 1816. After the declaration, heavy migration from Germany, Italy and Spain took place. A long period of violence also followed before a central government was established. Coups were a primary method of reform, one of which propelled Juan Peron to power (Jessup 1998:37).

Juan Peron attended a military school at 16. After his graduation, he further pursued similar education and became a part of military uprisings. He also held several government posts, taught at a war college and wrote war books.

In 1944 while he was Secretary of labor and social affairs, he met Maria Eva Duarte who became his mistress. On the following year, they were married after his arrest and succeeding release from detention. In 1946, Juan was elected to Presidency with his wife, Evita Peron, as his strong political supporter. Evita's machinations led to some improvements in the government and support for him and his position. However, Evita died of cancer in 1952 (Del Testa, et al., 2007:144).

Under the Peronista regime, while there were some reforms, human rights violations were rampant and government debts swamped the country. He declared Martial law to control protests against his leadership and later on, because of his actions against the Roman Catholic Church, he was excommunicated by the Pope. In 1955, the military uprising that helped Juan Peron gain power was also the same force that ousted him and put him in exile:

…Evita's death, when added to the growing labor and economic unrest and Peron's excommunication from the Catholic Church led to his ouster by the military

During his exile in Spain, he met a ballet dancer named Maria Estrela Martirez who later on became his third wife and was known as Isabel Peron (Jessup 1998:580).

In 1973, Juan and his wife returned to Argentina and was reelected President with his wife Isabel as the Vice-President. However, a few months after his return to power, he died with Isabel Peron succeeding him as President (www.globalsecurity.org 2009).

Isabel Peron, lacked Evita's fortune in politics. According to Lewis:

"She was essentially unimaginative, ignorant, and stubborn, but she had the advantage of being Peron's legitimate spouse and the bearer of his magic name."

It seemed that she inherited the Presidency only because she was the then Vice-President-elect and she bore her husband's name. From 1973 to 1976, Isabel tried to unsuccessfully rule Argentina. As Malamud Goti, J.E. wrote:

"The Isabel Peron administration demonstrated its inability to control increasing social unrest and whooping inflation, caused by, among other reasons, an erratic economic policy."

Political assassinations during her leadership increased as well as imbalance in governance where rightists ruled and threatened politicians at all levels. As Malammud Goti, J.E. provided, even "other members of Isabel Peron's cabinet were harassed."

Finally, on March 1976, a military uprising ousted Isabel Peron from her seat. From her fall, Malamud Goti, J.E. wrote that the coup "closed down congress; placed the judiciary under receivership, and banned all kinds of political activities." The commanders-in-chief of the navy, air force and army became the heads of the executive with the president becoming only the fourth man.

From this event the Dirty War in Argentina started and worsened. Its most devastating effect was 'the disappeared' or los desaparecidos. The government, in its attempt to control all political oppositions, summarily dismissed those they believed to be dissidents. As Norden, 1996 wrote:

…the form in which the armed forces opted to combat terrorism changed considerably. Rather than concentrating exclusively on armed combatants, the armed forces widened their scope to include 'subversion'…according to the military's perspective; any small core of ideological dissidence could represent a potential source for terrorist or revolutionary behavior."

The victims of the kidnappings came from a wide variety of backgrounds and age groups, there were those over forty years old but the majority came from the younger generation. Most of them never returned after their abduction. Identification of corpses found was impossible because most were maimed and unrecognizable (Malammud Goti, 1996:47).

Aside from the disappearances of accused rebels, Brysk (1994) wrote that:

"The Argentine military even introduced a new form of human rights abuse: the kidnapping of missing children. Pregnant women were detained, tortured, and mistreated until they gave birth. The mothers were killed, while the children were taken and illicitly adopted by friends and relatives of the torturers."

As Norden (1996) provided,

"I was very moved to learn that some of the found children had long been suspicious of their origins…"

Evidently, to further prevent the uprising of anti-government protesters, even innocent newborns were used to silence their families. According to globalsecurity.org, casualty count from this war ranged from 10,000 to 30,000 people.

Amidst all these, the futility of the justice system and the press were evident. The justice system merely 'heard' cases and the press feared for its safety. The only insistent and effective protesters were the relatives of those who disappeared (Nino, 1996:59). Surprisingly, a group of grandmothers organized themselves to call for justice and to find the relatives taken from them. They, however, naturally also suffered from harassments and abductions (Arditti, 1999:50).

Finally, in 1979, the Commission on Human Rights did an investigation of the claims of abuse. Their report seriously indicted the Argentine government that in 1980, its power was somewhat diminished.

In response to this, in 1982, the Argentine government invaded the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands which the Great Britain held since 1830. Their goal was to change their public image, however, much to their shame; they were defeated two months after their campaign (Nino, 1996:60).