11.7: Argentina's "Dirty War"- 1976-83

Peronism

Argentina is the third largest economy, after Brazil and Mexico, in Latin America and an important trading partner of the United States. In the postwar period, Argentina’s politics were dominated by Peronism, a diverse populist movement led by Juan Peron, an army officer who had served as a military attaché in Italy in the 1930s, witnessing up close the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Argentina at the time was governed by politicians elected through fraud that suppressed calls for reform by the Radical Party. In 1943, during World War II, the military overthrew the corrupt regime, instituting a government that they felt was more dignified and responded more directly to the people. Juan Peron, a key player in the coup, chose to become the Minister of Labor. By favoring the workers in negotiations, he became popular among the urban masses in Buenos Aires. Although the military regime grew nervous about his growing popularity and had Peron arrested, the workers came to his aid. He was released and was elected president of Argentina in 1946.

Peron benefited from a postwar economic boom in Argentina. He could promise and deliver on higher wages, better living and working conditions, and vacations for workers as tax revenues rolled in because of high international prices for Argentine wheat and beef. In the context of the Cold War, Peron proclaimed that he represented a “third way” between unfettered capitalism and totalitarian communism. Peron claimed that his government improved the lives of Argentinians without having to take sides in the superpower conflict. However, shortly after he was reelected in 1952, Peron’s popular wife, Eva Duarte, died of ovarian cancer at age 33. The Argentine economy suffered as Argentina faced competition for its wheat and beef in the international market. Peron also faced inflation and political scandals. A bitter fight with the Catholic Church led to Peron’s ouster by the military in 1955 and the suppression of the Peronist movement until Peron was invited back from exile to be reelected president in 1973. Juan Peron died in 1974 and his third wife, Isabel Martinez de Perón, succeeded him upon his death.

Operation Condor

During the Cold War, Peronism was targeted along with communism because its nationalist and socialist ideas appealed to the working class and labor unions; and Peronism challenged the traditional power structures in Argentina, which were dominated by the military and landed elite. The US perceived Peronism as a potential vehicle for communism. In March 1976, the military, under the leadership of General Jorge Rafael Videla, (seen in Figure 11.7.1) overthrew Isabel Perón’s government and launched a campaign called the “Process of National Organization.” It was part of a larger series of political coups called "Operation Condor," a campaign sponsored and supported by the United States. Argentina was the headquarters for a special Condor program, code-named Teseo, and the mission was to eliminate potential targets in Europe. For seven years, from 1976 to 1983, the army embarked on a mission to wipe out all vestiges of Peronism and its organizations, along with the last remnants of democratic, civil society. These military leaders argued that the democratic government failed to solve Argentina’s economic problems. Their goal was to eliminate all communist dissidents and optimize the efficiency and security of the country. What was hidden behind this argument of efficiency and “Dirty War” was the brutality of the state terror that accompanied it. The military junta was extremely paranoid and deployed police, military, and paramilitary forces against segments of the population they perceived as a threat. This included trade union workers, intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, students, poor citizens, and priests. Figure 11.7.1 is a photo that shows Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla surrounded by several members of the military junta during his swearing in ceremony as the 47th president of Argentina. They are all wearing their military uniforms. Gen. Videla is standing in front of microphones for his presidential oath.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla takes the presidential oath in 1976, VTV Canal 8, in the Public Domain.

A major invention of the Argentine military government was the practice of forced disappearances. Argentina was divided into “defense zones,” which allowed for repression to be carried out systematically. Government agents kidnapped suspected dissidents at night and took them to one of 340 clandestine detention centers (CDCs), where they were tortured, killed, and their bodies disposed of. In other words, people ``disappeared” without a trace and all opposition was silenced. This form of extrajudicial killing was particularly brutal because families were unable to get any information on the whereabouts of “disappeared” members, since the perpetrators were state agents. It is estimated that approximately 30,000 people, mostly below the age of 35, were victims of forced disappearance. The “Dirty War” in Argentina was different from other conflicts and human rights abuses in several ways: the scale and intensity of human rights violations was particularly severe; the military targeted not only armed opposition groups but also civilians, including students and journalists; and the “Dirty War” left an indelible impression on Argentine society and politics.

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

During the darkest period, from 1976 to 1982, the lone voices of public opposition belonged to a few mothers who began to gather in the plaza in front of the presidential palace, called the Casa Rosada. They began marching at first on Sundays and later every Thursday, demanding to know the fate of their disappeared children. Wearing white scarves as a symbol of their children’s diapers and carrying photographs of their young adult sons and daughters, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began to draw international attention to the brutal repression the military had unleashed. They exposed the blind eye of most world governments in relation to human rights abuses in Argentina and denounced the cozy relationship between the US government and the Argentine generals. 

Meanwhile, the military dictators were unable to resolve the economic crisis. A record number of bankruptcies occurred in 1982; inflation soared, and the international debt skyrocketed. The economic crisis added to general disquiet at home, and mounting criticism from abroad over human rights abuses and highly publicized cases of disappearances. News that the children of pregnant detainees were being sold for international adoption or turned over to military families after their mothers were killed was especially damaging to the military regime. To win popular support, the military launched, in April 1982, a drive to take back the Malvinas/Falkland Islands from the British, who had acquired them from the Spanish in 1833. Argentina’s claim that the islands should have reverted to them along with the rest of the territory when the country achieved independence from Spain had languished in international courts for years. General Leopoldo Galtieri, the military officer who launched the attack on the sparsely inhabited islands over 500 miles off the coast of Argentina, never thought Great Britain would defend their possession; he thought it would be a “cake walk.” Britain sent a small, but extremely well-equipped force, including nuclear-powered submarines, and dislodged the Argentine invaders in a matter of weeks. 

In 1983 the Radical Party candidate Raúl Alfonsín won the presidency and began the process of rebuilding the devastated economy and political structures. Alfonsín successfully prosecuted and imprisoned many of the previous military rulers and their collaborators but was not able to turn around the economy or stem hyperinflation. In 1989 conservative Peronist candidate Carlos Saúl Menem was elected president. He promptly pardoned many top military officers convicted of human rights violations and adopted a subservient stance toward the neoliberal policies of the IMF and World Bank in hopes of rehabilitating the economy, including a disastrous scheme of pegging the value of the peso directly to the dollar. Not only was Menem personally dishonest, but corruption permeated every branch of his administration. His government and those that immediately followed oversaw the further demise of Argentina’s once rich and stable democracy.

Review Questions

• Why did the military dictatorship target Peronists?
• How would you describe Operation Condor?
• Why did the security forces responsible for the torture an