Videla’s dirty war
Videla’s dirty war
It is imperative to remember the cynicism with which Argentina’s dictatorship dispatched its invisible victims
Julián Casanova 24 MAY 2013 - 12:56 CET
It all began on March 24, 1976 when the junta of commanders-in-chief headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla took power in Argentina. The armed forces took over the state and began thousands of secret arrests and murders. The Process of National Reorganization was the official name. It was state terrorism, pure and simple, without precedent in Argentinean history, although there had been six military coups in four decades.
Bodies were left in the streets, buried in unmarked pits in cemeteries, burned in mass graves, or just dumped in the sea. There were never any official executions, only clandestine killings. From 1976 to 1983 people did not die, they just disappeared.
Most of the disappearances happened in the first three years. Almost 30,000, according to the human rights organizations. Workers, students, intellectuals, professionals, people known for their social and political commitment, but also many who were mere relatives of all the above, people who were informed on by others, people whose name came up in torture sessions... First they were taken away from their homes, normally at night, in operations that often included pillaging of their domiciles. Then they were tortured and, if they survived, were kept in army or police cells. Most were later "transferred" for execution somewhere else to avoid witnesses.
Disappeared, or missing, was the euphemism used for the victims of that dictatorship. Videla himself provided a definition in 1979 in response to initial international pressure about the repression: "A person who has disappeared cannot have any special treatment; he is an unknown, he is missing; he is not dead or alive, just missing." This cynical view of the extermination program was shared at the time by the military officers, some politicians of the major parties, and many businessmen, churchmen and journalists. "They have gone underground," said one general, Alcides López Aufranc, to reassure a commission of worthies who had inquired about the activities of certain union activists.
More:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/24/inenglish/1369392901_249079.html
