Abstract
In this chapter, I synthesise the existing body of literature to trace the historical events of a very complex period for Argentina. I develop an account of the traumatising politics that produced the divided memories of the two groups of women I interviewed. I cover four key periods relevant to this study: the period of guerrilla violence (1969–1976); the military dictatorship (1976–1983); the creation and function of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) and the trials of the military juntas (1983–1985); and the legacy of both the military dictatorship and guerrilla violence (1983–2003).
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- 1.
The term “dirty war”, explains historian Antonius Robben (2012), first appeared in an ultranationalist magazine in March 1974, to describe the Marxist guerrilla insurgency. It was later adopted by the Peronist left to denounce right-wing paramilitary death squads. The term again shifted after the military coup of March 1976 when the Montoneros accused the military dictators of war crimes, saying “this is a dirty war, like all wars waged by reactionary armies. It is not just dirty because it uses the people’s sons to fight against their brothers and their interests, but because it doesn’t even respect the war conventions. The enemy assassinates the wounded, tortures and executes prisoners, and turns its brutality against the people’s relatives” (Evita Montonera cited in Robben 2012, p. 307). The term was soon used by the military dictators against the armed guerrilla movement as General Vilas stated, “This is a dirty war, a war of attrition, dark and sly, which one wins with decisiveness and calculation” (cited in Robben 2012, p. 307).
- 2.
On 20 September 1955, Perón went into exile for the next 17 years. During this time, the Peronist movement was proscribed and Peronist sympathisers were violently suppressed by the military government of General Aramburu (1955–1958) (Lewis 2002). Aramburu labelled Perón “the monster”, and newspapers of the day called him “the fugitive tyrant” (Robben 2005a, p. 27).
- 3.
Perón had long been an advocate of the Argentine worker and supporter of the labour movement. It is believed that the founding of Perónism began on 17 October 1945, when hundreds of thousands of workers or descamisados (“shirtless ones”) walked into the heart of the nation’s capital—La Plaza de Mayo—to protest against the internment of Perón. Perón had helped pass labour legislation to improve workers’ salaries, conditions and rights and used his authority as then Secretary of Labour and Social Welfare under the military government of Rawson, to unionise workers and strengthen the union movement, especially in rural areas (Robben 2005a). Amid protests from resisters within the military ranks, Perón enforced labour laws that had long been ignored in the country, including laws that delivered an 8 h day, paid vacations and the prohibition of child labour (Lewis 2002). As a result of these enforced changes, Perón was interned by the army in 1945, only to be released 5 days later after fierce protests led by Argentine workers nationwide (Robben 2005a).
- 4.
The period of military rule, 1976–1983, has been described using a variety of different terms, each inferring different causes and conditions. The military applied terms such as dirty war, anti-revolutionary war and the fight against subversion. Human rights groups used names for this period such as state terror, repression and military dictatorship. Guerrilla groups talked about this period in terms of a civil war, a war of liberation and an anti-imperialist struggle (Robben 2005a). The term “dirty war” was coined by the military junta to suggest that “dirty” tactics were needed, as distinct from those normally used in warfare, in order to fight a war against an enemy that “remained hidden, fought from ambush, and used terrorist tactics to subvert institutions” (Lewis 2002, p. 2).
- 5.
Ernesto Sábato, one of Argentina’s most renowned writers, initially praised President Videla after meeting him. However, he later led the Movement for the Recovery of Disappeared Children (Crenzel 2008a). See Crenzel (2008a, 2008b) for an analysis of the contribution of CONADEP to transitional justice and the construction of new public truth in Argentina.
- 6.
Jelin’s notion of “labour of memory” refers to the will of those reminiscing over the past as opposed to memories more generally, which happen spontaneously (2002).
- 7.
In the mid-1990s, Nunca Más was no longer regarded as a legal instrument, after the impunity laws passed by Menem blocked any further trials. Instead, the report became seen as a vehicle for the transmission of memory. Some social groups edited the original report to incorporate their own interpretations of this period of the country’s history. Then, in 2006, a new official interpretation of the report was made, with the addition of a new prologue written by the National Secretary of Human Rights (Crenzel 2011). It was critical of the explanation given for the political violence in the original report, stating that it was “unacceptable to attempt to justify State terrorism like a sort of game of counteracting violences, as if it were possible to look for a justifying symmetry in the action of individuals faced with the Nation and the State’s estrangement from their proper goals” (CONADEP 2006, own translation). As Crenzel (2011) explains, the new prologue failed to place the political violence in its historical context, and did not establish civil and political responsibilities for the violence. Taking on a social justice tone, the report excluded any mention of guerrilla and political activity from the lives of the disappeared, and talked instead of the human rights movement’s thirty-year struggle for “truth, justice, and memory” (Crenzel 2011). The new prologue was met with criticism by former members of CONADEP, including journalist Magdalena Ruiz Guinazú: “It is a grave historical mistake to think that the report was an apology for the theory of the two demons” (cited in Galak 2006). Alfonsín concurred, saying the prologue addition showed “a dangerous tendency to re-invent history that was beginning to alarm Argentines” (cited in Galak 2006).
- 8.
Decree Law 158 stipulated that prosecution would be extended only to the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, and not to those who had obeyed orders. Trials were eventually held in the civilian courts after the military courts failed to initiate proceedings in the allotted time period (Barahona de Brito 2001).
- 9.
The Carapindadas (painted faces) refers to an elite group of officers who used camouflage paint to cover their faces as a symbol of their opposition to the army high command (Mallinder 2009).
- 10.
Shortly before he resigned in 2001, then President Fernando de la Rúa signed Decree No. 1581, which established a general refusal to petitions from foreign courts, using the argument that local courts should try crimes committed in Argentina (Mallinder 2009).
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Stockwell, J. (2014). Argentina 1969–1999. In: Reframing the Transitional Justice Paradigm. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03853-7_2
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