On March 24, 1976, Argentinean President Isabel Peron was overthrown in a military coup. A military junta called “National Reorganization Process” gained control of government, ruling with autocratic powers in a succession of right-wing, staunchly anti-communist administrations, until 1983. During this period, the juntas brought about the Dirty War, an anti-subversive military campaign against perceived communist and leftist elements in society.
(Taken from Dirty War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)
Background The Dirty War refers to the Argentinean military government’s suppression of left-wing and perceived communist elements during the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The “Dirty” in its name refers to the violent, illicit methods used by the military to carry out the campaign. These “dirty” methods included summary executions, extrajudicial arrests and detentions, tortures, abductions, and rapes. The military justified these methods on the grounds that their enemies were using terrorism and other underhanded actions against the civilian population and even against the government itself. The Argentinean authorities also declared that drastic measures were needed as the country was falling into anarchy, a claim that was rejected by the political opposition. What is undisputed, however, was the presence of widespread violence and considerable tensions leading up to the Dirty War.
The origin of the Dirty War can be traced back to the rise of Juan Peron, Argentina’s extremely popular president during the 1940s to the 1950s, and his politics of Peronism, a unique, all-inclusive nationalist ideology. Peronism gained broad support from the common people, workers, and peasants, as well as from the political left, moderates, and even the far-right. In 1955, however, President Peron was deposed in a military coup. Argentina then came under military rule, and Peronism and Peronist parties were banned.
By the late 1960s, the remaining Peronist movements had given way to various radical and communist armed groups that had sprung up as a result of Fidel Castro’s communist victory in Cuba and the subsequent spread of Marxist ideology across Latin America. In the early 1970s, the Argentinean insurgents carried out attacks against civilian and military targets. Rebel actions included assassinations, summary killings, abductions, bombings, and armed robberies.
Partly because of the increasing civil unrest as well as an ailing economy, the Argentinean military government lifted the ban on Peronism. Then in elections held in May 1973, a left-wing Peronist political party came to power. The new government freed political prisoners and enacted pro-leftist laws. The resurgent labor union staged job actions, causing many businesses to close down. Many foreign investors left the country after receiving threats on their lives, businesses, and properties.
With the ban on his return lifted, ex-President Peron returned to Argentina in June 1973. But what should have been cause for celebration instead generated a fatal split in Peronism. Some two million Peronist supporters welcomed Peron on his arrival at the airport. When commotion broke out, however, Peron’s armed right-wing supporters fired on the left-wing Peronists in the crowd, killing 13 persons and wounding over 300 others.
The following month, the left-wing Peronist government stepped down, giving way to Peron to take up the presidency, since he had won the presidential election held a few months earlier. President Peron’s vice-president was Isabel Peron, his wife, who won the vice-presidential race. President Peron was supported by a broad political coalition and a massive populist base that included leftist elements. He cast his lot with his right-wing supporters, however, and formed a government composed of the bureaucratic elite, as well as some moderates.
By May 1974, President Peron had purged his government and political party of left-leaning politicians; his left-wing supporters at the lower echelons had been alienated as well. But already in failing health at age 78, President Peron’s final term in office lasted only ten months, as he passed away on June 1, 1974.
Isabel Peron, the vice-president, succeeded as Argentina’s new president. Isabel’s political inexperience manifested, however, as she was incapable of confronting the country’s many problems. High-ranking government and military leaders interfered constantly in major government policy decisions, and Isabel was reduced to a figurehead president.
The growing influence of the military in Argentinean politics plunged the country deeper into the Dirty War, which actually had begun near the end of Juan Peron’s presidency. Extremist right-wing politicians close to Juan Peron had organized the “Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance” or “Triple A”, a clandestine state-run “death squad” that initially targeted union leaders, but expanded its operations to include all leftist elements, as well as political dissidents.
The Argentinean communists also militarized, terrorizing private businesses with bombings, arsons, and armed robberies, and kidnapping or killing businessmen, managers, and executives. The insurgents also attacked police stations and army outposts, causing hundreds of military and police casualties.
In 1975, the communist rebels gained a third section of Tucuman Province in Argentina’s northwest region (Map 26). The government issued the so-called “Annihilation Decrees”, which authorized the military to crush the insurgency. The country was reconfigured into military zones, greatly reducing the civilian government’s authority.
In March 1976, high-ranking military officers deposed Isabel Peron. The military’s stated reason for the coup was to prevent the communist take-over of the country. Thereafter, a military junta came to power. Argentina’s legislature was abolished, while the judicial courts were restructured to suit the new militarized system. The academic and intelligentsia were suppressed, as were labor and peoples’ assemblies. The military government instituted harsh measures to stamp out communist and leftist elements. Also targeted by the military were opposition politicians, journalists, writers, labor and student leaders, including their supporters and sympathizers.
The military operated with impunity, arbitrarily subjecting their suspected enemies to arrests, interrogations, tortures, and executions. One infamous method of execution was the “death flight”, where prisoners were drugged, stripped naked, and held down with weights on their feet, and then boarded onto a plane and later thrown out into the Atlantic Ocean. Since death flights and other forms of executions made certain that the bodies would not be found, the victims were said to have disappeared, striking great fear among the people. Another atrocity was allowing captured pregnant women to give birth and then killing them, with their babies given to the care of and adopted by military or right-leaning couples. The military and Triple A death squads carried out these operations clandestinely during the Dirty War.
The military government’s anti-insurgency campaign was so fierce, sustained, and effective that by 1977, the leftist and communist groups had practically ceased to exist. Hundreds of rebels, who had escaped to the nearby countries of Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Chile, were arrested and returned to Argentina. The United States provided technical assistance to the integrated intelligence network of these countries within the scope of its larger struggle against communism in the Cold War.
The Argentinean government continued its draconian rule even after it had stamped out the insurgency. The Dirty War caused some 9,000 confirmed and up to 30,000 unconfirmed victims from murders and forced disappearances. By 1982, however, the military’s anti-insurgency campaign, which had found wide popular support initially, was being criticized by the people because of high-level government corruption and a floundering national economy.
Seeking to revitalize its flagging image, the military government launched an invasion of the British-controlled Falkland Islands in an attempt to stir up nationalist sentiments and thereby regain the Argentinean people’s support. The Argentinean forces briefly gained control of the islands. A British naval task force soon arrived, however, and recaptured the Falkland Islands, driving away and inflicting heavy casualties on the Argentinean forces.
Consequently, Argentina’s military government collapsed, ending the country’s militarized climate. Argentina then began to transition to civilian rule under a democratic system. After the country held general elections in 1983, the new government that came to power opened a commission to investigate the crimes committed during the Dirty War. Subsequently, a number of perpetrators were brought to trial and convicted. Some military units broke out in rebellion in protest of the convictions, forcing the Argentinean government to pass new laws that reduced the military’s liability during the Dirty War. In 1989, a broad amnesty was given to all persons who had been involved, indicted, and even convicted of crimes during the Dirty War.
In June 2005, however, the Argentinean Supreme Court overturned the amnesty laws, allowing for the re-opening of criminal lawsuits for Dirty War crimes. The fates of many persons killed and disappeared, as well as the infants taken from their murdered mothers, remain unsolved and are subject to ongoing investigations.