The Dirty War - Argentina

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo - Argentina

Imagine for a moment that it just is an average day. You run to the post office, stop at the bank and then make your way to the market to pick up groceries for dinner. Except when you get home your day has turned from ordinary to anything but ordinary. The world as you know it has literally been turned upside down, never to be the same.

            It was no secret that there had been instability within the Argentine government for decades, but the thought of the military rising up and violently taking control seemed inconceivable. Yet, this is exactly what happened in March of 1976. The military Junta, led by General Jorge Videla, seized power soon after the in term president, Juan Peron, passed away. The military’s goal was to extinguish the left-wing terrorism, but the terror to come far exceeded anything Argentina had ever seen before.

            The period of time between 1976, when the military forcefully took power until its demise in 1983, is known throughout the world as Argentina’s Dirty War.  And its name is very fitting. The new military government justified all of their horrific actions by saying that they were merely using tactics to “fight a war on revolutionary insurrection by subversive terrorists”. Conveniently, General Jorge Rafael Videla defined a terrorist as “not only someone who plants bombs but a person whose ideas are contrary to Western, Christian civilization.” Using this justification the government decided to eradicate any person whose political view was different than their new standard. Tens of thousands of young men, women and children were “disappeared”. Many because they were considered to be leftist political activists and guerrilla militants, but they were also trade unionists, students, journalists, husbands and wives, sons and daughters.  They were taken right off the streets and from inside their homes or work places in broad daylight. Although there is not exact count for the Argentinian citizens who went missing, it is estimated to be anywhere between 22,000-30,000. Approximately thirty percent of those abducted were women, many of them with small children. Hundreds of these women were also pregnant or became pregnant as a result of being tragically raped by the guards while being held in detention centers. Being pregnant in many aspects was a saving grace for these women, at least for a short while. It is believed that the women who were pregnant were kept alive long enough to give birth and maybe even long enough to nurse their newborns for a few days. The babies were then taken from their mothers and the mothers were “transferred” or sent to their deaths. The most common way to “transfer” these women was to drug them and then heave them out of an airplane over the Atlantic or other rural areas. Their newborn babies were then given to childless military couples. It is thought that the reason that pregnant women or children were not initially murdered was because of the Catholic Church. The Church may have condoned or given their blessing for the death flights for the deviants but not for the deaths of young or unborn children.

            The disappeared were not the only ones affected by the monstrosities of the military coup. Their friends, families and loved ones were also deeply affected. Imagine the devastation of thousands of people disappearing without warning and without explanation. Living from moment to moment, not knowing who would disappear next or if you would ever see them again. Imagine the outrage that the parents felt, their children taken, murdered, and disposed of without so much as a reason why.

Several groups have emerged with the same goal in mind, to find the disappeared, the children of the disappeared, and to prosecute their offenders. One of the most prominent and well-known groups is the Madres de Plaza De Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo). In April 1977, fourteen mothers gathered in the Plaza De Mayo directly in front of the government building. The current dictatorship passed a law banning people from gathering in public areas, so instead of idling gathering they walked around the pyramid in the plaza’s center. As more and more women joined their efforts, they went to police stations, prisons, judicial offices, orphanages, child centers and churches in search for answers that would lead them to their missing children. Day in and day out they searched with every new search leading to the same dead end. The Mothers started wearing white headscarves that symbolized the diapers of their disappeared children in hopes that they would easily be identified.

            After years of relentless searching from the mothers they still have very few answers. Marta Ocampo de Vazquez, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo – Founding Line says “Today we still don’t have the complete truth or information as to what happened to our children, Who gave the order? Who executed them? What was our children’s final destiny?” she asks. Another mother, Margareta de Oro, said in an interview with author, Josephine Fisher, for the book ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’ “It surprises me when I see what I am today. Before I was a shy cry-baby. I had no political consciousness. I didn’t have any kind of consciousness. All that interested me was that my children were well. I was one of those mothers who went everywhere with their children. If they organized dances at the school to collect money, I was the one who was selling tickets. I was involved in everything my children did. You only become conscious when you lose something. When the Mothers first met we used to cry a lot and then we began to shout and demand, and nothing mattered anymore, except that we should find out children. Now I fight, I shout, I push if I have to, I kick but I still wonder to myself how I could have gone into those military buildings with all those guns pointed at my head.”

            On December 8, 1977 Esther Ballestrino de Careaga and Maria

Eugenia Ponce de Bianco, two of the Mothers, were forcefully taken, along with eight other mothers, by military officials as they were at a meeting in the Santa Cruz Church in Buenos Aires. Azucena Villaflor, another founding Mother, was also kidnapped at her home just a few days later. Shortly after their disappearances, on December 10, eight hundred and thirty-four Mothers signed a petition advertisement in “La Nacion,” Argentina’s newspaper.  The newspaper ad petitioned for justice by requesting Argentine officials to reopen and investigate the cases of  all of their missing children.

Once the militia was removed from office in 1983, some headway was finally made. Although the majority of the children have never been found, in 1985 the new government agreed to hold a trial for Juntas. Nearly 300 military officials were prosecuted for crimes against humanity. During the trials the military admitted to 9,000 of the disappearances, though the number according the Mothers is closer to 30,000. All of the leading men were convicted and received prison sentences for their war crimes. General Jorge Videla was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Today, the fight is still not over. However, the Mothers gave their final annual March of Resistance in January 2006. They no longer see the government at the enemy and have begun to accept that their children are never coming home. The mothers still continue to meet every week in the Plaza de May to push for action on other social issues and to guarantee that Argentina can not forget about the lost children.

Work Cited:

1.     "Abuelas De Plaza De Mayo - English Version." Abuelas De Plaza De Mayo - English Version. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.

2.     Lee, Janet, and Susan M. Shaw. Women Worldwide: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Women. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.

3.     Francisco Goldman, A Reporter at Large, “Children of the Dirty War.” The New Yorker, March 19, 2012. P. 54

4.     Moshman, David. The Daughters of the Plaza De Mayo. New York, NY: IUniverse,   2006. Print.

5.        Navarro. "The Personal is Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo." Power and Popular Protest. Latin American Social Movements. Ed.Susan Eckstein. 1989. 251

6.     Sessions, Claire. "Argentina." The Mothers of La Plaza De Mayo. N.p., n.d. Web. 17    Oct. 2013.

7.      Taylor, Diana. "Trapped in Bad Scripts: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo". Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War". Durham, NC: Duke UP. 1997. 195.

8.      Trigona, Marie. "Argentina Mothers of Plaza De Mayo: Living Legacy of Hope and Human Rights." WNN – Women News Network. WNN Features, n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2013.