Friday I went to ESMA, a startlingly beautiful complex of buildings, full of green, graceful trees and the smell of lavender. The place itself was home to a large Navy school, and a center where kidnapped civilians were routinely tortured and imprisoned before being thrown into the ocean to drown.
Argentinean had essentially it’s mini version of the Holocaust, in which the national government turned on its own citizens.
The short version of events:
1. Juan Domingo Perón, beloved by the left and the right, returns to Argentina from exile.
2. Fighting breaks out between the left and right Peronists, resulting in combat between terrorism by leftists Peronists, and equivalent violence by the Peronists government, who sides with the right.
3. Perón dies shortly after, leaving his third wife in office. While Perón’s second wife, Evita, had left behind women’s suffrage, workers rights programs and the like as her mark, Isabel leaves behind an government run death-squad, the Triple A.
4. To everyone’s relief, the military overthrows Isabel Perón.
5. Promising to return stability, the military government begins pursuing leftists. And people who know leftists. And people who generally walked on the same street a leftist walked on. This quote in a newspaper pretty much sums it up:
“First we will kill all the subversives, then we will kill their collaborators, then their sympathizers, then those who remain indifferent and finally we will kill those who are undecided.” – General Ibério Saint-Jean (March 20, 1977)
The junta also make sure to remind the public that it was the citizens who voted for Perón, and thus the Triple A is the public’s fault. Like a parent taking away a child’s toy because it’s dangerous, the junta condescendilyg reminded Argentineans that they weren’t responsible enough to have a democracy yet.
5. A decade of secret abductions begins, in which plain clothes policemen break into people’s houses at night, kidnap them, rob their houses, and occasionally take the children for their own. The desaparecidos or “disappeared” are held and tortured in secret detention centers around the city, while the government completely denies knowledge. Children born in the centers are adopted by military personnel and raised with false identities. When the military decides it’s done with a desaparecido, he or she is drugged, loaded into a plain, and thrown alive into the ocean to die. Usually his or her stomach is cut open to facilitate it being eaten by fish.
6. There’s a fantastic slew of propaganda insisting that the desaparecidos are merely run-aways, who abducted themselves, and that countries calling for an end to this military regime are really anti-Argentinean and completely ignorant about Argentinean life.
7. Due to economic problems, mismanagement, the government’s not doing so well. They decide to war with Britain for the disputed Malvinas/Falklands Islands, which causes the nationalistic fervor the government had hoped for. Until Margaret Thatcher resoundingly defeats Argentina, and the public add the soldier’s deaths to the blood on the government’s hands.
8. Declaring their mission, their “Dirty War” a victory, the junta government shuts down.
Later, when the government attempts to try the torturers, the military, appalled, marvels that Argentina is the only country that would try it’s “victorious heroes”.
The scariest part:
These events still haven’t been resolved.
Democracy returned in 1983, and the president, Alfonsín, began to try the military perpetrators. The military grumblings got loud enough that the president feared the democracy was at risk of being overthrown again if he didn’t quit it. So he pardoned everyone who could claim to be “just following orders” (that has a Holocaust ring to it, no?) and promises to end trials by 1987. And that was it for a while; the military went free to wander in the same society, go shopping in the same supermarkets, as their victims. Only the cases of kidnapped children could still be tried, as those were counted as on going crimes, because the kids were still living with false identities.
Carlos Menem became president next, and, presumably thinking this would let Argentina move on, pardoned everyone. Spain and England were rightly horrified, and, calling the military’s actions “human right’s abuse”, insisted they would try anyone they could catch. So the military perpetrators hid in Argentina, from which the president declines to extradite them.
Néstor Krichner became president and re-opened trials. The only reason the military didn’t freak out this time is that being tried by their home country beats being tried by Spain. They trials are still going on. According to our guide at ESMA, who himself had been imprisoned there for 2 years, 100 kids have recovered their identities, and 400 are still living, unwittingly, with the people who murdered their biological parents. A few months ago, a witness in a desaparecido trial testified about being tortured and kept in one of the detention centers. During the weeks of the trial, he was disappeared again. He still hasn’t been found.
New and Interesting Info:
Desaparecidos at ESMA were forced to work falsifying documents, something I hadn’t heard about before. In general, they made fake passports and visas for members of the military, so the members could go abroad (including to the US) and use information they found in other countries to help them spy on their own people. Argentina, who at the time was in conflict with Chile, also made counterfeit Chilean currency to drop into the country and damage its economy. (Always an interesting military tactic. I hear the Union did this to the Confederacy during the US’s civil war. The Union’s counterfeits were so much better quality, that no one would accept legitimate Confederacy bills, thinking they were fakes). Our guide told us that anyone sent to work counterfeiting currency knew it as a death sentence. The operation was so secret, they would never be allowed to live.
ESMA is a chilling place, whose museum includes photos of the murdered, and photos of the military abductors. They offer a guided tour of the detention center, two cultural arts centers, and a fantastically cheap café.
No comments:
Post a Comment