‘The Dirty War’ of Argentina

1979 Words4 Pages

Between the years of 1976 to 1983, the period known as the ‘Dirty War’ was in full force in Argentina. During this period, thousands of people mysteriously went missing, and are referred to now as the ‘Disappeared’. It is believed that many of the disappeared were taken by agents of the Argentine government, and perhaps tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in unmarked graves or rural areas. Whenever the female captives were pregnant, their children were stolen away right after giving birth, while they themselves remained detained. It is estimated that 500 young children and infants were given to families with close ties to the military to be raised. Within this essay I would like to touch on the brief history of the Dirty war and why the military felt it was necessary to take and kill thousands of Argentina’s, and also the devastating affects the disappeared, and stolen children are having on living relatives of those taken or killed. It is hard to imagine something like this happening in North America relatively recently. To wakeup and have members of your family missing, with no explanation, or to one day be told your parents are not biologically related is something Argentina’s had to deal with, and are continuing to face even today.
Jorge Videla was the leader of the military-run government. At the time, it was very easy for Videla to seize power because of the highly unstable condition that Argentina was in, and had been in for decades. In September of 1955 all three branches of the military revolted and forced the president, Juan Perón, into exile. Eleven years later, in 1966, a new leader, Juan Carlos Ongania, imposed the military rule again only to have the former president, Perón, return in 1973, and ...

... middle of paper ...

...ta Bank, the disappeared, and the relatives of the disappeared are still being found and identified presently.

Work Cited
"Timeline: Argentina." BBC News. BBC, 7 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1196

"Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .

Kletnicki, Armando. "Disappeared children in Argentina: genocidal logic and illegal appropriation." Journal of Genocide Research 8.2 (2006): 181-190. Print.

Sosa, Cecilia. "On Mothers and Spiders: A face-to-face encounter with Argentina’s mourning." Memory Studies 4.1 (2011): 63–72. Sage. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Brysk, Alison. "The Politics of Measurement: The Contested Count of the Disappearedin Argentina." Human Rights Quarterly 16.4 (1994): 676-692. JSTOR. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

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