Dirty war

The “War salts” (in Spanish: “Guerra sucia”) indicates the repression of State which took place in the years 1960,1970 and 1980 in Latin America, in particular in Argentina and in the whole of the southern Cône in the years 1970, then in Central America (Civil war in Guatemala under the direction of the general Efraín Ríos Montt, with the El Salvador where the Death squads are pulled by the Armée Argentinian - 100.000 victims - with the Nicaragua where the Contras, pulled by the Argentinian ones and the CIA, attacks democratically elected Sandinistes, etc). One counts nearly 30.000 “Disparus” ( desaparecidos ) in Argentina, but the “Archives of terror”, discovered in a police station in Paraguay into 1992 on the whole count 50.000 assassinated people, 30.000 “Disparus” and 400.000 imprisoned people. The Report/ratio Valech in Chile, made public in 2004, account 30.000 people tortured for only Chile pinochettist. Argentinian justice spoke for the first time about “Génocide” at the time of the lawsuit of Miguel Etchecolatz, a member of notorieuse the Police of Buenos Aires, judged for crimes against humanity in 2006. Thirty years after the coup d'etat having brought the soldiers to the capacity in Argentina, this lawsuit saw the disappearance of Jorge Julio López, which was to testify against Etchecolatz. This last was still not found, while the persons in charge were not identified either - although strong suspicions weigh on members of the police force, army or agencies information.

The concept of the “dirty war” and its legal refutation

Although disputed, in particular at the time of the Lawsuit of the Argentinian junta in 1983 under the terms of her ideological content, which claims to legitimate the terror of State by seeing a legitimate means there to attack alleged communist “subversion”, the term remained, and often used to indicate, in reference to this period, all that refers to a program of Terrorisme of state in answer to a dissidence perceived like a danger to the government. This type of war typically includes a violent repression (removals, tortures, assassinations) by fascistic parties or more generally of Extrême right-hand side. The Argentinian judges rejected the concept of “dirty war”, because he claimed that the country was really in prey with a revolutionary threat justifying all the possible ways for éradiquer this one, in particular in the name of the aforementioned “Doctrine of national security” elaborate within the framework of the Cold war. However the magistrates showed not only that there was not such a threat; that various the guerillas did not represent really a threat for the State; that in particular, they were not supported by an external State; and that thus one could not speak about true insurrection justifying the illegality about the average employees by the various States and Argentinian security services (average which passed in particular by the establishment of death squads). The Court, moreover, insisted on the many flights of right common made by the security services against the victims of this oneself-saying war. Lastly, about half of the Argentinas victims of repression of State were simple trade unionists, even priests close to associations of the human rights, like in the case of the French nuns Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, which worked at the sides of the Mères of the place of May, or even of simple tourists, like Boris Weisfeiler, mathematician Russian, Jewish dissenting naturalized American, who disappeared in Chile with the accesses from the Colonia Dignidad of the disaster Ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer.

The aforementioned “dirty war” is connected thus above all with a violent repression of State, exerted by military dictatorships with illegal and undemocratic means, in the international context of the cold war, and in the regional context of exacerbated social conflicts, leading in particular to the come to power of Salvador Allende in Chile, but also of the Bolivian president Juan Jose Torres (assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976). For its part, the Argentinian historian Hugo Moreno, exiled in France, account not less than 600 social conflicts, strikes and Occupations of factories at the time of the first months of the government of the peronist of left, Héctor Cámpora, from May in June 1973.

The return of Peron

This sharp social movement of the years 1960-70 (which finds echoes with the international scales besides) was broken by the force. In Argentina, as of the return of the General Peron in 1973, the Massacre of Ezeiza of June 20th marks the scission between the peronists of left (Montoneros, etc) and the trade-union bureaucracy of right-hand side (Jose Ignacio Rucci, etc) as well as the extreme line, of which a whole part supports Peron then - and which Peron supports. Jose Lopez Rega, Minister for Health under the government Campora (1973), Raúl Alberto Lastiri, Juan Peron (1973-1974), then Isabel Peron (1974-1976), and private secretary of these two last, then sets up the Triple has (Alliance Argentinian Anticommunist), a death squad which made more than 1.500 victims.

The repression of State thus starts before the Coup d'etat of March 1976 which leads the military junta to the capacity and dislodges Isabel Peron, third woman of the general. Triple has fails, on November 21st, 1973, to assassinate the senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen by the means of a car bomb. In 1974, she assassinates the Jesuit Carlos Mugica, a friend of Mario Firmenich, member of the Montoneros, an organization peronist of left, catholic and nationalist. They aim also Silvio Frondizi, vice-chancellor of the University of Buenos Aires and brother of the former president Arturo Frondizi, etc Their death threats push with the exile of many artists and other intellectuals, such as Manuel Sadosky, Luis Brandoni, Nacha Guevara, etc One of the estimates most often advanced, in connection with Triple has, account 220 terrorist attacks from July in September 1974, which make 60 dead and 44 seriously injureds, like 20 removals.

Moreover, the government of Isabel Peron spends in February 1975 the order to eliminate by all the means the Foco created by the guerilla guevarist ERP in the North-West from Argentina in the miserable province from Tucuman. The general Acdel Villas, in load of the operation, then sets up a system of Against-insurrection being inspired in all points by the Bataille by Algiers: squaring, capacity given to the soldiers who establish the state of emergency, systematic torture of the opponents aiming breaking moral population and at breaking any support with respect to the guerilla (exact answer to the theory Maoiste of the revolutionary Guerre), etc.

In March 1975, the government of Isabel Peron organizes a raid with Santa Fe which mobilizes 4.000 members of the security forces, organizes and armed. Hundred fifty militants and trade union leaders are stopped

In quality of president by interim (Isabel Peron being for one upset short duration), Italo Luder sign in July 1975 the decrees known as of “annihilation”, which extend to all the country the mode to which was already subjected the province of Tucuman. Although the coup d'etat took place only one year after, the repression of State is already well started. It is besides because of these decrees that Isabel Peron was stopped in January 2007 in Spain and was extradited in Argentina to be judged there, while Rodolfo Almiron, another chief of Triple has, also was stopped in Spain and was extradited at the end of 2006. Rodolfo Almiron had been thereafter personal chief of the safety of the pro-Franco minister Manuel Fraga, Minister of Interior Department at the time of the Spanish democratic transition and today president of Galicia. Almiron is in addition suspected of having taken part, at the sides of the Italian terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie, having taken an active part in the “Stratégie of the tension” in the Italian peninsula, with the Massacre of Montejurra in Spain at the time of the democratic transition

Thus, when the soldiers seize the capacity later one year, the guerilla of the ERP is already completely dismantled, just as Montoneros, which, in spite of attacks coming from Triple has and of the critics of the Peron general itself, as of the shortly after the massacre of Ezeiza, which denounces these “beardless idealists” (although they had supported them at the time of his exile in Spain Franquiste), will attendendront nevertheless the death of the general to pass to the action (except notable for the peronist of right-hand side, Jose Ignacio Rucci, who directs the trade unions and also belonged to the creative members of Triple A). In March 1976, all alleged “subversion” is not thus already more as the fruit of the imagination of the sectors of the extreme right-hand side, present as well in the army as in the Church (see the controversy about the Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, shown to have taken part in the removal of two Jesuits in 1976, or the obscure role of the cardinal Antonio Caggiano, archbishop of Buenos Aires of 1959 to 1975 and initiator of the courses of against-insurrection to ESMA. Caggiano wrote the prolog with the Marxisme-Léninisme , work of Jean Ousset, private secretary of Charles Maurras and founder of the catholic Cité, organization integrist which gathered the many old ones of OAS. According to the journalist Horacio Verbitsky, famous to have collected the consents of Adolfo Scilingo, Jean Ousset would have been the creator of the concept of “subversion”, designating an essential enemy who is not defined by his acts, but by his existence even - Verbitsky however does not put this concept in relation to the doctrines of Carl Schmitt defining the criterion of the policy like distinction of the “friend” and the “enemy”, i.e., in last authority, the war)).

The Operation Condor

See also: Operation Condor

One of specificities of the terror of State of the years 1970 was the coordination of the secret services of the military dictatorships of right-hand side of the Argentine, of the Chile (under Augusto Pinochet), of the Bolivia (under Hugo Banzer Suárez), of the Brésil (under Ernesto Geisel, João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo), of the Paraguay (under Alfredo Stroessner) and of the Uruguay (under Juan María Bordaberry) within the Opération Condor. The United States provided a base of information to the Panama. Henry Kissinger is today in impossibility of travelling to Brazil, where it risks the arrest, because of the proven role of the White House in the support for the dictatorships, under the presidency of Richard Nixon in particular.

Coup d'etat

In 1975, the president Isabel Martínez de Perón, under the pressure of the staff, names Jorge Rafael Videla commander-in-chief of the Argentinian army. It was one of the military leaders of the Coup d'etat which obliged it to resign the March 24th 1976. In her place was set up a military junta which was controlled by the admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, the general Orlando Agosti and Videla itself. Roberto Eduardo Violated, Leopoldo Galtieri and to a lesser extent Reynaldo Bignone will form of it also part, the Head of with the passing of years varying State.

The junta claimed to implement a “national Process of reorganization”, another euphemism indicating the massacre of the opponents and the civilians. CONADEP established by the president Raul Alfonsin at the time of the democratic transition could count, by naming each case, approximately 10.000 missings. But the nature even of the crime of disappearance makes such censuses extremely difficult; without counting that many victims, particularly in province, do not dare to arise in police stations whereas the near total of the civils servant having worked under the dictatorship are still in place. The same problem took place in Chile with the two Commissions of reconciliation, of which the last which ends in the Rapport Valech in 2004. In the same way, as in Guatemala, or in Spain for the victims of the civil war of 1936-1939, of the expert teams of anthropologist-legists try themselves to identify the bodies, a long term job. Also, put aside the census, individually, established by the CONADEP, the estimates of associations of the human rights rather count 30.000 missings in Argentina - without counting the many ones exiled. Torture was systematized, used in illegal detention centres such as ESMA with Buenos Aires.

War of the Falklands

To go up its popularity, the military regime urged the Guerre of the Falklands. He apparently believed to profit from the support of Washington, without which he would never have dared to attack Great Britain. The answer of Margaret Thatcher was not made wait, and the defeat cuisante Argentinian army caused the fall of the military regime. For as much, the democratic transition was not done day at the following day; so even it is considered completed today (although the soldiers remain free and that a new disappearance, against a key witness, took place in… 2006).

Amnesties

The president Raul Alfonsin, who initiated the Democratic transition in Argentina, initially set up a Commission of truth and reconciliation (CONADEP), chaired by the writer Ernesto Sabato. It organized then the “Lawsuit of the junta”, in 1983 ( Juicio has tired Juntas ), which judged Videla and the principal persons in charge of the dictatorship, as well as members of the Montoneros, of which Mario Firmenich, and Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, member of ERP. The “theory of the two demons” was then in force, and claimed to put on the same plan the terrorism of State and the guerillas. However, at the time of the Lawsuit of the junta, the judges will show that there was no state of war (nor even of Civil war), that the guerilla did not represent a real threat for the Argentinian State, and that consequently the expression even of “dirty war”, used by the junta to legitimate the terror of State, was not founded.

In 1986 and 1987, under the presidency of Raul Alfonsin, the laws known as “of the final Point” and “of the were adopted To have of obedience”, which ensured the impunity of the soldiers having taken part in the “dirty war” lasting the Argentinian dictatorship (1976-1983). These laws give 60 days to the victims to deposit their complaints; at the end of this period, they will be inadmissible. However, the extreme line, quite present still within the army, does not even support this condition. In 1987,1988 and 1989, it is raised by three times, lack to carry Argentina in a new coup d'etat and a new dictatorship: it is the rebellion of the Carapintadas. Following those, which culminate in 1989 with the Massacre of Tablada, when Enrique Gorriaran, in the name of Movimiento Todos Por Patria (MTP), directs an attack against a military regiment which he will affirm thereafter to have suspected of preparing a coup d'etat for the following days. The Argentinian army crushes the insurrectionists who claim to act in the name of the Constitution, by using in particular the chemical weapon of the white Phosphore, in violation of Geneva Conventions. The insurrectionists will be condemned to perpetuity, before being pardoned two days before the come to power, in 2003, of Nestor Kirchner, peronist of left victim of the dictatorship.

Legal proceedings

In spite of the mobilization, as of the years of the dictatorship, the Mothers of the place of May, the Argentinian soldiers will escape all continuations thus, until 2005, date on which the Argentinian Constitutional court declares anticonstitutional the laws of amnesty passed under Menem. Adolfo Scilingo before had been considered and condemned for crimes against humanity in Spain - the judge Baltasar Garzon, the same one who had accused Pinochet in London in 1998, being in load of the business.

The Argentinian admiral Shine Maria Mendia, ideologist of the “Vols of dead the”, asked in January 2007, at the time of its lawsuit, in Argentina, for crimes against humanity, the presence of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, as well as former Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, of the ex-ambassadress in Buenos Aires Francoise of the Kid and all the official ones places from there at the embassy of Buenos Aires between 1976 and 1983, to appear before the court as witnesses. Just like Alfredo Astiz, the “angel of death”, before him, Luis Maria Mendia indeed called upon documentary of the journalist Marie-Monique Robin entitled “the death squads - the French school”, which showed how France (and in particular the old ones of the Guerre of Algeria), by a military secret agreement into force of 1959 to 1981, had trained the Argentinian soldiers. They in addition also asked for the presence of Isabel Peron (stopped at the beginning of 2007), Italo Luder, Carlos Ruckauf and Antonio Cafiero. Luis Maria Mendia showed an old French agent, member of OAS, to have taken part in the removal of the nuns Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon. This one, taken refuge in Thailand, denied the facts, while admitting to have fled in Argentina after the Accords of Evian of March 1962.

Films

State of siege, film of Costa-Gavras left in 1973, evokes the dirty war which prevailed then in the South American continent, through removal in Uruguay by a bunch of extrème-left of an agent of the CIA charged to train death squads.

References

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