The Process

Introduction

This topic requires me to talk about something that hurts, something very hard to even think about because it represents one of the darkest instances of my country’s history, but something important to keep in mind. To talk about the Process of National Reorganization, Argentina’s last civic-religious-military dictatorship, several harsh and violent aspects of State terrorism have to be discussed graphically, so consider this a trigger warning.

As always, everything in Spanish will be translated. Translations are my own.

How it all began

To understand the horrors the military subjected the country to, we need to keep something in mind: during the XX century, Argentina suffered through six successful coup d’etats. 

First, on September 6, 1930, Lieutenant General José Félix Uriburu removed president Hipólito Yrigoyen from power, establishing a dictatorship that lasted until 1938, under the de facto presidencies of both Uriburu and Agustín Justo. The 1930s are known here in Argentina as the Década Infame, or Infamous Decade, marked by political persecution and electoral fraud.

Second, on June 4, 1943, when a different military group overthrew the Infamous Decade regime, during the so called Revolution of ‘43. During this period, which saw Pedro Ramírez and Edelmiro Farrel as de facto leaders, a young officer rose to prominence: Juan Domingo Perón. He would go on to end the dictatorship by winning the 1946 presidential election and becoming the constitutional president.

Third, on September 16, 1955, Eduardo Lonardi and Pedro Eugenio Aramburu overthrew Perón and ended his second presidential term, forcing him into exile in Spain. They called themselves the Revolución Libertadora (Liberating Revolution), and ruled Argentina until 1958.

Fourth, on March 29, 1962, the military removed president Arturo Frondizi from power, installing for the first time a civilian as the new de facto president, José María Guido. This dictatorship effectively proscribed and outlawed communism and Peronism, but only managed to survive a year in power.

Fifth, on June 28, 1966, came the so called “Argentine Revolution”, led by General Juan Carlos Onganía, which removed president Arturo Illia from power. The “Revolution” stayed in power via Onganía, Roberto Levingston and Alejandro Lanusse, until 1973, when Héctor Cámpora won the election as the Peronist candidate, leaving office shortly after, allowing Perón to return to the country. Perón was elected president, with his second wife, María Estela Martínez de Perón, as vice president, in 1973.

One of the main things these dictatorships have in common, is the fact that they were all supported by both the upper classes and the upper echelons of the Catholic Church, who provided every coup with economic and social support.

Perón however, was gravely ill when he became president once again. He died shortly after, in 1974, leaving the office to his vice president and wife, Estela Martínez, nicknamed “Isabelita”. Isabelita was woefully unprepared to be president, and was inevitably manipulated by the military, the Catholic Church, and his late husband’s former advisor, Minister of Social Welfare José López Rega. López Rega paved the way for the military to once again gain enormous political power and influence, which led to the main topic of my monograph: the coup d’état of March 24, 1976: the self proclaimed “Proceso de Reorganización Nacional”, the “National Reorganization Process”.

The dictatorship

On March 24, 1976, at 1 AM, president Estela Martínez was detained by the army. At 3:10 AM, the military seized control of the national airwaves, broadcasting the following message:

Comunicado número uno de la Junta de Comandantes Generales: Se comunica a la población que a partir de la fecha, el país se encuentra bajo el control operacional de la Junta Militar. Se recomienda a todos los habitantes el estricto acatamiento a las disposiciones y directivas que emanen de autoridad militar, de seguridad o policial, así como extremar el cuidado en evitar acciones y actitudes individuales o de grupo que puedan exigir la intervención drástica del personal en operaciones. Firmado: Jorge Rafael Videla, Teniente General, Comandante General de Ejército; Emilio Eduardo Massera, Almirante, Comandante General de la Armada; Orlando Ramón Agosti, Brigadier General, Comandante General de la Fuerza Aérea.

Which translates to:

Dispatch number one of the Junta of General Commanders of the Armed Forces: The population is advised that, as of today, the country is under the operational control of the Military Junta. We recommend to all inhabitants strict compliance with the dispositions and directives emanating from the authorities, military, security and police, as well as extreme caution and to avoid actions and attitudes, both individual and collective that may require drastic intervention from the operating personnel. Signed, Jorge Rafael Videla, Lieutenant General, Commander in Chief of the Army; Emilio Eduardo Massera, Admiral, Commander in Chief of the Navy; Orlando Ramón Agosti, Brigadier General, Commander in Chief of the Air Force.

The bloodiest, most brutal dictatorship in Argentine history had begun. Congress was dissolved, a nationwide state of emergency was declared, and the constitution was declared null, which meant an indefinite suspension of constitutional guarantees and human rights. Following this absolute seizure of power, the military started their State terrorism campaign. 

It’s important to note that the military didn’t seize power just out of their own volition. They had widespread support both internally and overseas. The main foreign power who aided both the planning and execution of the coup, was the US, via its intelligence agencies and the Department of State.

From an earlier monograph about the Monroe Doctrine,

(...) There is an often forgotten part of this continent’s history that directly conflicts with an idealized interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine: the School of the Américas. It is a military institute managed by the US Department of Defense, it has existed since 1946, and it is responsible for training the top military commanders involved in the coup d’états and subsequent dictatorships established across Latin América during the 1970s and 80s. There, they were trained in several standard military techniques, but they were also trained in counter-insurgency tactics, involving familiarization with torture techniques and devices, cultural censorship, mass civilian surveillance, among other methodologies, all of which they took with them to their home countries, applying them later on while in power.

Some of the School’s graduates include Argentinians Jorge Rafael Videla, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri and Roberto Eduardo Viola, the three consecutive de facto dictators of Argentina. (...) This entire group of alumnae were not only trained by the US, but were also the main protagonists of the Plan Cóndor (Operation Condor), a US backed plan to install military dictatorships in Latin América during the 70s, with three main objectives: to secure the continent as the US’ sphere of influence; to exterminate alleged marxist or left leaning terrorist groups; and to further the expansion of neoliberalism as both an economic and governmental model in the region. For many years, the Plan was thought to have been a myth, until two judicial processes helped prove it existed. First, the 1985 trials of the military juntas in Argentina, during which a book of testimonies and evidence was used by the prosecution, led by Chief Prosecutor Julio César Strassera, to sentence the dictators and many other collaborators to life imprisonment. The book, called Nunca Más (Never Again) was published in 1984 by the CONADEP, the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, and is a chilling compilation of thousands of testimonies, forensic evidence and expert statements regarding the systematic kidnapping, torturing and disappearance of thousands of Argentinians. It inspired the publishing of a similar work, in Brazil.

The second instance was the finding, in 1992, of the Archivos del Terror (Archives of Terror), a series of documents kept by Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s intelligence agencies, detailing hundreds of thousands of kidnappings, and tens of thousands of disappeared and murdered by every South Américan State during the 70’s and 80’s. The records are extensive and very detailed, mainly due to the fact that Stroessner was dictator between 1954 and 1989, during which time he had contact with every dictator in the region, and perhaps most importantly, with the CIA. The Archives of Terror are the quintessential piece of evidence proving the US and the CIA’s involvement in State terrorism in Latin América. Thanks to these two pieces of evidence, the School of the Américas came into the public eye, forcing the US government to change its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).