50th Anniversary of the 1976 coup

[Ries]

Graciela Fernandez Mejide, once a Madre de la Plaza de Mayo, and who's son was disappeared and killed, has said the following: do we really think there were twenty thousand people who were disappeared, and no one-- neither coworkers, fellow militants nor family members-- ever bothered to report them as missing and presumably dead, especially when there was compensation involved?

I know dozens of Argentines who personally knew people, often were related to people, who were disappeared. I know Argentines who fled Argentina on a couple of days notice, when green falcons were seen parked in front of their houses.
Several of them that I have met never returned- I met a woman who says she cant come back to Buenos Aires, because every neighborhood she goes to reminds her of a friend who vanished, and she cant stop crying. She has lived in the USA ever since.

Who, exactly, would you report a missing person to, in 1979?
The police who kidnapped them?
Nobody was that stupid.

 

[RichardP]

An account from someone I know personally:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waiting-for-roxana-ligia-giovannoni/1148848725

 

[Stantucker]

I know dozens of Argentines who personally knew people, often were related to people, who were disappeared. I know Argentines who fled Argentina on a couple of days notice, when green falcons were seen parked in front of their houses.
Several of them that I have met never returned- I met a woman who says she cant come back to Buenos Aires, because every neighborhood she goes to reminds her of a friend who vanished, and she cant stop crying. She has lived in the USA ever since.

Who, exactly, would you report a missing person to, in 1979?
The police who kidnapped them?
Nobody was that stupid.

I was referring to reporting their disappearance in democracy.

 

[Ries]

In 1979, there was a list of 2665 people.
everyone knew there were more.
In 2007, a list of 9000 people were engraved in the Parque de la Memoria.
somehow, in that 30 years, a lot more victims were documented.
That documentation goes on today, and tommorow.
At what date do we declare it finished?

 

[camel]

Two words: Due process

I should probably explain what I meant. I often see the argument that crimes were committed by both sides. But the Argentina constitution guarantees the right to due process. The government should have properly charged those accused of a crime and given them a fair and public trial, and punished those found guilty. Instead they threw people out of airplanes.

 

[twoofeverything]

In 1979, there was a list of 2665 people.
everyone knew there were more.
In 2007, a list of 9000 people were engraved in the Parque de la Memoria.
somehow, in that 30 years, a lot more victims were documented.
That documentation goes on today, and tommorow.
At what date do we declare it finished?

Chilean intelligence in 1978 reported an estimate of 22,000 victims by that time. So the true number is likely on the higher side of estimates.

 

[FrankPintor]

Chilean intelligence in 1978 reported an estimate of 22,000 victims by that time. So the true number is likely on the higher side of estimates.

Indeed. We've been here before: https://baexpats.org/threads/outcry-as-milei-rewrites-argentina’s-history.47050/post-446701

The right wing (here, as well as in other places) trot out their excuses every year. As if repeating the same lies, over and over again, would change history. Decent Argentinians have shown them that that doesn't work, but they still try it on, perhaps with Goebels (the Big Lie: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it") as their inspiration?

I am minded to say that while, once upon a time, right-wing conservatism was associated with justice, law, and order, the Argentinian Junta, as well as the Milei government and the US government he slavishly follows, show that slandering their opponents as "domestic terrorists" opens the way for extra-judicial executions and disappearances.

 

[Ries]

I am baffled that, given the factual evidence that at the very least, around 10,000 people were kidnapped, and many were tortured, some were raped, and all were then killed, many by throwing them, alive, out of a plane thousands of feet above the ocean- it somehow makes a huge difference what, exactly, the provable number is.
I have no idea if its 22,000, 28,000, 30,000, or 35,000.
But what possible difference does that make?
If it cannot be proved to two decimal points, does that somehow mean it didnt happen, or it wasnt a horrific crime against humanity?

again- go to the ESMA museum.
its all there in black and white, from official government records.

 

[ArgentinaVet]

It is factually accurate to state that horrific crimes were committed on both sides and it is important to focus on what the situation was like in Argentina in the years leading up to the March 24, 1976 military takeover of the government. In the two or three years before the takeover Argentina was a democratic state that was facing a multi group Marxist insurgency (Montoneros and ERP) whose stated aims were to violently overthrow the democratically elected government in order to steal all the private property in the country and institute a Cuban style Marxist state. The ERP, in fact, were funded and directed by none other than Fidel Castro himself. These Marxist groups engaged in kidnappings, shootings, bombings against the institutions of the democratically elected government. The real question to ask here is what would have happened at the time if the military had not taken over Argentina, at least briefly to wipe out the Marxist guerrillas.

That being said, the military government went way,way too far against non combatants (they should have been locked up until the state of siege was lifted, then tried and punished, not killed or disappeared ) and should have stepped down after perhaps 24 months as the Marxists were mostly wiped out at that point. In addition, the military government did a horrible job managing the economy, left the state horribly indebted (private debts transferred to public debt), and totally mismanaged monetary policy.

 

[Ries]

It is factually accurate to state that horrific crimes were committed on both sides and it is important to focus on what the situation was like in Argentina in the years leading up to the March 24, 1976 military takeover of the government. In the two or three years before the takeover Argentina was a democratic state that was facing a multi group Marxist insurgency (Montoneros and ERP) whose stated aims were to violently overthrow the democratically elected government in order to steal all the private property in the country and institute a Cuban style Marxist state. The ERP, in fact, were funded and directed by none other than Fidel Castro himself. These Marxist groups engaged in kidnappings, shootings, bombings against the institutions of the democratically elected government. The real question to ask here is what would have happened at the time if the military had not taken over Argentina, at least briefly to wipe out the Marxist guerrillas.

That being said, the military government went way,way too far against non combatants (they should have been locked up until the state of siege was lifted, then tried and punished, not killed or disappeared ) and should have stepped down after perhaps 24 months as the Marxists were mostly wiped out at that point. In addition, the military government did a horrible job managing the economy, left the state horribly indebted (private debts transferred to public debt), and totally mismanaged monetary policy.

I am not getting where you get the "democratic state" history.
Argentina had a continuing series of military coups from the 1930s thru 1973, when Campora won the election, lasted less than a year, then "gave" the presidency to Peron. Peron was supported by the military, the church, and the extreme right wing. He died a year later. His wife was again, unelected, "given" the presidency.
another military coup was effected in 1976.

and many of the "marxist" guerrillas were actually pretty right wing peronists, conservatively catholic, and far from being lower class, included people like the Bullrich's.
The Montoneros started out as a faction within the Peronist Party, and Patricia Bullrich insists she was actually not a Montonero, (although no one denies her sister, two of her boyfriends, and her husband was) but, instead, a Peronist Youth.
She worked for both Macri and Milei, both notorious "marxists", eh?
And she was descended from a former president and a former mayor of BA.
The terrorists originally included military officers who were working for Peron, fighting against other military officers who used to work for Peron.
Rega, who had been Peron's right hand man, is usually attributed with choreographing the Ezieza Massacre, against his competitor, Campora, and the JP.

its hardly as simple as a "Cuban Marxist State".
Maybe a marxist state where the wealthy served in the government and kept their large apartments in Recoleta?