Group+5-Argentina

=**"Dirty War" of Argentina**=

The Guerra Sucia or “Dirty War”ruled from 1976 to 1983 in Argentina was a state-sponsored violence. The Dirty War is said to have began because campaign (de facto regime) in March 1976 designed to eliminate the Marxist. The Marxists were considered a subversive threat. Isabel Peron launched this campaign, as she became president of Argentina after the death of her husband General Juan Domingo Peron who died in 1974.Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) was a right-wing death squad active under Isabel Peron’s rule. This Organization also known as the Peronist right was in bitter conflict with the Peronist left, its members of the right were linked to the military leader Jorge Rafael Videla. Under Videla’s rule bold attacks were launched on thousands of left- wing activists, including students, Marxists and Peronist guerrillas. Under Videla the right-wing military was ordered to close down Argentina’s congress, replaced members of the Supreme Court and intervened in all local and provincial governments. Many prominent politicians and labor leaders were incarcerated with out trial and spent between four to six years in prisons being beaten and tortured. The most terrifying practice of the military was that of the forced disappearances, it is estimated that anywhere from 9,000 to 30,000 people were killed, or disappeared. At least 10,000 disappeared were the guerrillas of the Montoneros, and the People’s Revolutionary Army. Much of the intensity of the violence has been hidden or denied, many of the people were secretly murdered or mutilated and their bodies were disposed of in clandestine gravesites or dumped from airplanes into the ocean. This genocide is said to be one of the worst examples of state terrorism in the 20th century Latin America. The presidential election of Paul Alfonsin in 1983 restored civilian rule. Convictions of the dirty war were made to military commanders like Videla that took part in right wing actions. Today 25 years later 12,000 victims are still uncovered.
 * Guerra Sucia, "Dirty War"**

Aida de Suarez: “On 2 December 1977 at four o’clock in the morning, twenty armed men broke into our house with rifles and pistols pointed at us. They took everything of any value they could carry, the few things of value that a working-class family has in their home, sentimental things. But that wasn’t important to me. They could have taken everything, but my son, no. He was sitting on the bed, trying to get dressed. One man shouted, “There’s one in here!” and the two huge men with guns in their hands told me not to move.They asked only if he was Hubo Hector Suarez and that he had to go with them... “We’ve come to take him away for questioning.” Why? I asked and they pushed me and threw me against the wall. They took my son. That was the last time I saw him” (Fisher, 13).
 * “Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo”, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo**

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, also known as the “Mothers of the Disappeared” is a an organization of Argentine women who for over three decades have fought to re-unite with their abducted children. They are an incomparable group who has in essence become human rights activists fighting for a common goal. Their association began when a group of women met each other in the course of trying to find their missing sons and daughters, who had disappeared during the Dirty War. On April 30, 1977 Azucena Villaflor, Berta Braverman, Haydée García Buelas, María Adela Gard de Antokoletz, Julia Gard, María Mercedes Gard and Cándida Gard (4 sisters), Delicia González, Pepa Noia, Mirta Baravalle, Kety Neuhaus, Raquel Arcushin, Sra. De Caimi started their demonstrations on the Plaza de Mayo, in central Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada governmental palace, which chosen by Villaflor is a significant spot in the history of Argentina. They decided to march around the Plaza, since the police ordered them to “circulate”, in the sense of not staying. The first march was on a Saturday, and not very visible; the second one took place on a Friday and from then on, they settled on Thursdays, at about 3:30pm and continue still to this day. In protests, the grandmothers and mothers wear white head scarves with their children’s names embroidered on them, to symbolize the blankets of the lost children.

Although the military admits that over 9,000 of those kidnapped are still uncounted for, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo say that the number is closer to 30,000 individuals. Included in this number were three of the founders of the Mother’s who had also “disappeared”. Azucena Villaflor was taken by armed forced from her home in December 10, 1977, the day the Mothers published a newspaper advertisement with the names of their “disappeared” children. She is reported to have been detained in the concentration camp of the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), which was run by Alfredo Astiz, who was a commander in the Argentine Navy, also known as the “Blond Angel of Death”. In mid-2005 Azucena Villaflor, and two other Mothers, Esther Careaga and María Eugenia Bianco bodies were identified by a forensics team, Villaflor’s ashes were buried at the foot of the May Pyramid in the Plaza.

In years to follow the association became more insistent of the government, demanding the whereabouts of their missing children. After the military gave up its authority to a civilian government in 1983, the Mothers pressed the new government for answers. In 1986, the organization split into two factions, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-Founding line, which focused on legislation to help in the recover of remains and bringing ex-officials to justice, as well as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Association faction led by Hebe de Bonafini, which takes more of a political approach. The Mothers are aware that many of their children not only faced torture, but were murdered. Nevertheless they are refusing to take any compensation the government offers. They as well still remain not to recognize their children’s deaths until the government admits its fault and connection to the Dirty War.

On January 26, 2006 the members of the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo Association made their final march around the plaza stating that no more marches were needed because the “enemy isn’t in the Government House anymore”, after President Nestor Kirchner (President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007 declared two laws that ended most Dirty War prosecutions unconstitutional. However the Founding Line faction announced that they would continue both the Thursday Marches and annual marches, which are ongoing to this day.

Aida de Suarez states, “For the Mothers the square signifies the best of our lives because the square is the place of our children. The square is the most important thing to the Mothers. We have always been there because this square is ours” (Fisher, 108). Through the marches the Mothers of the Disappeared are not only able to honor their children, but create a memory for others through their marches. However, the Mother’s association did not stop seeking to keep their disappeared children’s memory and spirits alive with just marches. Through the creation of an independent university (Popular University of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo), bookstore, library, newspaper (La Voz de las Madres), and cultural center they promote the revolutionary ideals of many of their children. As well as give subsidized and free education, health and other facilities to the public and to students. The organization also manages a federally-funded housing program, Sueños Compartidos (“Shared Dreams”) for slum residents. In combination, with how the Mothers have created ways to remember, the music industry has as well. In 1998, the Mothers appeared on stage with Sting to announce their children’s names to the crowd as he preformed “They Dance Alone”, which immortalized the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The song was sung at an Amnesty International concert in Buenos Aires in 1988 and in 1998. The band U2 also invited the Mothers on stage during a performance of their song [|“Mothers of the Disappeared”,] which was written about the El Salvador counterparts of the Mothers, in Santiago during their 1998 tour.

Years earlier during the Holocaust many individuals dealt with the same feelings of separation and fear of the unknown. Mothers were split from their children. Husbands and wives were separated at concentration camps entrances and many Jews were disappearing from towns with no one hearing a thing until they were gone. People were searching for their loved ones before, during, and after the Holocaust especially when concentration camps were involved. Even after the Holocaust people were unsure where to go to look for their family. Many searched and are still searching for answers on their whereabouts or how they perished. Both the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and individuals involved in the Holocaust experienced the same anxiety and worry about their family during World War II and The Dirty War. Although they have their differences, both wars involved targeting certain groups of people in order to “cleanse” their country and both groups of individuals endured the same separation and anger when they saw their children pried from their hands to never be seen again.


 * In Memoriam of Tragedy; Argentine National Cinema**

In the wake of the dirty, bloody civil war, Argentina’s people began the inexorably long process of healing. The frustration and anger of the nation that reached a boiling point under the unjust yoke of oppression was finally allowed to diffuse. Argentine Cinema played a mainstream role in defining the catharsis for an entire nation.

To understand the machinations of cinema’s role in Argentina’s National expression, it’s important to look at it’s beginnings, as well as how it compares and contrasts with Industry cinema in other nations, post WWII Germany for example. Post-Structuralist Homi Bhabha had this to say of cinema as purgation;

“the nation in process of the articulation of elements: whose meanings may be partial because they are in medias res, and history may be half made because it is in the process of being made. (CB 31)”

A large citizen body going through this process is bound to be confused and excited, however at some point during this outpouring of expression, perhaps several years or decades later the issue boils down to its simplest form; a grudging resentment in the back of the mind. A la Occam’s Razor, the expression simplifys itself to a basic state, as in entropy, and is then avoided thereafter.

Thomas Elsaesser, international film historian and professor often uses the term “mourning work” in his books ‘__Subject Positions, Speaking Positions; from Holocaust to Our Hitler, Heimat to Shoa and Schindler’s List (1996)’__ and ‘__New German Cinema’.__ The Term is evocative of the emotions involved with expressions of sadness, of being subjected to wrongdoing, especially at the hands of the state. I believe postwar German cinema carries very similar parallels to the cinema created in the aftermath of the re-democratization of Argentina with one major contrast; German Cinema placed a heavy emphasis on the ‘why’, why Germans rallied together under fascism, while Argentine cinema focused almost entirely on the actual acts of wrongdoing like the “Flights of Death”. The former lends itself to the cerebral, while the latter leans toward a more passionate interpretation.

Another major thing to consider is the short time for expression that Argentina has had compared to Germany’s Holocaust, which happened forty years prior to the Dirty war over the course of many years. German cinema has had far longer to mature, and perhaps this more cerebral phase of Argentine cinema is yet to come; perhaps a “New Argentina Cinema” movement is just around the corner.


 * Dirty War; Legacy**

In her book __“Confronting the Dirty War in Argentine Cinema”,__ Constanza Burucua outlines the feelings of post-dirty war Argentina as follows;

“The ubiquitous question that all Argentinean intelligentsias, artists, journalists… [wanted] an answer to after the return of democracy in 1983 was [how to deal with traumatic legacy] (CB 35).” During this period of social and moral reconstruction, Argentina was developing its national identity to the rest of the world, just as Germany did in the wake of the war. Investigations such as CONADEP’s “Nunca Mas” campaign brought to light the crimes of those who seized power, and brought clarity and solidarity among the masses, of what had happened and what was happening.

This was fortified by the adjoining film movement, an extension of the Third Cinema movement begot by revolutionary directors in Latin America during the 60’s. The use or non-use of melodrama proved to be a defining characteristic of the movement. The general consensus of intellectuals at the time was that melodrama in memorial films cheapened the event and was only suitable for the working classes, however it is my opinion that this criticism is misguided.

A classic example of melodramatic film making also happens to be one of the most popular mourning works, “La Historia Oficial” directed by Luis Puenza spent much of the film focusing on weeping mothers and distraught fathers over the horrifying events of the war. The work was criticized by Hugo Vezzetti, a noted intelligentsia, for “[appealing] to a model of spectator that is both ignorant and distracted. (CB 124)” For Vezzetti and others, melodrama was a tool of the bourgeois for maintaining the status quo. While it is debatable, I feel that in a way, the melodrama is democratic in nature because of its popularity. People naturally embrace melodrama in film, music, in all expression because it gives voice to feelings that many would rather hide, or are incapable of expressing themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-T4zihht0k


 * Museums/Memorials - The Space for Memory, Promotion, and Defense of Human Rights **

In 2007, the former Naval Mechanics School (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, ESMA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina was reopened as a museum called the Space for Memory, Promotion, and Defense of Human Rights. It is located in the center of the city, so it is easily viewed from the outside by the people of Argentina. It was once used as one of the many illegal detention centers en forced by the military junta that took power of Argentina during the Dirty War, where more than 5,000 people were imprisoned and many of them killed. The number of victims of the Dirty War who were captured, taken to detention centers, and killed exceeds 30,000 people, although there were some who survived the detention centers. Those who were captured were “suspected of supporting socialism” and challenging the “western and Christian values” of the military junta (Mulrine). After being captured, the soldiers of the military would expose the victims to various methods of torture. One of the common methods of torture was when the victims were “given injections of sedatives, loaded onto a twice-weekly plane flight, and dropped unconscious into the freezing waters of the South Atlantic Ocean” (Mulrine). This method of torture among others, almost always ended in the death of the victims. Those who were not killed would be forced to work in the basements of the buildings where naval officers lived. There was also a maternity center within ESMA, where the military would separate newborn babies from their mothers, giving the babies to military couples who did not yet have children of their own and murdering the mothers.

(ESMA is located in the center of the city of Buenos Aires) (Main building of ESMA as viewed from the street in front of the museum)

The Naval Mechanics School was turned over to the city of Buenos Aires government in 2004, when President Nestor Krichner decided the site would be used as a “Museum of Memory,” but it wasn’t until 2007 that all military personnel were gone and the site was available to use as a museum (Parsons). The city government “created a board that included human rights organizations, as well as the country’s Ministry of Human Rights” to make decisions about how the museum would be utilized and the victims of the Dirty War commemorated (Mulrine). One of the organizations involved is the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

There have been many ongoing debates among the city government, the human rights organizations involved in the museum project, and the people of Argentina, some of whom are survivors of the detention centers that were run during the Dirty War, about how to commemorate the victims of the Dirty War and how to appropriately utilize ESMA as a museum. Before the Navy evacuated ESMA, they were in favor of tearing down the buildings and in place of them creating “a park of remembrance and a monument to reconciliation” (Mulrine). It is believed that the “buildings of ESMA continued to serve as a reminder to the military of a past they wanted to forget and to ‘disappear’ from the memory of others, and, through their physical destruction [they] hoped to erase this memory from national consciousness” (Parsons). For the officers who were a part of the military junta during the Dirty War, the museum would be a constant reminder of their involvement in the act of genocide against the people of Argentina. Some of the officers have more recently participated in acts to destroy parts of the museum, such as placing targets near the buildings and shooting at them in an attempt to destroy the buildings, in their efforts to destroy the site that forces them to remember their roles and forces them to take responsibility for their actions.

After the city government was awarded control over ESMA, it was decided and agreed upon that the site would become a museum, but there were ongoing debates between the human rights organizations about how the museum should be utilized and how the victims should be commemorated. It was decided that there would be one building to be used to house the National Memory Archives, one building to be used for human rights exhibits, and one building to be used by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo for cultural events (Parsons). There are many other buildings on site to be used, and there is debate surrounding the question of how they are to be utilized as well.

There have been elaborate art pieces attached to the fence surrounding the front of the museum, which can be viewed by the people of Argentina in passing. Some of the art pieces form the shapes of people, which is to represent the victims of the detention camp during the Dirty War. More specifically, one of the art pieces forms the silhouette of pregnant woman. This represents the mothers who were kidnapped and imprisoned at ESMA, many of whom were killed and their babies put up for adoption by the military.



On a wall on the outer edge of the property on which ESMA sits, there have been pictures of the victims placed one right next to the other as a type of memorial to those who disappeared during the Dirty War.



In an article by Anna Mulrine in the U.S. News & World Report entitled “Raw Nerves at a Museum of Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’” she interviews a couple of men about their opinions of how the museum is being utilized and the victims commemorated. One of the men, named Schiavi, emphasizes one of the common questions central to the debate over how to preserve ESMA as a museum, which was: “Should the museum bring back the metal beds on which prisoners were kept, hooded and hogtied, so that visitors can better visualize the conditions that the disappeared endured?” When reflecting on this, Schiavi asked “But then do you use ketchup for fake blood? Where do you draw the line?” (Mulrine). Mulrine goes on to describe an interview with another man named Carlos Lordkipanidse, who was himself a survivor of the detention center. When asked his viewpoint on how the museum is being utilized or how the victims are being commemorated, he pointed out a specific example of which he disagreed with. According to Mulrine, Lordkipanidse explained he did not agree with the motto of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which is “Create life in a place where before there was death.” He explained his viewpoints and posed some of the following questions: “Is it necessary to put life in that place?” and “We have life everywhere. Do we need to bring happiness to a cemetery? It’s a place where people go to keep vigil over their dead. It’s not where you go to play jazz. You have so many places to play jazz. Why here?” (Mulrine). The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were designated a specific building on site at which they hold community events, which he did not agree was an appropriate way to utilize the museum or to commemorate the victims of the Dirty War. His vision was to have a place to represent what happened at ESMA during this time, so that future generations will remember, and so similar tragedies can be prevented in years to come (Mulrine). This was a common goal among many of the human rights organizations as well as the government, to utilize the museum in a way that will aid people in remembering this significant time in the history of Argentina, and to appropriately commemorate the victims, with the hope of preventing similar occurrences of genocide in the future. The questions of Schiavi and Lordkipanidse echo the questions of others in this ongoing debate of what is considered to be appropriate or inappropriate when attempting to preserve sites of or commemorate the victims of acts of genocide.



These questions and ideas bring up the concept of memory culture presented by Andreas Huyssen, of how the various cultures of the world have a need to make history more real in the present through various forms of cultural representation, such as museums, as a way of not forgetting what happened in the past. There is a need among the people of Argentina to create a place where the perpetrators, the officers and other high-ranking officials of the military junta, can be held accountable and where the victims and the disappeared can be remembered. However, this is an ongoing struggle for the government, human rights organizations, and the people of Argentina because in many ways they are still living through their trauma today.

The Dirty War of Argentina took place recently enough that it is still fresh in the minds of the people of Argentina, and many of them are still the first generation to have experienced the human rights violations committed by the military, as well as bearing witness to the disappearance of their loved ones. Shortly after the decision was made in 2004 to turn ESMA into a museum, there were Supreme Court trials to abolish amnesty laws that had been put in place to protect the military from prosecution. These trials successfully removed the amnesty laws in 2005, so the government of Argentina could proceed to prosecute many of the officers who served in the military during the Dirty War. In 2008, there were more trials that took place in which “two former generals [were] sentenced to life imprisonment for their actions during… the Dirty War” (BBC News, Timeline: Argentina). Even more recently, in 2010 “General Jorge Videla [was] sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity” and in 2011 “former naval officer Alfredo Astiz and 11 other former members of the security forces are given life sentences for crimes against humanity” during the Dirty War (BBC News, Timeline: Argentina). In addition to these ongoing trials, there have been various cases where the identities of babies who had been adopted by military families at the maternity centers have been discovered. As recent as August of 2011, the true identity of a woman was uncovered as one of the babies of the mothers of the disappeared, and she herself had been adopted by a military family. At this time, the recorded “total number of recoveries [was] 105” (Barrionuevo). Between the trials and the ongoing discovery of the identities of the people who were adopted by the military families, the people of Argentina are still living the memory of the Dirty War, while trying to find a way to appropriately utilize ESMA as a memorial or museum to commemorate the victims of this time. It is hard for the people to find one right way of remembering, when they are still unsure if their family members and children are alive or dead. They have not yet felt any sort of resolve around this memory that lingers in their present day lives.


 * Sources**

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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">BBC News. (Updated 2011, October). Timeline: Argentina. //BBC News.// Retrieved from [|http://news.bbc.co.uk].

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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Google Maps. Location of ESMA within the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved from __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[|http://maps.google.com] __<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hawrylciw, Marcelo Ricardo. Photograph of Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (EMSA or Navy Mechanic School). Retrieved from [].

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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Mrfloyd. Photographs to commemorate disappeared outside courtyard of Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (EMSA or Navy Mechanic School): [].

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Mulrine, Anna. (2008, December 22). Raw Nerves at a Museum of Argentina’s “Dirty War.” //U.S. News & World Report.// Retrieved from [|http://www.usnews.com].

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Parsons, Emily E. (2011). “The Space of Remembering: Collective Memory and the Reconfiguration of Contested Space in Argentina’s ESMA” [online article], //452°F. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature,// 4, 29-51. Retrieved from [|http://www.452f.com].

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<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">van Alphen, Saskia. (2008, December 17). Argentina’s Space for Memory Opens Its Doors in Former Clandestine Detention Center. //The WIP: The Women’s International Perspective//. Retrieved from [|http://www.thewip.net].