Argentinas Dirty War essays

Argentinas Dirty War essays Between 1976 and 1983, under military rule, thousands of people in Argentina were arrested and then vanished without a trace. This campaign became known to Argentina and abroad as the "Dirty War". Seized by force against their will, the victims no longer existed as citizens. Nobody knew who exactly were responsible for their abductions or even why they had been abducted. Under a policy called the "Process of National Reorganization", successive juntas waged war against armed guerrillas and unarmed civilians. The guerillas were defeated, but the torture, disappearance and murder of innocent civilians continued for several more years thereafter. The authorities had no record of these desaparecidos. Unimaginable time went by and innocent parents and children made endless attempts to try to locate their loved ones. Fear spread throughout Argentine society, and many were afraid that they would become the next innocent victims. From the beginning of the seventies through the present, military regimes have declared wars on the peoples of Latin America, backed by the doctrine of national security. This doctrine was adopted in order to fight the "communist threat" and allowed for the extermination of complete generations in order to prevent "foreign ideologies" from taking over the countries. The estimated number of people killed in The Dirty War was about 15,000. Thirty thousand more were imprisoned under inhumane conditions, including extreme torture, and half a million citizens were exiled. The subversion and terrorism produced by the military resulted in these arrests, abductions, tortures and disappearances of people who had never participated in violent or armed attacks. The military targeted academics and over three thousand university professors were dismissed from their posts and many of them were arrested on charges of subversion during the first six months of military rule. Amnesty Internati onal reported on the disap...