The Disappeared

In the 1970s and early ’80s, I was too wrapped up in work and family to pay close attention to international events. One did catch my attention: the junta in Argentina and its vicious campaign to eradicate any opposition. The junta labeled all who criticized or disagreed with it “terrorists” and justified its deeds as a war, the Guerra Sucia (“Dirty War”). Picturing the suffering of the victims and their families gave me shivers. It still does.

Paramilitary forces in plain clothes snatched targets from the street or dragged them from bed in the middle of the night. The desaparecidos (“disappeared”) included students, journalists, union members, Jews, and anyone suspected of left-wing sympathies. I doubt the state-sponsored kidnappers had warrants, identified themselves, or read captives their rights. Victims had no constitutional right to due process, free speech, or habeas corpus. Some were held in secret detention centers. Tens of thousands were never heard from again.

Mothers of desaparecidos walked in the plaza every Thursday, demanding to know what had become of their loved ones. Few others spoke or acted in protest. I don’t know how many people held back out of fear, how many gave up hope, and how many didn’t care. Only after economic collapse and defeat in the Falklands compounded dissatisfaction over lack of civil rights did the junta and its Guerra Sucia come to an end.

Of course, that was not the first or last time such horror has been inflicted in one place or another. I took comfort in knowing nothing of the sort could ever happen here.

Image: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, December 1982.