Wow!!! We watched in horror a documentary made by an Argentine who escaped and went to USA as a refugee. It was about the "Dirty War" that took place from roughly 1976 to 1983 (although some "disappearances" occurred as early as 1973). It is estimated that between 9,000 to 30,000 young Argentines involved in "Left Wing" activities to reduce the power of the militaristic regime started by the Perons (and the Perons were fond admirers of the Italian dictator, Mussolini!)....."disappeared". This initiative started during the Peron "regime" but when the Peron government was overthrown by a military junta, things escalated in trying to eradicate anyone connected to or sympathetic to the ERP political party, which was Left Wing. ERP members were rounded up (sometimes the military liked to round them up on their birthdays, thinking their guard would be let down on that day)...what a cruel psychological "game". They were tortured, raped, if the young women had babies - the babies were adopted "out" to military or police families. There were actual "torture stations" in Buenos Aires - and all of this was "sanctioned" by then US Dept. of State Secretary Henry Kissinger who stated publicly that he felt the current President of Argentina was doing a good job to keep it's country in check. If Americans can't find this disgusting, then there is something wrong with them. What a horrible breach of Human Rights: they were blind-folded, tortured, raped and eventually dropped ALIVE from airplanes into the Rio Plata to their deaths.
One of the infamous killers and torturers (nicknamed "the Turk") had visited an Argentine family (she was a Jewish refugee from Germany during WWII). Sometimes he would bring her son and daughter-in-law to visit (they were being held at a "detention centre"). He would cruelly notice the speakers the elderly Mrs. Weiss had and would say "My, what a grand sound system you have. Would you play some Wagner for me?" - he knew she was a Jewish refugee from Germany and he KNEW that when millions of Jews were marched to the gas chambers the Germans loved to play Wagner. It was a cat-and-mouse psychological game. He told Mrs. Weiss that they were now thinking of a plan to possibly rehabilitate ERP members and that her son and daughter-in-law (who were allowed to visit only with this guard once a month or so) were two that were being considered for this plan. In the end, they were tortured and murdered.
Later, he was interviewed and for a while there was a blanket "Amnesty" for all those who had taken part in these cruel tortures and murders. With coldness in his eyes (when asked to NAME NAMES) he admitted that he had killed the "Weiss couple" (her son and son's wife).
Once tortured enough to reveal names of other ERP party members and locales.....the youths were stuffed into an airplane and dropped ALIVE into the Rio Plata to their deaths. I am definitely NOT a "Left Wing" person, but kidnapping, torture, rape and killing is wrong and a violation of Human Rights.
What brought us to tears when we saw the documentary was that EVERY May - all the mothers of "missing children" rally with photos of their kidnapped children....what a sad, sad event that is. It is an event that still takes place in Buenos Aires every single May.
One story of a woman who escaped to Uruguay was really emotional. She left Argentina with her mother on false papers. She carried two cyanide pills for HERSELF, knowing if caught she would be tortured and killed but the mother would have been left alone. She and her mother boarded the plane headed for Montevideo, Uruguay. Suddenly, the plane was stopped and turned around. Fearing that at ANY moment the door of the plane would be opened and that she would be hauled off to a detention/torture camp....the daughter told her mother "Mom, if that door opens, I am going to swallow these two cyanide pills because I can't endure what would come if they took me away. If you love me, what you can do to help is to block my face with your body so that they can't make me spit out the pills". This was a REAL conversation that took place. She saw that the reason the plane was stopped was because some of the luggage had not been properly loaded; the plane door was never opened. Can you imagine this?? This isn't a work of fiction, but of fact.
Anyway - if you want to learn more about Argentina's "Dirty War" - please go to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
Many friends wonder why I write about such gruesome events in history, but I firmly believe that unless we examine these events and LEARN from them, we might let them happen again, and that would be a horrible shame.
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