The Guerra Sucia Dirty War was a period of time from 1976-1983, which was a campaign organized by the Argentine military dictatorship (lead by the infamous Jorge Rafael Videla) against suspected left-wing political opponents. Estimates are as high as 30,000 of people that were either killed or “disappeared” during this time. Videla and his followers wanted to rid Argentina of these “terrorists,” which he defined as anyone who opposed the western, Christian values. His dictatorship wanted to reform the Argentinian society in order to fit their militarized, conservative, and Catholic vision of what a society should be. Unfortunately, most of the victims were dissidents and innocent civilians, including children and pregnant women.

The dictatorship used severe methods to torture and kill the prisoners and often held them in secret detention centers. One website, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jacunnin/StoriesTortured.htm, outlines the stories of several victims that captured and tortured, with gruesome depictions of their terrifying experiences. Delia Barrera, stated that she had been tortured for 92 days at Club Atletico, with chains held around her feet and unable to speak. Another victim, Nelson Eduardo Dean, divulged that he was stripped of his clothes, cuffed, and then had water thrown on his body. He then had wires placed around his waist, ankles, and thorax, and a rope was tied to his cuffs, with his hands pulled as high as possible. He was then left hanging 30 cm above the ground, and periodically lowered, just to be tortured more with electrical shocks to all parts of his body.

Approximately thirty percent of those who disappeared were women, who were often taken with their young children, and it is estimated that about three percent were pregnant or became pregnant through rape by torturers and guards. The mothers were kept alive for days or a few weeks, before the newborns were taken from them and the mothers were “transferred”—sent to their deaths. “Transfer” often mean that the women were injected with drugs and then were shoved from planes into the Atlantic or River Plate. About five hundred newborns and children were taken away from disappeared mothers and were subsequently placed (identities erased) with childless police and military couples and others who favored the regime. The grandmothers of these children tried desperately to find their daughters and grandchildren and in their search united and formed an organization called Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo. Since their establishment n 1977, they have located 87 of the disappeared children. Some are already living with their legitimate families, while others have remained in the families that raised them, but are in close contact with their biological families. Here is a documentary depicting interviews with several of these disappeared children: BBC Our World Argentina Who Am I?

Many of those that were held responsible for these horrific crimes were prosecuted and jailed, but many were given amnesty. The following video depicts the tribunal hearing of 68 former officials that were involved in the “transportation” of prisoners in aircrafts to their deaths: Trial of ‘Dirty War’ crimes starts in Argentina.