¿ De Quién Son Estas Memorias?: Los Rubios, Memory, and History (original) (raw)
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De Gruyter eBooks, 2023
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The Masked Monster: Argentinian Reality in the Years of the Military Dictatorship (1976 - 1983)
Argentina of the seventies was marked by internal conflicts which exceeded those previously lived through in its entire political history. Inspired by the French May uprisings, the sermon of Pacem in Terris, the end of colonialism in countries in Africa and Asia, and the Cuban Revolution among other things, the Argentinians (many of whom were young professionals and university students) became guerrilla fighters, immersing themselves fully into the idea that social change based on the vindication of the dispossessed was possible. It did not take long for the media and society in general to convert these revolutionaries into the Other, into the monster that had to be destroyed (annihilated) so that it would not contaminate the rest of the population. As a consequence these individuals were persecuted and exterminated. The country welcomed this and the Church gave its blessing to the intelligence services and to the impeccable, honourable and distinguished armed forces who had acted as saviours, not only to the nation, but also to Western and Christian values. The return of democracy opened up the possibility to give a voice to that “monster” silenced during part of the decade of the seventies and part of the eighties. Testimonies of CONADEP (National Commission for the Disappearance of People) like the “Nunca más” and the first writings about the dictatorship, allowed the real monster of the so-called “dirty war” to be revealed. This literature, made up of thousands of testimonies, permitted the real monster to be unmasked. The defenders of the fatherland sprouted claws, horns and tails and even so, these images were not sufficient to describe the horror to which they subjected their victims: they created clandestine concentration camps in order to torture their victims to death, they trafficked the newborn children of the prisoners and they threw their still living victims from airplanes. The aim of my presentation will be to analyze by means of testimonies and literary works, the (re) presentation and (re) figuration of the monster “disguised as the human protector” within Argentinian reality of the so-called “dirty war”.
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This edited volume provides a comprehensive overview of the renewal of academic engagement in the Argentinian dictatorship in the context of the post-2001 crisis. Significant social and judicial changes and the opening of archives have led to major revisions of the research dedicated to this period. As such, the contributors offer a unique presentation to an English-speaking audience, mapping and critiquing these developments and widening the recent debates in Argentina about the legacy of the dictatorship in this long-term perspective.
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With the increasing opportunities for justice ushered in by the repeal of the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws in 2005, the struggles for memory and justice by Argentina's H.I.J.O.S. (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence) have shifted focus. Pre-2005, the organization used escraches (public demonstrations in which the perpetrators of human rights violations are "outed") to respond to the problem of top-down impunity in Argentina, condemn the atrocities, and expose the legal immunity enjoyed by the perpetrators. Post-2005, it has employed escraches to bring to the fore shortcomings in the judicial sphere by widening its selection of targets. Furthermore, new activities outside and inside the courtroom reflect the new landscape of justice, celebrating the advent of justice and accompanying victims, survivors, and witnesses in this process while continuing to highlight persistent shortcomings and obstacles in the judicial sphere.
Global Society, 2019
The last military dictatorship in Argentina was characterized by gross and systematic human rights violations. After the restoration of democracy in 1983, President Raúl Alfonsín put the military juntas on trial. Criminal prosecution of the abuses was later halted through laws and decrees. In 2003, under the Néstor Kirchner administration, the trials were resumed and some of the sentences incorporated the idea that the crimes had been committed in the framework of genocide. This article reconstructs the history of the uses and re-significations, furthered by local and transnational actors, of the category of genocide and the ways in which it was incorporated to characterize the crimes committed by the Argentine dictatorship. I argue that the use of this category shows the long presence of the Shoah paradigm in the country and the adoption of the international framework of human rights by actors involved in pro-accountability and memorialization processes.
Dirty Lasting Memories: Tenacity to Survive Argentina’s Military Regime (1976-1983)
Research has corroborated that the repression of culture during the last Argentine dictatorship was systematically planned by the State. The aim was not only to eradicate what was considered dangerous “Marxist and thus subversive,” but also to impose what the Armed Forces considered true Christian values (country, family, private property). The presentation outlines the fear, humiliation, pain and impotence, as well as resistance and rebellion to censorship that authors, publishers, and librarians faced during the period known as the “Dirty War” (1976-1983). It also includes some personal experiences.
Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 2016
This article analyses newspapers' discourse in supporting of the last Argentinean dictatorship (1976-1983). Despite an extensive body of knowledge devoted to study the last military intervention, most of the research focused on human rights violations that occurred in hidden concentration camps; little attention has been paid to the role of the press in supporting the armed forces in power. The most popular and top selling newspapers such as Clarín and La Nación not only were favoured with generous business deals by the military regimes, but also developed a particular narrative praising the armed forces. Using medical metaphors, binary opposites such as order and disorder and particular front page layouts, newspapers supported the idea of military rule as providing the only alternative to re-establish order for the common good in a country deeply affected by political violence. This article also analyses the fraudulent purchase of paper factory Papel Prensa S.A. made between the military junta and the three major newspapers Clarín, La Nación and La Razón. This article concludes that the mainstream Argentine press supported the 1976 coup d'état and built consensus around military leaders. Argentina endured six coups d' état in six decades, and during this period was torn between political violence and economic crisis. In 1930, the government of the radical Hipólito Yrigoyen was overthrown. The second coup d' état happened in 1943, when the government of conservative Ramón Castillo was overthrown. In 1955, President Juan Domingo Peron was ousted by a coup d' état jointly orchestrated by both the army and navy. Both forces bombarded Government House and Plaza de Mayo, killing 300 civilians. In 1962, the three military forces overthrew the government of radical Arturo Frondizi. In 1966, General Juan Carlos Onganía deposed President Arturo Ilia, immediately cancelled university autonomy and banned student centres. Shortly after the coup, the federal police invaded the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and physically assaulted everybody they found, destroying laboratories and libraries and arresting 400 people, among them, professors and students. The event was known as La Noche de los Bastones Largos, or the Night of the Long Canes. Finally, in 1976 the Peronist María Estela Martínez de Perón (also known as Isabel Perón) was forced out of the office by another coup d' état. Regardless