Argentina (1976-1983)
Prior to 1929, Argentina was among the wealthiest countries in the world. The Great Depression (1929–1939), however, brought massive instability, leading to several military takeovers over the coming decades. By mid-century, ongoing political unrest, widening inequality, and repeated interventions steadily undermined this economic prosperity and democratic institutions.
The 1976 coup was part of a broader campaign anchored by the National Security Doctrine, a US-backed ideology to combat the spread of communism, which led to the support of dictatorships and other forms of political violence in Latin America.
Calling it the “Process of National Reorganization,” Argentina’s far-right military dictatorship (1976–1983), also known as the junta, used extreme violence and terror to eliminate those they labeled “leftist subversives.” Framing their actions as a campaign against the rise of communism known as the “Dirty War,” the junta kidnapped and murdered as many as 30,000 Argentine citizens in what is now understood as a genocide.
Those captured were “disappeared” and sent to clandestine detention centers where they were systematically tortured and killed. This included students, teachers, psychologists, priests, and anyone they considered to be dangerous to their vision of national order. An estimated 12 percent of the disappeared were Jewish, even though they represented only 1 to 2 percent of the total population.
Citizen-led movements responded with extraordinary courage. Groups like Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of Plaza de Mayo) searched for their children who had been disappeared (known as desaparecidos). Mostly housewives without previous political experience, they gathered weekly as disappearances continued.
Other groups, like Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), searched for their grandchildren, born in detention centers and then given to families aligned with the dictatorship under assumed identities. Their activism, alongside that of other human rights organizations, contributed to the dictatorship’s fall in 1983. Las Madres still meet every Thursday in front of the presidential palace, maintaining public demands for truth and accountability.
Following the return of democracy in 1983, Argentina established what is considered the world’s first truth commission, the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP; National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons). The Commission listened to victims’ testimonies to document the extent of the crimes. Its 1984 report, Nunca Más (Never Again), also contributed to the 1985 Juicio a las Juntas (Trial of the Juntas), which prosecuted top military officers responsible for the political repression. The high-ranking officers found guilty during the groundbreaking convictions so soon after the atrocities were subsequently pardoned between 1989 and 1990.
Although amnesty laws in the late 1980s—the Full Stop Law (1986) and the Due Obedience Law (1987)—heralded a period of impunity, human rights activists continued fighting for justice. In 2005, Argentina’s Supreme Court overturned amnesty laws that had protected military personnel from prosecution of crimes committed during the dictatorship, which led to new trials.
Educational campaigns and memorials also established the significance of this history in the public sphere, with March 24th (the anniversary of the coup) becoming the official National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice. To date, over 140 grandchildren born to the desaparecidos have been identified and reunited with their biological families, and over 1,000 perpetrators have faced justice for crimes committed during the dictatorship.