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Home , Alfredo Astiz, Caravan of Death, Death flights, Death squad, Impalement (heraldry), Jorge Rafael Videla

THE VOICES OF THE DISAPPEARED: POLITICIDE IN AND

A thesis submitted to the Kent State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for University Honors

by

Evin Hessel

December, 2019

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Thesis written by

Evin Hessel

Approved by

______, Advisor

______, Chair, Department of Anthropology

Accepted by

______, Dean, Honors College

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………...…….....iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………….vi

CHAPTERS

I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………...………1 i. Chile……………………………………………………...………..2 ii. Argentina…………………………………………………………..6 iii. Politicide?...... 10 iv. Morality…………………………………………………………..12

II. THE ABDUCTED………………………………………………………….…....16 i. Secret Detention Centers……………………..…………….…….19 III. ……………………………………………………………………….24 i. Medical Involvement…………………………………………….28 ii. Anti-Semitism…………………………………………...……….30 IV. EXECUTION ……………………………………………………………………32 V. DISPOSAL………………………………………………………………………39 i. Mass Graves……………………………………………………...41 ii. Flights……………………………………………………..44 iii. Other Methods…………………………………………...………45 VI. THE AFTERMATH……………………………………………………………..48 i. The Fall of Pinochet……………………………………………..48 ii. Videla Steps Down………………………………………………51 iii. Excavations………………………………………………………53 VII. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..56 i. Politicide is Genocide……………………………………………61

REFERENCES.. …...... 64

APPENDICES

A. CHILE TIMELINE…………………………………………………………..72 B. ARGENTINA TIMELINE…………………………………………………..74 C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS……………………………………………...... 76

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Throughout this process, many people have asked why I chose this particular topic. My answer is always the same. I chose this topic specifically because it is relatively unknown in American society. It is not taught in high school history classes, yet thousands of people suffered during this time period. Multiple researchers and organizations have dedicated their lives to shattering the silence surrounding this topic. It is my hope that this thesis will, too, help to shatter that silence.

I would like to thank Dr. Mazzei for her help with the portion on abductions and providing recommendations on sources. Dr. Mazzei’s specialization in death squads allowed her to provide insight into sources that I had otherwise not considered. She also asked how I was holding up when writing about such depressing things, which meant a lot to me. I would also like to thank Dr. Stumpf-Carome for her enthusiasm and motivation in pursuing interviews, as well as her helpful tips when asking interview questions. Dr. Stumpf-Carome sat down with me after a guest lecturer to discuss at length my thesis and suggest sources to look into. She also helped with me the revision process to make my thesis much stronger. Through her suggestions, my thesis has exponentially grown in content and would not be what it is now without her.

Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Spurlock. Her guidance through this process has motivated me to keep going even when I felt lost and wanted to give up. Without her, this thesis would never have seen the light. She was always available to help even while

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planning a study abroad trip to Scotland for the first time for twenty students. No matter the stress she was under, she always made time to look over chapters, suggest possible edits, and answer the multitude of questions I had about formatting and setting up the defense. Her unwavering support has meant the world to me and I will truly be forever grateful for all that she has done. There is truly no other professor that I would have wanted to work this closely with for this thesis.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BRP: Brigada Romona Parra

CNI: National Information Center

CONADEP: National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons

DINA: Directorate of National Intelligence Agency

EAAF: Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team

ERP: Marxist People’s Revolutionary Army

ESMA: Navy Mechanics School

FPMR-A: Frenie Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez

MIR: Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Left Movement)

PCR: Partido Comunista de Rosari

UP Coalition: Unidad Popular Coalition

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

The and were a tumultuous time in . From 1973 to

1980, Chile was controlled by one of the most repressive military governments in Latin

America (Meade, 2001:124). In 1976, Argentina was seized by a similar military regime, lasting until 1983. Both regimes would operate by using to rule. Thousands of people were abducted, tortured, and killed in both countries between 1973 and 1990, which has evoked comparisons to periods of genocide such as .

Between 1973 and 1990, around 3,000 people were killed in Chile (Aguilar,

2002:412). In Argentina, around 30,000 people were killed between 1976 and 1983

(Crossland, 2000:147). Yet because the people targeted were of a certain political group, these are not recognized as , but rather politicides. This thesis aims to argue that political groups, and therefore politicide, should be covered under the definition of genocide using the issue of morality and the concept of evil. The methods of abduction, torture, execution, and disposal of bodies in these countries will be used as examples to reveal the sense of evil that is present in politicide.

In to understand what brought about these atrocities, the political background of each country must be provided. Both Chile and Argentina’s political backgrounds include multiple coup d’etats to overthrow leaders and an influx in Marxist politicians and ideals in the mid-to-late 1900s. It was this influx that set the stage for the rise of the Pinochet and Videla regimes.

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Chile:

On September 4, 1970, won the presidential election as the first freely elected Marxist president in (Cockcroft, 2000:1). His term began with nationalizing “public utilities, non-foreign banks, and several basic industries”

(Cockcroft, 2000:13). While many saw this as a much-needed policy reform in Chile,

Allende began to slowly build enemies, the most formidable perhaps being the United

States.

The held an anti- stance in the last half of the 20th century, which was fueled by ongoing tensions with the and the war in

Vietnam. Having in the Western Hemisphere was a nightmare come true for the

United States government, therefore making Allende a detested character in the United

States. In 1972, articles written by Jack Anderson were published, detailing the efforts by the American company known as the International Telephone and Telegraph to prevent

Allende from being elected in 1970 by funding Allende’s opponents (Power, 2009:49).

President ordered the CIA to orchestrate a military coup d’état to prevent

Allende from being elected president in 1970, ensuring that it was kept a secret from the

Department of State and Department of Defense (Select Committee to Study

Governmental Operations [SCSGO], 1975:2). However, when that attempt failed, the

United States provided $125,000 to “spoil” Allende’s UP (Unidad Popular) coalition

(Cockcroft, 2000:12). Once Allende won, the United States turned to a new tactic of ousting him from power— economic pressure.

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A report titled “United States Policy Toward Chile, November 1971-September

1973” states that “During 1972 and 1973, the United States continued its basic policy objective of preventing the consolidation of the Allende administration by using maximum pressure, especially economic pressure, against Chile while maintaining a restrained public stance” (Borg 1976:1). Between 1970 and 1973, the U.S. spent $8.8 million to fund groups that opposed Allende (SCSGO, 1975:42). It was the United States’ hope that this pressure would cause an economic downturn, forcing Allende out of power. This tactic worked to an extent and the Chilean economy had taken a downturn, causing political strife to split the country.

In 1972, the truckers went on strike, followed by bus owners and miners

(Ensalaco, 2000:1). The strikes revealed the conflict and divide between the left and right political parties. The left supported Allende’s presidency and were willing to fight for him, but the right, including military officials, wanted him to be removed from power.

This divide began to strain the political environment. To create peace between the two sides, Allende appointed various military officers into his cabinet. However, these officers all resigned in the months leading up to the coup (Cockcroft, 2000:17). When

General took on the role of Commander-in- of the army, the tables turned.

On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military launched a coup d’état against

Allende and his administration. After giving his final address to the people at 10:00 am over one of the few radio stations not under military control, Allende retired to his palace and dismissed his security personnel before committing (Ensalaco, 2000:25).

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General Pinochet seized power in Chile and, backed by the military, began executing anyone deemed “subversive” in an attempt to terrorize the people. The most targeted were radicalized students, militant workers, people identified by the government as leftists, and of Allende and communism (Ensalaco, 2000:27). Essentially, anyone who opposed the coup or the regime was targeted.

A was declared on September 12, 1973, which enacted a nocturnal curfew. One week later, the entire country was declared an emergency zone, giving the military complete control over the citizens and sealing off the borders (Constable &

Valenzuela, 1991:19). On September 21, Pinochet closed Congress by decree (Caldwell

& Montes, 2014:11). Pinochet issued other orders as well, such as Decree No. 604,

Article I (1974), which established the prohibition of anyone who would "propagate or foment...doctrines that tend to destruction or alteration by violence of the social order of the country.” Decree No. 1009, Article 5 (1975) stated that anyone carrying literature promoting the breaking of any laws issued by the regime would be considered "guilty of propagating and supporting and disseminating that propaganda or doctrine.”

In the days following, various politicians, soldiers, and supporters of Allende were captured and either held in prison or executed. The killings spread beyond power- holding members in society to include citizens of all ages. Civilians were piled into soccer stadiums, factories, and various other locations for , torture, and execution (Robben, 2015:53). Pinochet created an intelligence organization known as the

Directorate of National Intelligence Agency (DINA) to aid in the fight against subversives by operating detention centers and legally carry out arrests and raids

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(International Commission of Jurists [ICJ] & Centre for the Independence of Judges and

Lawyers [CIJL], 1992:58). The DINA was given autonomous power under the command of Colonel , allowing to become Pinochet’s most important tool in the regime (Roniger & Sznajder, 1999:27).

The majority of the abductions during this time resulted from the actions taken by the DINA. The organization became so powerful that the fear it caused spread beyond the citizens to include military officers as well. The DINA would conduct surveillance on the officers, monitoring their actions and alerting their superiors, including Pinochet himself, if they stepped out of (Valenzuela, 1991:48). Because of this, the DINA was highly detested amongst military officers. In 1977, pressure both nationally and internationally caused Pinochet to disband the DINA and instead replace it with the National

Information Center, otherwise known as the CNI (Ma, 2012:59). The CNI was even more potent than the DINA due to its judicial power, allowing it to hold military tribunals to convict those deemed "subversive.” However, by the time the CNI began to operate, the war on subversives was beginning to taper off. Despite this, the CNI operated until the regime fell in 1990.

Reports of the number of those killed during the Pinochet regime vary, with estimates ranging from 2,100 to 3,000 citizens (Snyder 1995:263, Aguilar 2002:412). The majority of those killed or missing were abducted within the first ten years of the regime; however, disappearances still occurred until the fall of the regime in 1990 (Heinz &

Fruhling, 1999:540). The 17-year-long regime was marked with terrible actions, including torture, wrongful executions, and inhumane disposals of the bodies.

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Argentina:

In February 1946, General Juan Domingo Perón was elected president of

Argentina after running as a candidate for an independent labor party (Gibson, 1997:343).

Perón advocated for the techniques used by Mussolini in Italy, wanting full-scale mobilization of every part of Argentina’s society (Lewis, 2002:5). Perón was a populist, meaning he put the people first and condemned for its “insensitivity against the poor” (Osiel, 2001:106). This allowed Perón to grow in favor with the people, but not without creating enemies.

Perón had been involved in the government long before his election. After the end of an oligarchic rule in 1943, he became an influential member of the new military government. He held the role of war minister and took over the National Labor

Department, enforcing labor laws that benefited the working class (Lewis, 2002:5).

However, Perón’s military colleagues became concerned about the power he was beginning to hold with the people. On October 9, 1945, the military forced Perón to step down from his position in the government in an attempt to destroy his power over the people. Unfortunately for his military colleagues, this attempt backfired and Perón became even more powerful among the people. On October 17, Perón resigned from the army and became a leader of the working class. It was this resignation that sparked turmoil within the government, forcing another presidential election to be held in 1946

(Plotkin, 2003:53). This election provided Perón with the opportunity to seize total power. Not only was he elected as president, but his supporters occupied the majority of the governmental positions including the Senate (Lewis, 2002:6). With his wife, Evita, at

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his side to spur his avid supporters on, it seemed that nothing would be able to stop him in achieving his goals for the people.

Perón gained a cult-like following during his term. Although Perón was not a fascist, he did believe that encompassing some fascist ideals, such as the ones he saw in

Italy, would aid the country. He believed that “ would provide the way to national economic independence and military supremacy on the continent” (Lewis, 2002:5). The military, however, was not convinced and, upon seeing the rise of Perón’s power, became certain that in order to protect democracy, they had to get rid of Perón. In 1955, the military launched a coup d’etat against Perón and forced him into exile in an attempt once again to end his reign over the people.

After the coup, the government attempted to remove any trace of Perón. However, this proved to be difficult due to his immense following. Despite the challenges, General

Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, who was president from 1955 to 1958, made every attempt he could to rid the country of Perón. He outlawed the ideologies Perón held, known as

Peronism, and banned the Peronist party from participating in elections (Norden,

1996:30). President Aramburu arrested various Peronist party officials and prohibited any display of Peronist symbols, books, or artwork of any kind. However, the Peronists were not easily defeated, and the working class up in a series of protests and revolutions against Aramburu (Lewis, 2002:9). This began a violent war between the government and the Peronists, which would not end until the 1976 coup.

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In 1956, after a failed rebellion against the military, General Aramburu ordered the execution of 8 workers at a garbage dump. narrates the events of that night, saying:

The guards pushed them with the barrels of their guns...As one man falls to his

knees and pleads for his life, the first shot rings out. Three men succeed in fleeing

under the cover of darkness, while three others survive by playing dead. The

remaining eight are assassinated...In the glare of the headlights where the acrid

smoke of the gunpowder boils, a few moans float over the bodies stretched out in

the garbage dump. A new crackling of gunshots seems to finish them

off. (Robben, 2005b: 89, 90).

The Peronists responded to the governmental violence by forming guerrilla organizations and launching attacks on the military. In 1970, despite not having been president for years, General Aramburu was kidnapped and executed by an organization known as the due to his principal involvement in the first coup. Perón himself had advocated for resistance to the military government while in exile, declaring in 1971 that the road back to democracy/power should be waged using guerrilla warfare, crowd protests, and political negotiations (Norden, 1996:41). The people took his word, and, by the time President Lanusse was elected in 1971, the country seemed to be out of control. By 1971, armed guerrilla operations had risen nearly 460% (Robben,

2005a:129). Lanusse knew that the only way to restore peace was to talk to Perón, so he sent a representative to Madrid to negotiate. Perón demanded that in exchange for peace, he must be allowed back into the country with all charges against him dropped, for

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Peronism to no longer be outlawed, and for the Peronist party to be allowed to participate in elections. His demands were met, and Perón made his return to Argentina in 1972. In

1973, Perón won the presidential election (Smith, 1983:97). However, his presidency was short-lived.

Perón died on July 1, 1974, leaving his third wife Isabel Martinez de Perón as the democratic leader of the country for the next two years. Despite Perón’s death, the guerrilla attacks on the military and police did not stop. On December 1, 1974, Captain

Humberto Viola, along with his wife and two daughters, were attacked by guerrillas from the ERP (Marxist People’s Revolutionary Army) at their home. Captain Viola was shot and killed, and his three-year-old daughter later died of her wounds (Robben,

2005b:147). The military believed that Isabel’s government was unable to control these attacks. In 1975, General warned that "as many people will die in

Argentina as is necessary to restore order" (Donnelly, 2013:58). He followed through on his word and, on March 24, 1976, Isabel was overthrown, establishing a headed by Videla. (Zarankin & Salerno, 2011:211).

Just as was the case in Chile, the military viewed those who opposed the regime as a “subversive cancer,” which must be destroyed (Robben, 2005b: 179). To them, this war on the people was necessary to restore peace to the country. It was reported that as many as 515 military and police , as well as 172 civilian deaths, occurred at the hands of the guerrillas between 1955 and 1976 (Robben, 2005a: 129). Videla wasted no time in exercising his power to rid the country of political opposition. The day after the coup, 600 citizen abductions occurred (CONADEP, 1984). Overall, it is estimated that

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30,000 people were killed or “disappeared,” a term that applies to those who were abducted and never reappeared, yet it is unknown if they were murdered (Crossland,

2000:147). Many of those disappeared were students and young adults, along with family members or friends, that were believed to be involved in anti-government organizations.

Both Chile and Argentina underwent periods of mass killings, yet neither one is referred to as genocide. Instead, they are classified as politicides, which begs the question: what is the difference between politicide and genocide?

Genocide or Politicide?

Originating from the Greek word ‘genos,’ meaning ‘race or tribe,’ and the Latin word ‘cide,’ meaning ‘killing,’ genocide was first coined in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin to mean “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group” (Holten & Austin, 2007:351).

The later recognized genocide as an international crime in 1946 and went on to create their own definition during the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This definition states:

Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about

its physical destruction in whole or in part;

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

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5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (United Nations

General Assembly, 1948).

This definition has come under scrutiny for a variety of reasons, one of which is the exclusion of the extermination of political groups (Holten & Austin, 2007:350). The victims of the Argentina and Chile regimes are classified as political opponents or members of a particular political group, which are not viewed in the same manner as religious, ethnic, racial, or national groups. The Sixth Committee of the United Nations

General Assembly stated that political groups were different due to the lack of “necessary homogeneity and stability” (as found in van Schaak, 1997:2264). Being a member of a political group was seen as a choice rather than something one is born into, therefore making it something that could be easily changed. Furthermore, several delegates felt that there was no need to protect political groups, given that they were unlikely to be targeted in the first place. The Brazilian Delegate of the Sixth Committee stated:

There did not exist that deep-rooted hatred, which in due course led to genocide.

Political struggle in Latin America was sometimes violent, sometimes emotional,

but it was above all ephemeral. It was impossible in that part of the world to

envisage such an intensification of political animosity as would lead to

movements of -like character. (van Schaack, 1997:2264-2265).

Despite this assertion, it soon became clear that political groups were subject to mass killings, which required another term. To make up for this exclusion in the definition of genocide, the terms ‘politicide’ and ‘political genocide’ were created.

Politicide is defined as targeting not only political groups but anyone in opposition to a

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regime or government (Feierstein, 2009:95). Politicide occurs when members of a government or military regime engage in any of the following:

(a). Killing members of the political group;

(b). Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the political group;

(c). Deliberately inflicting on the political group conditions of life calculated to

bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d). Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the political group;

(e). Forcibly transferring children of the political group to another political

group (Nersessian, 2010:206).

Both countries imprisoned members of the political left in detention centers, forcing them to live in unsanitary and inhumane conditions. Tens of thousands of people were tortured and executed in an attempt to exterminate them from the Chilean and

Argentina populations. As a result, I suggest that both of these cases represent examples of politicide and should be included under the definition of genocide. One of the differences between the two terms, however, is that genocide is associated with evil while politicide does not invoke the same association. The reason for this is often due to the morality behind the actions, which the United Nations viewed as completely different at the time.

Morality

In order to discuss what actions are considered evil, morality must be considered in more detail. Recently, the idea of morality as a topic in anthropology has become a

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major point of interest. What is considered moral varies among cultures, leading to multiple interpretations emerging. The Oxford Dictionary defines morality as “Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour” (Oxford

Dictionary). This definition allows for morality to be applied to all aspects of life, including politics. Although these interpretations of morality differ, one thing is certain: with morality comes the concept of good and evil. After all, according to Thomas

Csordas (2013), “if it wasn’t for evil morality would be moot.”

Just as morality holds different characteristics across the world, so does evil. Evil can refer to a multitude of things, such as “extreme fear, death and destruction, but also to lesser misfortunes. It may denote an agent’s firm intention to harm, or instead may be seen as originating in an unintended human or non-human condition” (Parkin, 1985:1).

What is considered evil can vary from person to person. A certain person’s actions can cause some to believe they are evil and others to believe they are saints, as was the case with Perón. The working class of Argentina adored Perón and viewed him as an idol who could do no wrong (Alexander, 1979). His wife, Evita, was viewed as a saint in school textbooks, with her image often replacing Catholic practices such as the Three Wise Men

(Plotkin, 2003:128). When Perón was forced to resign in 1945, the working class was outraged. Ramón Tejada, a member of the General Confederation of Argentina, stated in

1945 that “by demanding [Perón’s] return to the government we are in fact defending our achievements, since he was the only one who has done to the worker’s aspirations” (Plotkin, 2003:54). However, members of the military viewed Perón as evil.

General Aramburu believed that Perón, due to his populist ideals, was bent on the

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destruction of Argentina and was therefore “one of the most sinister creatures of the century” (Allison, 2004:7).

Although typically viewed as a theoretical concept, evil does exist in a variety of ways. The manner in which the victims were tortured, executed, and their bodies disposed of all represent traditional forms of evil. However the silence that has followed such atrocities is also an evil in and of itself, as Peter van der Veer (2013) stated:

For victims of communal violence the question may not be so much what is

“evil”, but what to do when the neighbors are undoubtedly part of “the evil” and

when after the violence one still needs to live close to them...The ethnographic

problem in such cases is not that of evil but that of silence. (van der Veer,

2013:541).

Evil can also manifest itself in the form of violence, especially political violence.

Political violence is defined as “The commission of violent acts motivated by a desire, conscious or unconscious, to obtain or maintain political power” (Moser & McIlwaine,

2004:60). In the case of Argentina, political violence was occurring before the 1976 coup.

In this case, violence was occurring from both sides instead of just one. Both the military and the guerilla organizations committed acts of and political violence, both of which are considered to be forms of evil. However, there is no debate that both the

Pinochet and Videla regimes utilized violence to pursue their goals at a much higher extent than the opposition.

A major form of evil associated with these regimes is that of silence. Although there are generally two types of silence--active and passive--this thesis will only focus on

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the active silence used by the militaries, governments, and the victims. Active silence, as defined by Dr. Stumpf-Carome, entails a person being fully aware of what is happening and choosing to remain silent. The militaries viewed silence not only as a tool to instill terror within the people, but also as a barrier which must be overcome. According to

Fernando Reati:

Being kidnapped or jailed form part of a double process in which first one must

break the silence of the prisoner in order to extract a confession and later

reinstall in him (her) a silence through physical threats and social restraints after

their liberation so he or she not reveal what happened. (Reati, 1997:213).

The people and the press would also remain silent despite knowing what was happening to their friends and loved ones, often choosing ignorance in an attempt to preserve their ways of life. It is because of this silence that the Pinochet and Videla regimes were able to abduct, torture, and kill thousands of people.

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CHAPTER II: THE ABDUCTED

In order to rid both countries of their opponents, the regimes needed to identify the victims and capture them. Although the subversives were thought to be violent, many of those targeted were peaceful and often innocent of the allegations towards them due to

General Videla’s definition of a terrorist. According to Videla, a terrorist is “not just someone who kills with a gun or a , but anyone who spreads ideas that are contrary to Western and Christian civilization” (Feierstein, 2006:153). This spread beyond those who disagreed with the government as well. A person could be targeted for knowing or being related to someone involved in an organization that disapproved of the regimes. In

May 1976, military governor of , General Iberico Saint Jean, stated, "First we will kill all the subversives; then we will kill their collaborators; then… their sympathizers; then...those who remain indifferent; and finally we will kill the timid"

(Donnelly, 2013:61). These wars on the people was about more than just restoring peace and unity to the countries; they were an attempt to completely eliminate any opposition to the regimes.

Any person, regardless of age or gender, was targeted; however, young adults seemed to be targeted more heavily. In Argentina, 32.62% of those abducted were between the ages of 21 and 25, and 70% of those abducted were men (CONADEP, 1984).

In Chile, the statistics were very similar, with 24.4% of those abducted being between the ages of 21 and 25 and 94.5% being male (, 1991:1123). The abductions

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spread beyond the power-holding members of society. Family members and spouses of those suspected to be insurgents would often be abducted and forced to give information on the whereabouts of the suspects. One man recalls during his interrogation on the location of his daughter and son-in-law:

He told me to be patient, that they would soon catch them and that then they

would release me, to which I replied: “You mean if you don’t catch them I will

never be able to leave here?” He answered: “That depends on them,” and,

turning his back, he left. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 4212).

Prisoners would be either forced or used willingly to re-infiltrate their own organizations, providing information to the military about members and upcoming plans

(Rosenberg, 1991:90, 91). Children of those abducted were often taken along with the parents, accounting for 2.1% of abductions in Chile and 1.65% of kidnappings in

Argentina (Rettig Report, 1991:1123; CONADEP, 1984). Often, the abducted children would be used to point out people that looked familiar in public places in the hopes that they were identifying other subversives. Some children were even killed along with their parents in an attempt to wipe out the entire family (CONADEP, 1984).

As time went on, arrests were made for smaller crimes, such as possessing literature that opposed the regime’s ideals. One survivor of the Argentine regime recalls that she was arrested for passing out anti-government leaflets for the Partido Comunista de Rosario (PCR) and subjected to torture (U.S. Department of State, 1976b). Others were targeted for small crimes, such as graffiti. One man recalls being told, “You’re sons are considered subversives...because they go out to paint graffiti on the walls after

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strumming their guitars” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 5281). In the detention center known as La Perla, 2,000 people disappeared between 1976 and 1978, with only 137 of the prisoners surviving (Feitlowitz, 1999). Out of the thousands of people reported as disappeared in Argentina, 8,960 people had yet to reappear as of 1984 (CONADEP,

1984).

In Chile, one of the first significant kidnappings occurred on September 12, 1973, when the military entered State Technical University and detained hundreds of students and faculty and brought them to the Chile Stadium in for interrogation, torture, and in some cases, execution (The Center for Justice and Accountability [CJA]). It is estimated that 45,000 people were kidnapped in raids on suspected leftist strongholds in

Chile alone (Constable & Valenzuela, 1991:20). One man recalls seeing "a long line of men marching with their hands over their heads escorted by a military patrol...They put all the men in the football and began to select among them. Most of those they took never returned" (Schneider, 2010:76). By December 1973, 1,500 civilians had been killed through torture or execution in Chile (Constable & Valenzuela, 1993:20).

Abductions would occur in a variety of ways; however, they tended to follow the same outline. The most common place to be abducted was a person's own home. Militant groups would participate in a "free zone," which protected them from any police interference (CONADEP, 1984). Power to the neighborhood was shut off before the men entered the houses, typically during the night. In Argentina, an unmarked green four-door

Ford Falcon was the favorite vehicle of the death squads. The mere sight of this car on the street would be enough to terrify people (Donnelly, 2013:59). The men were dressed

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in either plainclothes or military uniforms. After entering the houses, it was common to beat the suspected insurgent before abducting them (Robben, 2000:94). Some would only take the original member they were sent for while others would take the entire family. If the men chose not to take the children, they would be sent to live with relatives or given away to military families or orphanages for (CONADEP, 1984). Abductions in public areas such as schools, bus stops, and places of work were also frequent. Once kidnapped, these victims would be subjected to inhumane living conditions, torture, and execution in clandestine detention centers.

Secret Detention Centers:

As prisons filled up, detention centers became the main holding places for those deemed "subversive." Many were improvised and were usually converted police stations, military bases, and even schools. In Argentina, there were about 340 detention centers

(CONADEP, 1984). No one knows the exact number of detention centers in Chile, although it is known that there were 87 just in Santiago alone (Meade, 2001:127). The centers were explicitly designed to be "shielded from any judicial or administrative investigation so that the torturers could be free to use any methods, and to deny even the existence of their prisoners, without fear of punishment" (Mendez &

Watch, 1991:6). This freedom allowed for the worst conditions to be imposed on the prisoners, something which both regimes took very seriously. Every detail, from the

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location to the living conditions, was meticulously planned to inflict the worst possible torture on the opposition purposefully.

The living conditions within these centers were designed to be a method of torture in and of itself. Prisoners would often be denied food, water, or basic health necessities to aid in their physical deterioration and torture. Those held in solitary confinement would be deprived of clothing in addition to food and water and could be held for up to 330 days

(Rettig, 1991:146, 158). A prisoner by the name of Señor Héctor Mariano Ballent recalled, "if they served soup it was in a flat plate with a fork. One day there was stew; made with corn-cobs from which the grains had already been eaten by the guards"

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1277). Another prisoner describes life in the detention centers, saying:

Punishment was never-ending. Everything was scientifically arranged, from

punishments to meals. In the morning they would bring boiled mate without

sugar, and from time to time, a little piece of stale bread, which they threw at us

and which we groped for desperately. There was no meat and the food had no

flavour at all; sometimes it might be very salty, other times without any salt. One

day they would bring polenta, another noodles, and the next chickpeas in a plastic

bowl. Each prisoner had to take a mouthful and pass it on to the next and so on to

the end. If there was some leftover, it went around again. (CONADEP, 1984: file

No. 3721).

Each detention center had a specific reputation, some being more infamous than others. The was one of the foremost detention centers in Chile. Known as

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"Cuartel Terranova" by the military, this detention center functioned as a torture house from 1974 to 1978 housing 5,000 prisoners, 240 of which were executed or declared

"disappeared" (Meade, 2001:125). The location of the center was 40 minutes outside of

Santiago in the foothills of the , making it the perfect secluded place to torture and kill without attracting attention (Baxter, 2005:127). The first two prisoners arrived in

December 1973 and were immediately subjected to torture such as cigarette burns, electrocution, and even having their arms and legs crushed under vehicles (Aguilar,

2005:14). Workers at this center would operate on a schedule, torturing and killing during the allotted hours and relaxing over the weekend (Tapia, 2009:14). The center was in operation until the 1980s when it was finally shut down due to increased scrutiny of the

Pinochet regime (Meade, 2001:127).

The Campo de Mayo was one of the more famous interrogation and secret detention centers in Argentina, consisting of three buildings and two large iron sheds

(CONADEP, 1984). Prisoners were kept in the sheds, often shackled and deprived of medical attention. One man reports that "prisoners were made to sit on the floor with nothing to lean against from the moment we got up at six in the morning until eight in the evening when we went to bed" (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 2819). One survivor recalls being shot nine times upon being seized and, once at the center:

One would have to witness the torture and even death of others, as they tried to

force prisoners to talk. The length of torture depended on how far the interrogator

wished to go, given that the limit had been set at death, which for the prisoner

meant liberation. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 2819).

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The worst detention center by far was the Navy Mechanics School, otherwise known as ESMA, located in Buenos Aires. Once brought to ESMA, the victim would be stripped naked and tied to a metal bed before being electrocuted with a tool known as

"Caroline.” “Caroline” was a broom handle with two wires running out of the end that would be hooked up to the current and used to electrocute victims. Sometimes the victims would be doused with water to intensify the shock (Donnelly, 2013:59). A file was opened for each victim, containing information such as where they were kidnapped, what organization they were allegedly a part of, and their background. Many of these files were destroyed immediately after the prisoners were executed. It is estimated that 5,000 people were held in ESMA between 1976 and 1979 (Mendez & ,

1991:34). ESMA was perhaps the most secretive center of them all. In 1978, players for the World Cup would relax in the basement of the building, supplied with towels and other amenities, while people were tortured out of earshot throughout the rest of the building (Feitlowitz, 1999). After the collapse of the Videla regime, various presidents attempted to use the facility for recreational purposes, including sporting events. Each time an attempt was made, it was met with survivors or family members vocalizing their disapproval, stating that to use it for any other purpose was to disrespect those that were tortured and killed within its walls.

Once inside a detention center, victims were cut off from any form of life outside the building. The regimes would often refer to these centers as pozos, or ‘pits,’ due to the isolation the victims endured (CONADEP, 1984). Anyone who questioned the whereabouts of a loved one or friend would be met with denial and lies to cover the

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government's trail. The existence of these detention centers was continuously denied. In response to a question in 1977 about the detention centers, General Videla said:

I categorically deny that there exist in Argentina any concentration camps or

prisoners being held in military establishments beyond the time absolutely

necessary for the investigation of a person captured in an operation before they

are transferred to a penal establishment. (CONADEP, 1984).

This denial allowed the regimes to continue operating these centers in secret, although it would eventually lead to their downfall. Eventually, the secrets of what happened behind these doors spread to human rights organizations. These organizations launched investigations into these centers and discovered that the forms of torture went far beyond food deprivation and unsanitary living conditions.

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CHAPTER III: TORTURE

Upon arrival at the detention centers, prisoners were often "walled up," a term used to describe being blindfolded or having a bag placed over their heads to prevent them from seeing where the detention centers were located. The vehicles which transported them would take unnecessary turns to confuse the victims as to their exact location (CONADEP, 1984). Once inside the centers, the prisoners' names would be replaced with numbers in an attempt to dehumanize them. These numbers indicated if the prisoners would live or die and the treatment they would have. One survivor reports that the hood and the number were a form of torture within themselves, saying:

The 'hood' became unbearable, so much so that one Wednesday, transfer day, I

shouted for them to have me transferred: 'Me ... me ... 571'. The hood had

achieved its aim, I was no longer Lisandro Raúl Cubas, I was a number.

(CONADEP, 1984: File no. 6974).

The methods of direct torture used are far too numerous to create a comprehensive list. The United States government summed it up as "electric shock, the submarine (prolonged submersion underwater), sodium pentothal, severe beatings...cigarette burns...sexual abuse, ...removing teeth, fingernails, and eyes,...burning with boiling water, oil, and acid, and even castration" (U.S. Department of

State, 1978:1). Of the above list, electrical shock was one of the favorites among guards to use, given that it was invented by Argentine police in 1934, specifically for torture

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(Robben, 2005b:217). Prisoners would be shocked in various sensitive places, such as the "gums, nipples, genitals, abdomen and ears", according to Dr. Norberto Liwsky, who endured such torture for five months in 1978 in Argentina (CONADEP, 1984: file No.

7397). Many prisoners recall equipment often referred to as ‘the machine' or ‘the grill'.

One such prisoner, Susana Leonor Caride, recalls the ‘machine' being an electric prod that would be jabbed into the prisoners (CONADEP, file No. 4152). During the torture sessions, guards would berate and insult the victims. An anonymous woman recalls her abusers threatening to make it so she would not be able to have children (U.S.

Department of State, 1976b:2).

Numerous reports detail prisoners being hung for hours by their wrists or ankles and being submerged in water, excrement, or other unsanitary fluids until they almost passed out from lack of oxygen (Rettig, 1991:158). This technique has been referred to above by the U.S. as the ‘submarine' (U.S Department of State, 1978:1). One woman recalls seeing a girl who had been "hung upside down and stung...and had cigarette burns" (U.S. Department of State, 1976b:2). Other forms of asphyxiation were also reported, such as holding a plastic bag around the victim's head until they nearly suffocated (Robben, 2005b: 217). Although relatively rare, torture would also be conducted at a person's residence or place of work. Carlos Alberto Campero recalls witnessing the torturing of his mother in their shop, saying:

In the shop we had a ventilator fan. They cut the cable, plugged it in and used it to

give her electric shocks. So that it would have more effect, they poured mineral

water over my mother, whom they had tied to a chair. While they were committing

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this savagery, another one of them was hitting her with a belt until her body was

bleeding and her face disfigured. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1806).

Psychological torture was another popular method used. Simulated executions and threats of harming family or friends were often found to be quite effective in getting the prisoners to give up information. Gabriel Eduardo Kreplack was on the Argentina government's wanted list, and, as a result, his father and brother were abducted and tortured. In his testimony, Keplack recalls, "That day my father was interrogated and subjected to electric shock in front of my brother Ernestos Carlos. All the questions were aimed at finding out where I was" (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1661). One anonymous victim was told by the guards that they would kill her husband in front of her if she did not talk (U.S. Department of State, 1976b: 3). Victims would be forced to witness or listen to someone else being tortured, which has been said to be excruciating (Robben,

2005b: 218).

The bodies of those tortured and killed that were recovered were in terrible shape.

There are reports of family members being sent parts of their loved one's body, such as the hands of their children in boxes or bodies being outright dumped in people's yards

(Naipaul, 1981). A mother recalls seeing her son, Eugenio Ruiz-Tagle, after he was killed on October 19, 1973, in Calama, Chile. According to her description:

An eye was missing, the nose had been ripped off, the one ear visible was pulled

away at the bottom, there were very deep burn marks as though done by a

soldering iron on his neck and face, his mouth was all swollen up, there were

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cigarette burns, and judging from the angle of the head, his neck was broken,

there were lots of cuts and bleeding. (Rettig, 1991:167).

The majority of the time, those who were tortured were completely innocent.

Parents were tortured to discourage their children who were involved in organizations such as the Montoneros. An interview with Raúl Vilariño revealed that people would be tortured into giving false confessions, which would then be used to justify why they had been arrested. One such case, according to Vilariño, involved a seventeen-year-old girl named Graciela Rossi Estrada. Upon being brought into the torture chamber, she was electrocuted for a half-hour until she fainted. Vilariño states:

They took her very delicately by the hair and legs and heaved her into a cell, into

a pool of water so she'd swell up. Four or five hours later she was in terrible

shape from swelling, and they brought her back to the torture chamber. Then

she'd sign anything. (as cited in Rosenberg, 1991:88).

The list of torture methods could go on, but the reality is that it would not take long before the torturers would give up and execute the victims. Even the victims that gave up information would often be executed, despite being cooperative. Some victims were released, but not necessarily because of their innocence. Many survivors were instructed to tell others of what they witnessed as a tactic to spread fear throughout the countries. In addition to the torture, military officials wanted to ensure that the prisoners would live long enough to give information, which involved medical supervision.

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Medical Involvement:

Most centers had doctors on-hand to ensure the victims would not die during torture before giving up information. During a torture session, a victim recalls, "At one point I sort of relaxed and they got scared. I was checked by a doctor. Then they commented she must be trained. They left" (U.S. Department of State, 1976b: 2).

Another man by the name of Dr. Norberto Liwsky recalls experiencing kidney problems fifteen days after his abduction. Although he did not see a doctor until three months later, his torture sessions decreased in frequency, and he was placed in a cell with a doctor who was taken prisoner to allow him to slowly recover until his release (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 7397). Although the torture decreased in frequency, it rarely ever completely ceased. The health of the victims was only taken into account in order to prolong their torture until the information they possessed, if any, had been given up.

Anyone, regardless of age or health status, would be tortured, including pregnant women. For these women, special techniques were invented to torture the women while ensuring she stayed alive. One technique involved a spoon being inserted into a woman’s vagina until it touched the fetus, at which point 220 volts would be sent in to electrocute the fetus (Rosenberg, 1991:89). A woman by the name of Mónica Brull de Guillén recalled being taken captive to El Olimpo, an Argentine detention center. Upon telling the guards that she was two months pregnant, she was met with the response of “if so- and-so can endure the machine being six months pregnant, you can stand it, and be raped too” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 5452). The torture she endured resulted in a miscarriage shortly after she was released.

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Some detention centers would have holding areas specifically for pregnant women. Doctors would attend to the women during labor if they were unable to be taken to a hospital. One survivor recalls:

On our arrival at the Navy Mechanics School we saw many women laid out on the

floor on cushions awaiting the birth of their children. Some had been detained by

the Air Force, the Federal Police, the Army in Córdoba, the Navy at Mar del

Plata, others by the Navy Mechanics School itself. (CONADEP, 1984: file No.

4442).

These women would be relatively cared for until they gave birth, although the conditions were still nowhere near humane. One woman states:

Our regime was not endurable, let alone humane, it was privileged compared

with that of the men, who were quite literally thrown on the ground, in filthy

conditions, suffering from fleas and infections. There were as many as thirty of

them, some injured, some naked, totally unable to move, hardly talking because

they were afraid of being punished, and eating half as often as we did.

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 2531).

The woman behind this account is Adriana Calvo de Laborde, one of the many women who gave birth in captivity. She recalls being taken to a separate building after giving birth in transit. Upon arrival, she delivered her placenta before being forced to clean the bed, floor, and her dress. All of this was done in front of the guards while naked and she had to endure insults. Only after this did the guards allow her to care for her baby

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 2531). Adriana was one of the lucky women who was

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allowed to keep her baby. Often, the babies would be whisked away from their mothers and given to military families to adopt. It is estimated that in Argentina alone, 500 infants and children were given to military families to raise (Grandsman, 2008). To this day, organizations such as the Grandmothers of the are still searching for the lost children.

Anti-Semitism:

Although this was not a religious war, anti-Semitism was rampant during the

Argentine regime. This resulted in the Jewish prisoners being subjected to the worst methods of torture. One method, called the "rectoscope," consisted of a tube being inserted into either the anus or vagina of the victim. After insertion, a rat would be released into the tube and it would gnaw on the inner organs in an attempt to escape

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1131). In the detention center known as Club Atlético, a survivor states "There was a torturer there they called 'Kung-Fu', who would practice martial arts on three or four people at a time - they would always be prisoners of Jewish origin - who were kicked and punched" (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1131). Detention centers would also be covered in swastikas and other Nazi symbols (Feierstein

2006:151). One survivor recalls "When they were beating us up, they would say, "We're the Gestapo!"' (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 2563).

It was not just the military that targeted those of Jewish faith. The Montoneros, one of the groups fighting against the military, would also attack Jewish students. In

1962, a young woman was kidnapped, and a swastika was carved onto her chest by the

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Montoneros (Grandsman, 2008). Stories of the torture endured by Jewish prisoners spread rapidly, causing many to become so fearful they lied about their religion, often saying they were Polish Catholics (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 3048). Some prefer to call this period a second Holocaust, however others argue these anti-Semitic attacks were not frequent enough for this term to merit that title (Guest, 1990:287). Anti-Semitism was more of a byproduct of the regime’s original intentions. Nora Stejilevich recalls being told by her torturers at a detention center that the military regime was "primarily concerned with 'the problem of ,' but the 'Jewish problem' was second in importance and they were gathering information for their files" (CONADEP, 1984: file

No. 2535).

If a person was deemed useless or a danger to society, they would be sent on what is known as a “transfer”, which was essentially a death sentence (CONADEP, 1984). If a person was told they were being transferred, they were actually being told they were going to be executed

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CHAPTER IV: EXECUTION

Both military regimes eventually preferred to keep death out of the public eye. In the beginning, Chile made little to no effort in hiding the . Such a public display was meant to strike fear into the hearts of the people, therefore preventing any rebellion

(Ensalaco, 2000:26). One man remembers witnessing the violence of the coup, recalling that he saw a “truck standing alone, and a soldier asked me to help him. Trembling, I helped him lift a dead body into the truck. The corpse had a bullet wound in its back"

(Schneider, 2010:2). The night before, soldiers and sailors who opposed the coup were removed from the barracks in which they had been held captive for days and shot under orders from General Pinochet (Cockcroft, 2000:17). After the coup, Chile learned to take to secrecy after international condemnation, leading Argentina to follow suit (Robben,

2005b: 306).

This secrecy did nothing to quell the number of people being executed. A assistant in Argentina recalls receiving so many bodies between 1976 and 1980 that they ran out of room in the refrigerator. This forced them to leave the bodies out for days at a time, which allowed the bodies to decompose and created hazardous working conditions.

The bodies would arrive in terrible shape, showing visible signs of trauma. According to one morgue worker:

They had bullet wounds, some with a lot of perforations, sometimes so many as

eighty, sometimes seventeen, for example. They all had painted fingers and bore

clear marks of torture. They had marks on their hands as if they had been tied

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with cords. From time to time one would appear completely torn to pieces, split

open. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1420).

The military provided death certificates and ordered the to refrain from conducting on the majority of the bodies (Guest, 1990:27). Even though the morgues were reasonably good at keeping the influx of mysterious bodies a secret, the military began to turn to more discrete disposal methods as the numbers killed quickly overran the morgues’ capacities. This led to thousands of people being killed without a trace.

Most of the executions would take place at prisons, secret detention centers, and military bases, hidden from the public eye. In response to the question of why it had to be secretive, an Argentine general responded in an interview with Antonius Robben saying,

“If one would have done what you have asked, then there would have been immediate revenge…” (Robben, 2000:94). Apart from forcing revolutionary organizations into submission, this secrecy also had a role in torturing ordinary civilians, such as family members and friends of those abducted, into silence (Robben, 2000:96). Stories would circulate from the few survivors in either country that would generate more fear, especially for those who knew someone that had been abducted. As will be discussed later, though, this fear did not have the silencing effect that the regimes wanted.

When a person was designated as needing to be executed, their number would be called for transfer. Prior to the transfer date, they would be given more food and treated with more care, due to the fact that “it would have been difficult to the public the appearance of ‘extremists killed in shoot-outs’ with skinny, tortured, bearded, and ragged

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corpses” (CONADEP, 1984). The prisoners would be given hope of survival by being told they were to be taken to another center. However, transfers rarely resulted in anything else but the prisoner’s execution.

Mass executions were often favored, with the victims being disposed of in pits that had been dug prior. Prisoners were often lined up along the edge of a pit, blindfolded, tied, and gagged, and then shot in the back of the head by a firing squad.

Their bodies would fall into the pit, which would be filled in later (CONADEP, 1984).

Sometimes, the prisoners would be forced to dig the pit themselves, such as in the account told by Carlos Beltran, a former member of the Gendarmaria in Argentina.

According to Beltran, there was a particular incident in which prisoners were brought to a field. Upon arrival, the youngest was ordered to dig the pit. Both the soldiers and the police officers then fired on the victims, with all but one dying instantly. Beltran recalls:

While the three men remained motionless after the shots, the [pregnant] woman,

who had fallen, managed to stand up and walk a few steps away from the ditch.

Seeing this, the ‘Captain’ took out his pistol and dispatched her with a bullet in

the head. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 4213).

While this account only mentions four people executed at one time, others mention as many as fifty executed. Mass execution was designed to eliminate large numbers of people swiftly and relatively discreetly, leaving very little evidence behind.

However, civilians could hear the gunshots or the see freshly turned earth and know what had happened there.

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Some would be given a war tribunal to determine their fate. However, these tribunals held only the minimum guarantees of a fair trial and, more often than not, ended with a death sentence (Rettig, 1991:53, 165). It was also reported by the militaries that prisoners died in armed confrontations or escape attempts, although these were rarely ever found to be true. One such case is that of the events that occurred on December 13,

1976. According to the report, a group of prisoners were being transported to a different prison by an Army unit. All of the prisoners in the transfer group were shot, their deaths being attributed to an ‘escape attempt’ (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 6131). It was also found that guards would make prisoners run in a malicious attempt to save their lives before being gunned down to simulate an ‘escape attempt’ (Rettig, 1991:166).

Death flights were another common method of killing victims and quickly disposing of their bodies, as will be elaborated on in the next chapter. This was the most common end to a transfer for victims. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000

Argentines were killed through in the South Atlantic (Lewis, 2002:158). It is unknown what percentage of those killed in Chile died as a result of these death flights.Some prisoners recall:

They were taken to the first-aid room in the basement, where a nurse was waiting

to give them an injection to send them to sleep, but not kill them. They were taken

out by the side door of the basement like that, alive, and put in a lorry. They were

driven to Buenos Aires Municipal Airport half-asleep, put into a plane which flew

southwards out to sea, and thrown in alive. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 4442 &

5307).

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Another man, by the name of Luis Desiderio Moraga Cruz, was killed through a death flight. According to a report:

Late in the year he was loaded onto a helicopter along with other prisoners all of

whom had been drugged. They were then thrown into the ocean after army

commanders had first cut open their stomachs with curved tip knives to prevent

them from floating. (Rettig Report, 1991:756).

One of the most famous instances of mass killings took place in Chile in October

1973. Termed the ‘,’ a group of elite intelligence officers traveled across the country and executed 75 political prisoners without trial (Holten & Austin,

2007:356). The group was headed by General , who was the only member of the task force that was not a member of DINA (Rettig, 1991:173). The prisoners executed were each declared a part of a political opposition group, which was the rationale for their original arrest and subsequent execution (Brysk, 2003:245).

The task force traveled to 5 cities via helicopter: Cauquenes, La Serena, Capiapó,

Antofagasta, and Calama (Rettig, 1991:173). The purpose of this group was to usurp the power of local commanders in order to execute prisoners without trial (Pion-,

2004:489). The general routine during this time was to land via helicopter and demand that the prisoners be turned over to General Stark. The prisoners would then be taken to a secluded location and executed. During his testimony at a 1991 human rights trial,

Arellano Stark stated that the prisoners were shot during the night, using the excuse that they were “attempting to escape” to justify the executions (Ramirez, 2002). The bodies would be disposed of secretly before the quick departure of the convoy. The bodies were

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usually reported as having been buried in unmarked mass graves in local or the Atacama Desert (Brager, 2015:20).

Various accounts detail the horrors that had unfolded during this time. A woman by the name of Gloria Benavente recalls trying to visit her detained husband on October 4 in Cauquenes. She was met with the sight of her husband being unloaded from a jeep with other prisoners, followed by military officials. Only the military officials returned.

Gloria was eventually able to claim her husband’s body from an unmarked mass grave and was told to bury it in another unmarked grave to prevent pilgrimages (Hurtado,

1990:13). Another account comes from Ariosto Lapostol, commander of the regiment of

La Serena on October 1976. He recalls General Stark arriving with orders to review the military tribunal sentences. Upon being joined in the garden by General Stark, Lapostol stated that he heard gunshots from inside. When he asked General Stark what was happening, he was given the response, “It must be the result of the military tribunal”

(Hurtado, 1990:13).

A rare survivor of the ‘Caravan of Death,’ Francisco Puelles, recalls waiting in a line to see if his name would be called to be taken away. According to Puelles, the first batch of victims were teenagers. Seventeen of the thirty people were executed. Puelles was given the task of collecting the belongings of those executed and informing the families of the deaths (Puelles, 2017:9). Puelles was a member of the Brigada Ramona

Parra (BRP), a group that used art as a form of protest, as well as the Student Union

Council. Despite not being involved in direct political opposition or posing as any actual threat to the regime, Puelles barely escaped from the clutches of the Pinochet regime. A

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month later, he was arrested and tortured before finally being released into exile for 501 days (Puelles, 2017:10).

Members of the ‘Caravan of Death’ have recalled horror stories of their own.

Army officer Pedro Rodriguez, who served during Pinochet’s regime, has detailed events that occurred when the group stopped in La Serena. He stated that 15 prisoners were brought to a parking lot before being executed. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave in La Serena and covered in lime (Ramirez, 2002).

The reported number of those killed during the 'Caravan of Death' varies depending on the source used. The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation reported 72 deaths (Rettig, 1991:173), while other sources report numbers in the 90s.

With the majority of the bodies being buried in unmarked graves in the Atacama Desert, it is difficult to find an exact number. To this day, family members still wander the desert and local cemeteries in the hopes of finding their lost loved ones’ graves. Unfortunately, due to the methods of disposal, many of the bodies buried have yet to be found.

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CHAPTER V: DISPOSAL

Both countries employed similar methods in dealing with the victims. Early on in the regimes, people would be outright executed in public, causing the morgues to fill with bodies. One man recalls working in a morgue in Argentina, saying:

I noticed that we began to receive corpses which sometimes came with a 'name of

sender', but usually without anything. These events happened in 1976. The

corpses were usually brought in by the police and sometimes by the Gendarmería,

the Army or joint groups of Security Forces. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1420).

Soon the morgues filled up, and it was becoming too obvious to other countries what was happening. In Argentina, the public killings were doing nothing to quell the guerrilla organizations, and human rights organizations were starting to look at both countries. As a result, the countries turned to another form of terror by removing executions from the public eye, instilling fear in the families of the abducted. The secretive manner in which the bodies were disposed has created significant problems for forensic anthropologists searching to uncover the truth and deliver justice. The majority of the bodies were dropped into the ocean or buried in unmarked mass graves, many of which have still not been found.

For the regimes, disposing of the bodies in secretive manners served two purposes, the first being symbolic. By depriving the victims of recognition in death, the military officials felt they had achieved an absolute victory over the people (Robben,

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2015:57). Bodies represent power in many Latin American countries, especially in

Argentina and Chile. In their report, CONADEP (1984) remarked that “wiping out the identity of the corpses magnified the shadow hanging over the thousands of disappeared of whom all trace was lost after their arrest or kidnapping.”

The second purpose of secretly disposing of the bodies was to free those responsible from any blame. In any trial for murder, having the body is of the utmost importance. Without a body, it is significantly harder to prove that one is guilty. As Clyde

Snow, leader of the forensic efforts in Argentina and founder of the EAAF, once said, “in many ways, the skeleton is its own best witness” (Joyce and Stover, 1993). To an extent, causing the bodies to disappear worked brilliantly for the militaries. In their investigation,

CONADEP revealed:

By the covering-up process, the apportioning of individual responsibility was

blurred, The shadow of suspicion was cast over a great many military officers -

unless they could prove otherwise, which was almost impossible - as to their role

in the direction or execution of these crimes. (CONADEP, 1984).

However, people became fed up with the deceit and began to demand the bodies be returned to them. When their requests to know the whereabouts of the bodies were denied or met with vague, misleading answers, the people became louder, attracting international attention. The increase in unrest among the people only motivated the regimes to cover their tracks. When the father of Elena Arce Sahores attempted to claim his daughter’s body from the military, he was met with the response “bodies are not handed over” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 4272). Very few families were ever willingly

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given the bodies of their loved ones back. Many had to wait until excavations started, and most have still never seen the bodies. Any documentation that would have provided information on the whereabouts of a person’s body was destroyed almost immediately to prevent the body from being discovered. Destroying documentation also allowed many officers to avoid judicial punishment after the fall of the regimes.

During an investigation in the Pinochet regime, there were many cases relegated to “unsolved” status, such as the case of René Acevedo Espinoza, who was arrested on

November 11, 1973. His body was found at a naval hospital three days later and, despite having the body, it was never proven that there were any human rights violations involved in his death because there was no documentation (Rettig, 1991:1024). However, not all of the disappearance tactics worked, and some of the secrets kept were eventually brought into the light.

Mass Graves

As mentioned above, a standard method of execution was by firing squad. The bodies would then either be taken to or would fall directly into pits that were dug beforehand. For the most part, this method would work. However, people have stumbled across these pits and accidentally uncovered mass graves. A witness by the name of Julio

César Pereyra described visiting Loma del Torito, otherwise known as ‘The Pit’, in 1976, and found “what had been a pit, from the disturbed earth, and on digging only a little below the surface discovered human remains (a jawbone) and a blue woollen sweater which also contained bones” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 3801).

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Mass graves, such as the one described above, could contain multiple victims and were scattered throughout both countries. While the grave described above was located at a detention center/military base, many graves were found in cemeteries or even quarries.

In 1979, fifteen bodies were discovered in a mass grave in Lonquén, Chile, at an abandoned limestone quarry (Robben 2015:56). Some bodies were deposited in mass graves by the military officials, while others were ordered to be buried by the city morgues and hospitals. Morgue attendants in Argentina had petitioned General Videla in

1980 over the disposal of these bodies. One such account in the petition recalled:

We did it in two lorryloads, two journeys in the same lorry with thirty bodies at a

time which were put into a ditch in the San Vicente cemetery. The pit was a new

one, we inaugurated it. It measured roughly 36 or 40 metres long, 8 wide, and 6

or 7 deep. The municipality had dug the grave, and the machine was still there

when we arrived. I've never seen such a big grave in my life. (CONADEP, 1984:

file No. 1420)

Cemeteries were the preference for mass graves. As of 2015, only three mass graves were discovered on police or military premises in Argentina and none in open fields (Robben, 2015:62). In Patio 29 of the General Cemetery in Santiago, Chile, 107 graves were excavated, and a total of 126 bodies were recovered between 1991 and 1997

(EAAF, 2007b: 4). Due to the nature of cemeteries, they became the perfect place to bury large numbers of people in unmarked graves. These graves would be left unmarked to the common eye, but landmarks would be used by military officials to identify the location.

This allowed them to revisit and continue to add more bodies. In the San Vicente

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Cemetery, a worker at the Córdoba Judicial Morgue recalls depositing bodies in the cemetery, saying, “The police cars lit up the common grave where the bodies were deposited, identified by number and using the pillars in a nearby wall as reference points”

(CONADEP, 1984, file No. 1420). In Santiago’s General Cemetery, many graves would be marked with crosses carved with the initials “NN” for “No Name” (Robben, 2015:65,

66). In Avellaneda Cemetery, large mass graves were marked in records as

“vaqueros” or “cow holes” (EAAF, 2005:26).

Once the regimes fell, some witnesses, such as ex-military members or morgue attendants, came forward with information about the locations of the graves to aid forensic teams in excavating them. Unfortunately, it was not uncommon for the perpetrators of these crimes to revisit and dig up and move the bodies shortly before excavation. One such event occurred at Loma del Torito, where a witness gave information as to where he had seen human remains. Upon excavating, no remains were found, and, in the witness’s opinion, “the earth had been disturbed since the occasion on which he had seen human remains” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1568).

An operation conducted in the Atacama Desert in Chile, known as the “Removal of Televisions”, took place in 1978 and 1979. Military members traveled the desert and dug up the bodies of those killed during the Caravan of Death, relocating the bodies to keep them from being discovered. This was a result of the discovery of 1978 discovery of fifteen bodies killed by police that received widespread international attention for the first time (Pereira, 2014:592). Although many of the relocations were not of this scale, they were rampant throughout both countries both during and after the regimes.

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Death Flights

Death flights, as mentioned above, allowed for victims to not only be executed, but also for their bodies to be disposed of. The bodies could be dropped using a variety of methods. The unlucky ones would be thrown from the plane fully conscious and would die either on impact or by drowning. Some would be drugged before being thrown into the water. The majority were already dead when thrown from the plane. In an interview with , former Argentina Navy Captain Francisco Scilingo admitted that he had flown various people out to be dropped into the sea, stating that people would be

“undressed while unconscious and when the flight commander gave the order, depending on the location of the plane, the hatch was opened and they were thrown out naked, one by one” (Robben, 2005a:120).

At times, precautions were taken to keep the bodies from floating or washing ashore. In Chile, victims would often be bound to railroad ties and dropped into the

Mapocho River to keep the bodies from resurfacing (Brager, 2015:20). After the fall of the regime, efforts were made to recover these railroad ties and, they hoped, the bodies.

Unfortunately, many of the bodies had fully decomposed, leaving only scraps of clothes behind. Coating a body in lime or filling an oil drum with cement was also a common technique. One particularly gruesome method was turning the victims into “fish food,” which involved giving them injections of curare and then slicing their abdomens open so that the bodies would sink (Guest, 1990:42). Despite these preventative measures, some bodies did wash ashore. If reported, the bodies would either be buried in unmarked graves or thrown back in by military officials (Rettig, 1991:170).

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On September 9, 1976, the body of a woman stripped half-naked with a sack tied around her neck surfaced on La Ballena Beach in Los Molles, Chile. The body belonged to Marta Lidia Ugarte Roman, who had been killed through torture and tossed into the ocean (Rettig Report, 1991:749). In May 1976, the body of fourteen-year-old Floreal

Allevaneda was found floating near the coast of . An performed on his corpse concluded that his was impalement. Floreal was one of eight bodies that had been recovered during May of 1976 (Robben, 2005b:275, 276). In December

1978, fifteen bodies were recovered from the shore of Buenos Aires. When reported, the bodies were buried in a cemetery and marked with the initials “NN.” All fifteen bodies were exhumed in 1984, and thirteen of them were handed over to the EAAF for analysis

(EAAF, 2007a:32).

Bodies would also be thrown out in oil drums or barrels from either planes or boats. On October 14, 1976, 8 bodies, including twenty-year-old journalist Marcel

Gelman, were discovered in oil drums in the river San Fernando. Each body had gunshot wounds to the head and, although fingerprints were taken, no identifications were made.

The corpses were buried on October 21, 1976. It was not until 13 years in 1989 that they were finally identified (Robben, 2000:91).

Other Methods

Many bodies were disposed of by incineration. This not only made it impossible for the bodies ever to be found, but it also covered up signs of extensive torture left on the victims. A member of the military posted to the Navy Mechanics School in Argentina

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stated that “There they had jobs called 'operations,' building 'grills' consisting of a steel trough with a tube to put in petrol, where they put bodies to be incinerated” (CONADEP,

1984: file No. 2740). This would cause the bodies to be burned from both below and above, creating a more complete . Some bodies would be dropped down abandoned mine shafts along with dynamite, which would explode shortly after (Rettig,

1991:170).

Bodies would also be thrown into a pit and doused with petrol before being set alight. Old tires would be thrown into the pit to mask the smell of burning bodies, making it appear as though the fire was only intended to dispose of tires rather than cremating remains. In place of pits or ‘grills,’ bodies would also be dropped in tanks before burning to contain the blaze. A member of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police witnessed a body placed in a 200 liter tank, saying, “They threw in rubber from tires or inner tubes and kerosene, and I saw this go on for three days until they told me the body had been totally incinerated” (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 5848). One witness describes:

As far as the burial of dead prisoners is concerned, they were placed in the ditch

and burned while this burial or cremation was disguised by burning tires; it

covered up the smell and smoke peculiar to a cremation. I can affirm, as I saw it

myself, that there were clear signs, evidence of charred bodies, in the ditch.

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 1028).

One of the more gruesome and heart-wrenching testimonies comes from Antonio

Cruz, who worked as a guard in military centers in Tucumán province. According to him,

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three prisoners were lined up along the edge of a pit and shot. Two died immediately, but one survived the initial shooting. Cruz recalls:

When they were throwing firewood on top I told them to finish him off as an act of

charity since they were going to burn him alive, but they carried on with their task

without paying any attention. They proceeded in the way I have already described

and a little while later we went to check the blaze. (CONADEP, 1984: file No.

4636).

Other bodies were placed in vehicles that were set on fire to make the deaths look like an accident. The father of Ricardo Adrián Pérez recalls that he received a phone call regarding an accident in which his son had supposedly been killed. Upon arrival, he was met with the following scene:

A completely burnt-out Fiat 125, with the remains of two people, one male, and

one female, who could not be identified after the effects of the fire. We spoke to

the police there and they thought it suspicious, since the identity card had been

thrown to one side of the car so that it would not burn and the car seemed to have

been deliberately set alight by the murderers. (CONADEP, 1984: file No. 32)

Documents regarding the victims’ arrests, treatments, or deaths were also destroyed in an attempt to erase any trace of their existence. Investigations by commissions and human rights organizations have been able to uncover these secrets once the regimes finally fell.

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CHAPTER VI: THE AFTERMATH

The actions committed by both regimes have received international criticism.

Human rights groups, both national and international, began getting involved towards the end of the regimes. Forensic groups began making strides in excavating the remains of those disappeared in an attempt to bring closure to the families that lived through this atrocious time. The discussion will now turn to how the regimes fell and how democracy was restored in both countries.

The Fall of Pinochet

General Pinochet’s regime lasted from 1973 to 1990. In 1978, Pinochet began working on a revised constitution. In this constitution, Marxist groups were banned, the executive branch was given more power, and the armed forces were given a permanent channel for influencing government policy decisions, among others (Constable &

Valenzuela, 1991:71, 72). The constitution was put into effect on March 11, 1981 when

Pinochet was sworn in for an eight-year term of presidency. In 1988, Pinochet held another referendum with the intention of extending his rule. However, things did not go as planned and the referendum did not pass, effectively ending his presidential term (Ma,

2012:62). Elections were held for the first time since 1970, with a member of the

Christian Democrats, Patricio Aylwin, being elected on December 4, 1989.

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Despite Pinochet no longer being in power, there were still violent attacks made on the new government. During 1990 there were at least 100 attacks by guerrillas, resulting in the deaths of 6 police officers, 4 prison guards, and 5 citizens between March

1990 and September 1991 (ICJ & CIJL, 1992:39). These attacks were carried out by three small groups: the Frenie Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR-A), the Fuerzas Populares y Rebeldes Lautaro, and the Movimiento Juvenil Lautaro. The MIR-Comision Militar also participated in these attacks, but at a much smaller scale (ICJ & CIJL, 1992:41). The

MIR originally surfaced in 1965 and began initiating violent attacks in 1967. In 1981, the group assassinated the governor of Santiago, General Carol Urzúa, resulting in the execution of five of its leaders. This led to the group’s presence diminishing (Heinz &

Fruhling, 1999:422, 543). The most ambitious group, perhaps, was the FPMR. The group emerged in 1980 and mounted an unsuccessful attempt on General Pinochet on September 7, 1986. The attack killed five of Pinochet’s bodyguards and, although many of those who participated were punished to the fullest extent, the group persisted and continued to attack the military even after Pinochet’s downfall as president (Heinz &

Fruhling, 1999:537).

In addition to trying to handle these attacks, President Aylwin faced another challenge: the people. With Pinochet no longer in power as president, human rights organizations began to demand answers. Between 1990 and 1998, multiple discoveries of bodies were made, causing outrage in the public and leading to various investigations.

In August 1991, more than one hundred bodies were discovered in Santiago’s General

Cemetery (Ensalaco, 2000). The people wanted justice for those who had been killed or

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disappeared and they wanted the men responsible to pay the price. The only problem was that under the new constitution, many of the men involved in these crimes were protected from the judicial system. In fact, some of those that participated in these crimes have gone completely unpunished and still occupy the same careers that they had, including doctors.

To combat this, President Aylwin created the National Commission on Truth and

Reconciliation in 1990 (Robben, 2011:191). The commission was given the task of investigating the crimes committed by the regime. In 1991, the commission published a

1,128-page report detailing the human rights violations that occurred during the 17 year- long regime. This report, known as the Rettig Report, was used in conjunction with the evidence it had gathered to prosecute Pinochet and the other generals.

On March 10, 1998, Pinochet relinquished power as he stepped down from his position as army Commander-in-Chief (Ma, 2012:51). He was arrested later that year in

London and returned to Chile in 2000 to stand trial. At that point, the Chilean Supreme

Court voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity, allowing him to be prosecuted for his crimes (Stern, 2010:248). Pinochet was indicted by Judge Juan Guzman in

January 2001 and initially faced 157 criminal charges (Meade, 2001:136). However,

Pinochet was declared mentally unfit to stand trial on July 1, 2002 (Pion-Berlin,

2004:505). After two years, in 2004, Pinochet was arrested for nine kidnappings, as well as being responsible for multiple in various countries

(Stern, 2010:301). Unfortunately, General Pinochet died on December 10, 2006 before ever actually being charged for his crimes (Robben, 2011:199).

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Although Pinochet was never charged and sentenced, many of his colleagues were. As of 2010, 782 former agents of the military regime were charged/sentenced with crimes. Out of those men, 206 have actually been sentenced, 60 are serving custodial sentences, 7 have completed their sentence, 2 have died, 1 is on the run, and General

Sergio Arellano Stark was allowed to not serve his sentence due to medical issues

(Human Rights Observatory, 2010). Although this number does not encompass every military official, doctor, police officer, etc. that participated in the torturing and execution of thousands of people, it does bring a small piece of justice to those who have suffered.

Videla Steps Down

There were various factors leading to the downfall of the Argentine military regime in 1983. In 1980, several of the country’s largest and most crucial banks collapsed, signaling the beginning of the end (Pion-Berlin, 1986:60). In 1983,

Argentina’s national debt was almost seven times larger than it was in 1975, reaching $46 billion (Bartlett, 1989:5). In addition to the deteriorating economy, the defeat of the

Argentine military in the Falklands had destroyed the military’s reputation both within and outside of the country. The final breaking point came when the country was faced with international condemnation and investigations from human rights organizations. One of the most prominent organizations was the Madres de Plaza de Mayo.

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo, otherwise known as the Mothers of the Plaza de

Mayo, first assembled in 1977. Fourteen women whose children had been abducted

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gathered on the Plaza to demand information (Taylor, 2001:100). The group soon gathered momentum and they became a symbol of the resistance in Argentina. Many of these women were housewives and lacked any experience in politics or activism, but their love for their children spurred them on. Every Thursday, these women would gather and walk along the Plaza, demanding information regarding their children and talking to those around them. They would carry pictures of their missing children and demanding truth and justice. The group soon gathered momentum and became an internationally known symbol of the resistance in Argentina. These women became the loudest voice in a society that had been terrorized into silence.

Naturally, their protests were met with resistance from police and the military.

Dogs would be set on the women and many of them were detained. Tear gas was also used as a deterrent, which led to the mothers carrying damp handkerchiefs around with them for protection (Bouvard, 1994:71). After 1,000 women were forcefully removed from the Plaza during a demonstration, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo became a legitimate organization. Hebé Pastor de Bonafini was elected president and led the group into the spotlight, associating with other human rights organizations and lobbying for support (Navarro, 2001:253). Together, these women marched side by side and refused to be silenced. They are seen as one of the greatest symbols of this time period and one of the most famous human rights organizations in the world.

In 1983, the military began to transfer power back to the citizens. The acting president, General Galtieri, was removed from power in 1983 and a neutral retired general was chosen to step in until elections could be held in October (Philip, 1984:631).

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Raul Alfonsín won the elections and took over the presidency on December 10, 1983, officially signaling the return to democracy.

Within days of being sworn in, President Alfonsín established the National

Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, otherwise known as CONADEP. This commission investigated the human rights violations, similar to the Rettig Commission.

In 1984, they released their report, including 7,380 testimonies, depositions, and statements from survivors, witnesses, and family members (CONADEP, 1984). They concluded that 8,960 people were still missing as of 1984. The contents of this report spurred human rights organizations, such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo on, creating an immense pressure on the government to conduct excavations in the hopes of returning the bodies to their families.

Justice was brought to the people on December 9, 1985, when Videla, along with his junta colleagues, were sentenced for their crimes. Videla, along with Admiral Emilio

Massera of the navy, were given a life sentence. Five former military generals were given sentences that day and were declared “civically dead” (Lewis, 2002:1, 2).

Excavations

The main goal of President Aylwin and President Alfonsín ’s terms was to conduct excavations and restore peace to the countries. Some of the earliest excavations took place before the transition back to democracy in either country. In Argentina, 400 bodies were uncovered in 1982, effectively shocking the entire country (Robben,

2005a:142). This discovery, along with the publication of CONADEP’s report, provided

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enough pressure for excavations to take place on a large scale. In 1984, an organization known as the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) was founded by Dr. Clyde

Snow. This team worked to excavate remains across the country and soon spread their operations to other countries across Latin America, including Chile, and the rest of the world. In addition to excavations, EAAF worked to identify the remains through a variety of ways and has created an archive to aid family members in claiming their relatives. In

2006, the team excavated six cemeteries and recovered 143 remains in Argentina. They also conducted anthropological analysis on a group of remains found to contain at least

221 individuals (EAAF, 2007a:20).

In Chile, Patio 29 in the General Cemetery became the focus of excavations, with

107 graves excavated and 126 bodies found. Between 1993 and 1998, a total of 175 remains were positively identified across the country and returned to families (Wyndham

& Read, 2010:40). Although small in number, these excavations are still ongoing and are successful in identifying hundreds of victims. The EAAF is currently aiding in establishing blood banks for DNA identification purposes, among other things.

In Argentina, ongoing excavations have been surprisingly met with resistance.

Perhaps most surprising is the fact that the majority of reluctance stems from members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. When excavations first began in 1982, the group was wholeheartedly in favor of them. They believed that the excavations would bring peace to the country and the victims. However, in 1984, some of the mothers began to oppose the exhumations, stating that the mystery surrounding the bodies allowed the wounds to remain open, thereby keeping alive the memory of those who were lost (Robben,

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2000:104). To this day, some members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo still object to exhumation efforts.

In a rather odd turn of events, the Argentine government also seemed to oppose excavations. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the government passed a series of bills that halted excavations and judicial proceedings against members of the regime

(Crossland, 2000:148). In 1989, President issued a pardon for 277 military officers and in 1990, he issued a pardon for any remaining military commanders that were still incarcerated (Robben, 2005a:141). The sudden change of heart by the government led to multiple protests. The people began to believe that the government did not care about those who suffered and instead wanted to forget that these atrocities had even happened. After facing backlash, Menem assured the Argentine people that he would do what he could to provide reparations. In 1991, he granted compensation to

4,000 former detainees, equaling $27 per day of detention (Brysk, 2013:86-87). However, this compensation will never be enough to repair the lives that were shattered by General

Videla and the rest of the military.

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CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSIONS

It is commonly asked in instances of mass torturing and killing how a person could be so evil to torture and kill another human being. It is often believed that the men who participated in these regimes were genuinely evil and lacked any morals. However, morality is not always so black and white.

There are multiple approaches to the topic of morality. Didier Fassin argues that morality should be treated as a social domain. However, Joel Robbins believes morality contains a contrast between the comfort of social stability and the excitement of social change. Another approach proposed by Arthur Kleinman and Steven Parish states that

“morality is a form of consciousness, the seat of which is self embedded in the context of a collective moral sensibility” (Csordas, 2013:524). Essentially, a person’s morality is based on their experience with suffering, which can be different for each person. With suffering, concepts of sin come. However, the border between these two is often blurry, such as in the Chilean and Argentine situation. Those who sin may feel that they are, in fact, the victims, due to their inability to change their actions. Others may feel that the suffering inflicted on the subversives resulted from the subversives’ sins. As Paul

Ricoeur (1985:637) states, “Since punishment is a form of suffering allegedly deserved, who knows whether all suffering is not in one way or another the punishment for some personal or collective fault, either known or unknown?” In this situation, there were two groups of people: the doers (sinners) and the sufferers [after a distinction suggested by

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Dr. Stumpf-Carome]. The doers believed that they were fighting against an evil manifesting itself as . They believed that they had no choice but to engage in these horrific acts to defend their country. As Admiral Mayorga of the Argentina Navy states:

We had to fight like they fight… When the plane with the Uruguayan soccer team

went down in the Andes, people had to eat the dead. They were not cannibals. But

they ate to live. We, too, ate to live. (Rosenberg: 125).

These men knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that it was immoral. The methods of disposal prove the acknowledgement of the evil in the crimes that took place in these countries. Prisoners were often given better food and allowed to bathe prior to their execution to hide the treatment they had been given in the detention centers (CONADEP, 1984). For those that were not given better treatment, their bodies were burned or made to be unrecognizable to cover up the crimes. Many of the men who participated in these regimes admit that they were wrong, but, at the time, their superiors consistently justified what they were doing. Some remained skeptical, but others completely agreed with their orders, such as .

Alfredo Astiz, also known as the “Angel of Death,” was one such person. Astiz became famous for his role in the public abduction of Dagmar Haeglin and for infiltrating the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. He would participate mainly in kidnappings, becoming a symbol of fear, much like the Ford Falcon. However, he treated prisoners more humanely than other guards, often having conversations with them about their past.

One former prisoner recalls:

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He was kind of a worthy enemy for us. He wasn’t corrupt. He didn’t rape. He was

fighting subversion and communism, but not trying to get rich. His vision of the

world was terribly Neanderthal, but he was convinced of what he was doing. He

was there to ‘save’ his country. (Rosenberg, 1991:100).

Although Astiz still retained a level of empathy for the prisoners, as did most military officials involved, others seemed to gain pleasure out of torturing people. Jorge

Acosta, who worked at the ESMA and was known as El Tigre, was described as being a psychopath. According to Rosenberg:

One minute he could be kissing a wanted prisoner through the man’s hood,

overjoyed at seeing him on a torture table of the ESMA, the next minute twisting

the dial on the electric chock machine higher and higher, his face contorted with

concentration. (Rosenberg, 1991: 93-94).

This man embodies the true essence of evil in that he found pleasure in other’s pain (Rosenberg, 1991:93). However, not everyone felt the same way. Many felt disgusted by what they were doing but had no choice but to follow orders. Any opposition that soldiers or officers had was met with quick dismissal and consequential action. At the very beginning of the Argentine military regime, General Arturo Amador

Corbetta became the head of the Federal Police. He opposed the ruthless killing of political prisoners and was met with immediate dismissal, followed by the execution of

30 prisoners (Lewis, 2002:158, 159). In times of emotional distress, these men often turned to religion in an attempt to justify their actions.

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Some members of the had sided with them, with various priests providing guidance and advice to the military officers during times of doubt and regret.

One officer recalls, “The priest told me that what we were doing was necessary for the good of our country… that God knew that what was being done was for the good of the country” (Osiel, 2001:122). The priests would even attend torture sessions and encourage victims to give up information. One victim recalls being told during a ceremony held in prison:

Bishop Medina said Mass, and in the sermon he said that he knew what we were

going through, but that this was all for the good of the country… and we ought to

tell everything we knew. For that purpose, he offered to hear confessions. (Osiel,

2004:133).

Not every religious member sided with the regimes. Many were on the side of the sufferers. If a priest or nun denounced the actions of the regimes or even helped the poor, they could be targeted. A priest by the name of Orlando Virgilio Yorio recalls being told by his interrogator:

You are not a guerrilla, you don't believe in violence, but you don't realize that

when you go to live (in the shanty towns) with your culture, you are joining

people, joining poor people, and to unite with poor people is subversion.

(CONADEP, 1984: file No. 6328).

For the sufferers, there were multiple ways in which they could deal with the evil of the regimes, some of which could be considered evil themselves. As already discussed, there were rebellions and guerilla attacks that resulted in the deaths of military officials.

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Others chose to ignore what was happening. In Chile, the economy blossomed under

Pinochet’s rule until 1982. This economic boom enticed many to remain silent and ignorant of what was happening. Even those whose loved ones were affected by the coup still chose ignorance. One woman, whose sister-in-law had been abducted and tortured, was not only ignorant of the regime but had allowed herself to forget what had happened entirely. Her friend stated in 1986, “She said she had done well under Pinochet, these years had been good for her, and that made her forget” (Rosenberg, 1991:336). When the economy crashed in 1982, the people of Chile began to protest the Pinochet regimes, either for economic reasons or for the human rights violations that were being exposed.

However, in Argentina, the people chose a different path.

As can be seen above, protesting in Argentina was more frequent than in Chile.

The Argentine economy declined throughout the Videla regime, taking away the incentive to remain passive. The violent nature in which this regime was brought about also set a precedent for the violent guerilla activity. Despite the different ways the people went about dealing with the evils of the regime, they both carried on using the same method: silence.

Silence, in this manner, is the refusal to acknowledge what happened during these times. As Helene Basu, a professor at the Institut für Ethnologie at Westfälische

Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, Germany stated, “Anthropologists tend to avoid speaking of evil. This may be partly due to the use of a disturbing political rhetoric of

Othering politicians” (Basu, 2013). By remaining silent, the people were using self- preservation. The Argentina press, for example, has been scrutinized for its silence during

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the regime. This silence was mainly to protect their “social and economic flanks”

(Knudson, 1997:95). By remaining silent, one would not be targeted and could continue in their daily life. Silence allows for passivity, which in turn gives the regimes the power to continue hurting the people. One man, Jaime Pérez, remarked in a 1986 interview,

“Looking back on my years of silence, I feel like an accomplice” (Rosenberg, 1991:335).

After the fall of the regimes, the tables turned. The people who were silent for so many years began to speak up and tell their stories while the governments, who were at first heavily involved, fell quiet. As Fernando Reati (1997:213) states, “Where before there was silence, now there is speech; where before words were extracted out of fear of torture, there now exists a significant silence.” The pardoning of military officials involved in abduction, torture, and execution, as well as the halt to excavations placed in

Argentina in the 1990s, represents the government attempting to silence the past. This silence continues today with government officials. My attempts for interviews with the

Chile and Argentina embassies and the United States Department of State were met with silence, despite the amount of time that has passed since the regimes fell.

Politicide is Genocide

‘Truth’ and ‘justice’ have become slogans for the Dirty Wars. These were the demands made by the citizens of Chile and Argentina. Various organizations, such as the

EAAF and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, continue to work to provide these people with resolution and peace of mind. These and other organizations strive to break

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the silence that has fallen over these countries. The unveiling of the terrible secrets of these regimes has allowed for the concept of genocide to be reviewed.

The original purpose for excluding political groups from the definition of genocide was due to the improbability that political groups could be targeted in the same manner, as well as the idea that political beliefs are chosen and not inherent.

Nevertheless, over 30,000 people were killed due to their political affiliation or relationship with others of that group in these two countries alone. These killings did not only include members of leftist organizations; they included family members and children innocent of any wrongdoing. The techniques used to inflict unimaginable pain on these victims and the lack of specificity on whom they were used shows a real type of evil which is seen in genocide. These techniques have fulfilled every requirement laid down by the Genocide Convention as follows:

1. Killing members of the group: It is estimated that over 30,000 men, women, and

children were killed between the two countries over their political affiliations.

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group: Physical and

psychological torture was inflicted on prisoners, resulting in severe mental and

physical wounds, as well as death.

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its

physical destruction in whole or in part: Prisoners were denied food, water,

medical care, clothing, and sanitary living conditions to cause physical

deterioration. This has resulted in the deaths of a large number of political leftists

and communists in these countries.

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4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group: Women and men

were tortured with electrical shock to the genitals and rape, which caused multiple

miscarriages and infertility issues to occur. This prevented many members of the

group from being able to children.

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group: Children born to

mothers in captivity were given to military families to adopt. Other children were

given to orphanages, family members, or left to die.

Various international agreements, such as the Refugee Convention, as well as national legislation, include political groups in their definition of genocide (von Schaak,

1997:2283). The targeting of a political group often ends with the targeting of innocent people and children. This is all due to their relationship with members of those groups.

Through this, innocent people are harmed and killed.

When I first embarked on writing this thesis, it seemed as though the morality behind the mass killings was straight-forward. Upon researching the various methods of torture, the testimonies of witnesses and survivors, and how the aftermath of these regimes have shaped the communities, I found that I was wrong. Instead of morality being a black and white situation, there was, and still is, a gray area. Not everyone believed they were doing the right thing while others were convinced they had no other choice. It is precisely because of this gray area that I have reached the conclusion that politicide should be included in the definition of genocide set forth by the Genocide

Convention.

63 64

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APPENDIX A

CHILE TIMELINE

• September 4, 1970: Salvador Allende is elected

• 1971: United States enters into debt repayment negotiations with Chile in an

effort to place economic pressure on the Allende administration

• 1972: Trucks and copper miners go on strike in Chile as economy takes a

downward turn

• 1973:

• September 10, 1973: General Pinochet orders the executions of

constitutionalist soldiers and sailors prior to the coup

• September 11, 1973: General Pinochet launches a coup d’etat against

Allende. Allende commits suicide and Pinochet takes over power of Chile

• September 12, 1973: General Pinochet declares a state of siege in Chile,

enacting a curfew and expanding the power of the military over the

citizens

• September 21, 1973: General Pinochet closes down Congress

• 1977: General Pinochet disbands DINA and creates the CNI due to increasing

international pressure

• 1979:General Pinochet begins to rewrite the constitution

• 1980: General Pinochet wins the referendum, extending his rule for eight more

years

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• March 11, 1981: General Pinochet is sworn in for an eight-year presidency and

the new constitution is enacted

• 1988: General Pinochet offers another referendum, this time failing to keep power

of Chile

• December 4, 1989: Patricio Aylwin is elected president of Chile, effectively

ending Pinochet’s rule

• 1990: Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation is created to

investigate human rights violations committed during Pinochet regime

• 1991: Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation publishes a

1,128 page report

• March 10, 1998: Pinochet steps down from his position as Commander-in-Chief

of the Army. He is later arrested in London

• January 2001: Pinochet indicted on 157 charges. Later declared mentally unfit to

stand trial

• 2004: Pinochet arrested on charges of murder in connection with Operation

Condor

• December 10, 2006: Pinochet dies of a heart attack

Total Number Estimated to Have Been Killed:

2,100-3,000

73 74

APPENDIX B:

ARGENTINA TIMELINE

• October 17, 1945: Perón kidnapped by members of the military in an

unsuccessful attempt to keep him from running for president. He is returned

unharmed

• June 4, 1946: Juan Domingo Perón becomes

• 1952: Perón’s wife dies of cancer. Her body is embalmed and put on display for

the Argentine people to mourn

• 1955: Perónis forced into exile after a coup d’etat. Military steals Evita’s body

and ships it to an unknown location

• 1958: Acting president, General steps down as

president after launching a war on Peronists

• 1970: Aramburu is kidnapped and murdered by a group of Montoneros

• 1971: President Lanusse sends a representative to negotiate Peron’s return to

Argentina

• 1972: Perón returns to Argentina

• 1973: Hector Campora resigns from his presidency after 2 months, allowing

PPerón to become president once again

• July 1, 1974: Perón dies from a heart attack, leaving his wife, Isabel, as president

• March 24, 1974: Isabel is overthrown in a military coup and a military junta

headed by General Videla is installed

74 75

• 1977: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo assembles for the first time

• 1980: Argentina’s banks collapse due to the crumbling economy

• 1982: Argentina is defeated in the , ruining the military’s

reputation within the country. 400 bodies are also uncovered, creating outrage

among the people

• December 10, 1983: Raul Alfonsin takes over as president, ending the military’s

rule

• 1984: CONADEP publishes their report on human rights violations committed

during the regime

Total Number Estimated to Have Been Killed:

30,000+

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APPENDIX C:

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

I reached out via email to the U.S. Department of State, the Chile consulate, the

Argentina consulate, and the New York office of the EAAF. I was only met with a response from the Chile consulate agreeing to an interview via email. However, once I sent the questions, I was not given a response.

The interview questions are as follows:

1.) Can you, or someone else, characterize the relationship between

the Chilean government and the United States government in

regards to the events that transpired between 1973 and 1990?

a. If “yes,” please provide available information, or resources

that I can research.

b. If not, is this information considered sensitive, or not

available to inquiry?

2.) Was the US government aware of the magnitude of the events

happening in Chile during this time?

3.) Did the US government aid Chile in recovering from this

“situation” as it occurred, later, or not at all? If so, did the US send

funding or aid in-kind? Did the US provide forensic expertise to

recover bodies of the disappeared or killed?

76 77

4.) If it is possible to characterize the response/reaction to the

“situation” by Chilean citizens and families, how would you do

so?

5.) What was the backlash/response of the Chilean people and/or

government to the release of previously confidential documents

detailing the involvement of the United States in the 1973 coup?

6.) Did the Chilean government make an official response to the

documents that were made available

7.) Was there a social response on the part of Chilean citizens to the

information released in those documents?

8.) If there is a consensus on the part of Chileans to the time period

termed the ‘Dirty War,’ how can it be described?

77 78

78