Rosana Womack
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TERROR AND PUBLIC SPACES: RECONCILING ARGENTINA’S TRAGIC PAST IN THE ESCUELA DE MECANICA DE LA ARMADA Rosana Womack Abstract During Argentina’s Dirty War (1976-1983), the Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (ESMA) was the military’s largest, most active clandestine center, with an estimated 5,000 dissidents disappearing through its doors. Once a revered and honored learning institution, ESMA became the locus and emblem of torture, death, slave labor, illegal adoptions, and other crimes. ESMA’s fate after Argentina’s return to democracy has been at the center of heated debate. As human rights groups and the families of the disappeared rallied to claim ESMA as a space for memory, the military junta sought to stop their efforts through impunity. The memory that human rights groups and families of the disappeared represent does not align with those of the military forces and their supporters. For the military, the use of ESMA as a site for memory solely of its role in the Dirty War represents a half-memory and a half-truth in which omits prior historical events. Through the analysis of primary and secondary sources, archival data, and personal interviews, this paper elucidates ESMA’s role as a site for memory as it pertains to the Argentine military junta in order to address alternate memory-work that is currently ignored within debates over ESMA’s reconfiguration. Introduction On March 24, 1976, a three-man military junta, It is that most recent part of ESMA’s history that comprised of Army General Jorge Rafael Videla, is currently represented in its reconfiguration Navy Admiral Emilio E. Massera and Air Force from a military clandestine detention center to a Brigadier General Orlando R. Agosti, seized space for memory. This paper demonstrates, political control from the democratically elected however, that within the context of memory- president, Isabel Martínez de Perón, and initiated truth-justice supported by human rights groups one of the most violent periods in Argentine and families of the disappeared, there exists a history: the Dirty War. Once in power, the conflicting narrative: the one told by the military military launched El Proceso de Reoragnización junta. This unpopular narrative is absent from Nacional (The National Reorganization Process), the memory-work conducted in ESMA, and thus or el proceso, which “dissolved the Congress and offers a different lens through which the inherent the provincial legislatures, removed the President difficulties of ESMA’s memory construction can and the provincial Governors from office, and be viewed. As a result, the ownership and use of assumed ‘the political power of the Republic’ ESMA as a space for memory has been, and making the military the supreme organ of the continues to be, heavily disputed. Nation).” For the Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (ESMA), a naval military school turned Prior to el proceso, ESMA was a symbol of honor clandestine detention center during the Dirty and pride. Its position within the elite barrio of War, el proceso meant ridding Argentina of its Nunez, in the city of Buenos Aires, gave credence dissidents—members of the armed resistance and to its civilized role within Argentine society. those who supported the resistance efforts— Students came from all over the world to through the engagement of state- sponsored study in ESMA’s prestigious classrooms, while terrorism. Approximately 5,000 of the total the surrounding community looked on with 30,000 “disappeared” met their fate when they undeniable pride. entered through ESMA’s doors. © Rosana Womack, 2013. Originally published in Explorations: The UC Davis Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 15 (2013). http://UndergraduateResearch.UCDavis.edu/Explorations. © The Regents of the University of California. ESMA’s changing role from a beacon of dignity country in the world; in many ways Argentina’s and honor to that of repression was influenced role as a global leader looked promising. by events that began in the late 1960s and lasted Buildings in Buenos Aires mimicked those of through the mid-to-late 1970s, when terrorist Paris, and the introduction of steam propulsion activities from the radicalized left increased in engines and artillery (torpedoes) within sailing magnitude and frequency against the armed vessels proved to be the impetus for ESMA’s forces and police. The military and police, in an construction within the autonomous city of effort to suppress this violent trend, began to Buenos Aires. implement severe repressive tactics to counteract the attacks. This paper aims to chronologically Argentina’s Naval fleet was significantly document these events, beginning with a brief transformed by the new technology. Along with account of ESMA’s rise from Talleres de Marina significantly increased naval power, the Talleres (Naval Garages) to a world-renowned Naval de Marina were transformed first into a technical military school in the heart of Buenos Aires, to training ground and ultimately to a prestigious the important role President Onganía played in naval academy and relocated in Buenos Aires. the advancement of repression, which ultimately Eric Fabian Lopez, author of Escuela de Mecanica led to the events of the Cordobazo in 1969--a de La Armada stated “from the new location violent civil uprising in Cordoba that brought began to surge construction that contributed to student movements and union workers together the progress and well-being of the Nation,” against police repression—that progressed into indicating the importance that buildings like the 1970s with terrorist activities sanctioned ESMA had on the population and on Argentina from the armed left. I argue that the terrorist as a growing sovereign nation. activities that ensued played a prominent role in the development of military and police On December 19, 1924, the Executive repression leading up to the Dirty War. It is here Department of the city of Buenos Aires was that the theory “between two demons,” a authorized to transfer over 14.5 hectares (35 rhetorical device used to negate the moral acres) of land to the Navy. A condition of the equivalent of violent political subversion with transfer, as stated by the Deliberative Council of state-sponsored terrorism, is most pronounced in President Marcelo T. de Alvear, required the land the memory battle over ESMA, where human and everything on it to be immediately rights groups and the families of the disappeared transferred back to the state without adamantly deny its validity. indemnification if the land were used for anything other than its original intent. The condition, set by the Deliberative Council, ESMA: Loyalty and Efficiency proved to be an important factor after the Dirty The importance of ESMA to the military can be War and for ESMA’s reconfiguration as a space viewed through its transition from Talleres de for memory, as ESMA changed hands again. Marina (Naval Garages) in the town of Tigre along the Paraná Delta in the Greater Buenos ESMA’s placement in the city of Buenos Aires Aires Province, to its placement as a world- during a time when Argentina’s economic growth renowned Naval military school in the was at its peak is important to understand. The Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, where its architect Raul J. Alvares designed ESMA’s presence symbolized Argentina’s strength as a neoclassical architecture to fit effortlessly within nation through formation of Naval identity. its new elite surroundings. At the time of ESMA’s ESMA’s history dates to the late 19th century’s construction, Buenos Aires became the Belle Epoque (Beautiful era), a time of political, “civilized” center of the nation, where it stood economic and social growth in Argentina. During symbolic of Argentina’s respectability and elite this time, Argentina was the tenth wealthiest standing throughout the globe. Its placement UCDavis | EXPLORATIONS: THE UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH JOURNAL Vol. 15 (2013) R. Womack, p.2 within this realm of society was noted by Eric with any internal enemy whose main objective Fabian Lopez when he stated, “ESMA’s splendid was the annihilation of police and military forces. simplicity represents the nobility and chivalry of this world-renowned educational venue.” Local In 1961, John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress residents embraced the school and referred to aimed to promote socioeconomic development, it as the “The University of Tin,” where the while expanding military training programs for school’s motto became “Loyalty and Efficiency.” Latin American officers that were packed with By 1929, the school grew to include 350 ideological indoctrination. The “traditional apprentices in residence. The Second World concept of territorial defense was replaced with War brought the obligation to incorporate that of ideological frontiers.” Peronismo’s enlisted men to the school, which brought the extreme left came to be considered a subversive school size to over 1,200 men. threat to both the U.S. and the Argentine military as labor unions; students and faculty in In 1947, during ESMA’s 50th anniversary, the universities opposed the implementation of a school was recognized as more modernized, neoliberalism model--a laissez--faire structure for more efficient, and more celebrated than it had economic development as Argentina’s economic been at any other time in its history. There were model. The violence that ensued from “tributes and plaques made in its honor and Peronismo’s radical left became a growing there were grand military parades, where local concern for the U.S and Argentine militaries as it families and neighbors looked on with pride.” threated civilian lives, as well as the economic ESMA represented all that was good with the aims of the military. nation. The students who were accepted into ESMA’s rigorous program took pride in their The 1960s also provided new social and school and the camaraderie that was built under intellectual movements that produced the “New “Loyalty and Efficiency.” Left” along with pivotal reforms within the Catholic Church through Pope Pius XIII’s Vatican II, which supported democracy and Memory of the 1960s and 1970s: Events leading human rights.