1976–1983
Dictatorship, Malvinas, and “Nunca Más”
The darkest era of state violence. Its memory is the foundation of human-rights awareness in Argentina today.
State terror and the disappeared
A coup on 24 March 1976 installed a military regime (the “National Reorganization Process”). It secretly seized those it deemed opponents — union members, students, activists, and citizens merely suspected — and tortured, killed and “disappeared” them.
These “disappeared” (desaparecidos) number around 30,000 by the estimates of human rights organizations. Women searching for their taken children and grandchildren kept up their protest, at great risk, as the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Malvinas, and the return of democracy
In 1982, a regime at a dead end sought to recover support by invading the Malvinas Islands (known in English as the Falklands), a territory Argentina claims as its own. The war ended in British victory.
The defeat triggered the collapse of the dictatorship. Democracy returned in 1983 and Raúl Alfonsín took office. The regime's leaders were put on trial (the Trial of the Juntas), and the report “Nunca Más” (Never Again) became the nation's memory.
Key terms
- Desaparecidos
- Victims of enforced disappearance; ~30,000 estimated.
- Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
- Women who searched for their taken children and grandchildren.
- Malvinas War (1982)
- The war with Britain whose defeat ended the dictatorship.
- Nunca Más
- “Never Again” — the report examining the dictatorship.
From 1976 to 1983, the military ruled the country, and it became a very dark time.
People thought to oppose the government were taken away, and many were never seen again (the desaparecidos). Mothers whose children were taken never gave up, protesting in the plaza. In 1983, democracy — deciding together — returned.
Key terms
- Desaparecidos
- People who were taken and disappeared.
- Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
- Mothers who kept searching for their children.