On March 24, millions of Argentines will take to the streets to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March 24, 1976 military coup which was followed by a decade of a barbaric “dirty war” carried out by armed forces whose atrocities were committed in the name of “Western Christian Civilization.” This is no different from the religious war of today by U.S. Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth, who demands “lethal war,” with no mercy against godless infidels like those in Iran. Veterans of France’s Secret Army Organization (OAS) trained leading junta members on using the practices of torture, disappearances, and extermination that it had used against Algeria’s National Liberation Front during its 1954-1962 war of independence—a war France lost.
In the 50 years since 1976, Argentine human rights experts, families of victims, forensic scientists, national and international human rights organizations have made extraordinary progress, recognized internationally, in exhaustively documenting the hideous legacy of the 1976 coup and its aftermath: 30,000 Argentines were “disappeared,” tortured, murdered and thrown into hidden graves at the clandestine concentration camps where they were held. The leaders of the military junta were tried and convicted in 1985, and over 1,000 other perpetrators of human rights crimes prosecuted and jailed. Military archives containing evidence of atrocities were uncovered, researched and preserved for future use to ensure that “memory, truth and justice” were the goal of every investigation.
Evidence of this crucial work was highlighted last week when members of Argentina’s Forensic Anthropology Team announced they had discovered and identified the human remains of 12 individuals who had been detained and murdered at the La Perla concentration camp in the province of Cordoba, on land formerly occupied by the Third Army Corps. This discovery elicited great joy and relief, but also pain, among the families whose loved ones were victims of a military driven by bestiality.
