The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1962-1973: From Frondizi’s Fall to the Peronist Restoration
Author(s)
Hunter, Wendy
Abstract
Few events in the West since World War II have rivaled the devastating impact on civil and human rights of Argentina’s Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional. In the period from 1976 to 1983, better known as la guerra sucia (“the Dirty War”), security forces tortured and murdered at least nine thousand but perhaps closer to twenty or thirty thousand individuals. The conduct of the military in these years – particularly the human rights abuses that the regime was responsible for committing – provoked tremendous domestic and international outcry and shriveled the status of the armed forces in Argentine society and politics. How could a tragedy of such magnitude occur? How have Argentines dealt with the Dirty War in both personal and political terms? What impact did it have on ordinary citizens, politicians, and other major political actors? What lessons did Argentine men in uniform draw from the Proceso, the Malvinas or Falklands Islands War, and the tumultuous period of military trials and rebellions that followed? Are similar events likely to recur? The books under review address these and related questions. They range from historical accounts (Potash) to works of academic political science (Lopez, Norden, and Pion-Berlin) to more journalistic renditions (Andersen, Carlson, Malamud-Goti, and McSherry). Together, these nine books give readers a good sense of the deep cleavages that have divided Argentine citizens, politicians, and the armed forces in recent decades; of the strife and violence that have marked political life; and of the immunity granted to many officers who have challenged the military hierarchy or civilian authority or both. These accounts differ, however, in the degree of optimism they express about the future of human rights and political liberties in Argentina and in the solutions they prescribe, either implicitly or explicitly, for strengthening Argentine democracy.
