Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The external debt of Argentina climbed precipitously. Isabel Perón's
government in 1975 had found it difficult to pay the interest on a total
debt of $8 billion. Under the military government, the debt rose to
$18 billion in 1979, then to $40 billion in 1982. The economic czar,
Martínez de Hoz, was powerless to hold down external debt, as he had
no control over generals and admirals pursuing other agendas. The
availability of international funds kept the country's fictitious economic
boom afloat for four of the seven years of military rule. Argentines
remember it as a time of the “sweet money” (
platadulce
), when even
middle-class families could afford to travel abroad and purchase “six of
everything.” Though it mortgaged the future economic health of the
nation, the prosperity of the moment enabled the junta to carry out its
second objective: defeating the guerrilla movement.
The Dirty War
The generals expressed their cause in medical terms: The nation had a
“cancer” (left-wing terrorism) that they had to remove surgically. They
believed that Argentina was the entryway through which communism
chose to invade South America, and national security demanded harsh
countermeasures.
General Videla and the military junta had very little control over the
provincial commanders, troop leaders, and military bureaucrats, and the
struggle against the guerrillas depended on the temperament of individual
military leaders. This decentralized pattern of state repression thus took
on a dynamic of its own and became a very blunt surgical instrument
indeed. In order to wipe out the approximately 2,000 remaining hard-
core left-wing guerrillas (the Triple A and other right-wing terrorists were
exempted from the junta's repression of guerrilla groups), the military
killed as many as 19,000 Argentines. The strategy was as follows: “First
we will kill all the subversives,” said General Ibérico Saint Jean, “then we
will kill their collaborators; then their sympathizers, then . . . those who
remain indifferent; and finally we will kill the timid” (Anderson 1993,
226). They also jailed, tortured, and raped many thousands more. An
additional 2 million Argentines may have fled into exile.
The chief instruments of the counterinsurgency were the
patotas,
the
arresting squads made up of six to 20 soldiers, sailors, or policemen.
They struck at night, while victims slept, surrounding the house with
their trademark government-issued green Ford Falcons. They took
care to warn the neighborhood police ahead of time so that patrol cars
