Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
country's problems - strikes, corruption and
minor terrorist activity - by ruthlessly attack-
ing the “leftists” he decided were the instiga-
tors. This campaign of state-sponsored
terrorism practiced against the Argentine peo-
ple became known as The Dirty War. Thou-
sands of Argentineans simply disappeared and
became known as
los desaparecidos
. Included
among them were priests, nuns, students,
reporters, and professors. Anyone suspected of
anti-government activities was tortured and
killed, rather than arrested and tried for trea-
son. Entire families simply vanished. Esti-
mates of the numbers of dead range from
10,000 to 20,000. Those unfortunates are still
turning up in shallow graves all over the coun-
try.
Mothers March
The disappearances of these people led to a
moving ceremony every Thursday in the
Plaza de Mayo, where hundreds of “moth-
ers” march and demand information about
their missing loved ones.
Conditions remained the same under Videla's
successor, General Viola, and did not change
until
Lieutentant General Leopoldo
Galtieri
rose to power in 1981. To take the pop-
ulation's mind off The Dirty War and the eco-
nomic stagnation, he rallied the country to war.
They would take back their South Atlantic
islands, Las Malvinas, from British control.
