|
Torture and Execution
Many detainees, particularly the elderly, died under torture. As
the aim was not necessarily to kill the victim (in most cases that
would be carried out later) but to obtain information, doctors often
would attend torture sessions to monitor heart and respiratory activity
or to "patch up" the victim for further torture. Women
were raped and used as sexual slaves. Some detainees were eventually
freed or transferred to officially recognized jails or prisons.
Most, however, were secretly executed without charge or trial.
In most cases, military and police squads delivered the bodies of
the victims to municipal morgues, where the police surgeon gave
them a brisk examination and registered them as "N.N.",
for "No Name." The bodies were then buried in unmarked
graves.
Societal Factors in the Support of the Oppression
The military junta held absolute control over Argentine society.
But it was supported, directly and indirectly, by several social
institutions. In the early years, the Catholic church hierarchy,
though aware of what was going on around them, rarely spoke out
against the repression. Some priests even visited prisons and secret
detention centers where torture was prevalent. Equally troubling
to many Argentine Jews, many of whom supported the coup, was the
Church's failure to condemn the anti-Semitism that lurked behind
both the word and deed of El Proceso. Argentina's long history of
anti-Semitism went back to the days when the country was a haven
for Nazis. After the dirty war years, human rights investigators
found detention centers scrawled with swastikas and anti-Semitic
graffiti. In one center, jailers had inscribed a Nazi oath over
the doorway leading into the cells.
THE
SEARCH
Las
Madres de la Plaza
On April 13, 1977, a group of mothers of the disappeared gathered
for the first time in the Plaza de Mayo. The Casa Rosada, which
houses the president and his staff, sits on the east side of the
plaza. At exactly three-thirty in the afternoon, the women withdrew
white kerchiefs from their purses and wrapped them over their heads.
They then silently began walking slowly in a circle.
|
|
|
