STATE TERRORISM
The expression “terrorism” comes from the French word terrorisme (“under terror”), coined during the French Revolution and which emerged precisely in reference to a situation preceding what we now know as State Terrorism. The revolutionary Jacobin government headed by Robespierre (1793-1794) executed and imprisoned its opponents, paying no heed to guarantees of a proper trial, and the term was adopted for use as anti-government propaganda.
Generally-speaking, the word “terrorism” means terror-based domination: "The succession of violent acts executed to instil terror" (Royal Spanish Academy). However, a distinction is made between different types of terrorism depending on the active subject: when it is a government that uses illegitimate methods to instil fear in a specific civilian population, the term used is “State terrorism”. Many are the governments to have employed this tactic to achieve their strategic ends (social, political, military, etc.), alleging a so-called “reason of state” to justify their actions.
Given its nature, State Terrorism is difficult to identify, and its expressions vary depending on the moment in history and geographical areas in which they take place. Subsequent to the despotic regimes, the most developed forms in contemporary history are the systems used in the 20th century. For instance, the Germany of the III Reich killed 10 million people: 6 million of these were Jews killed in the Holocaust. Likewise, the practice of terror by those in power spread last century under military or militarised regimes at the bosom of formal democracies.
Argentina was badly hit by the Military Dictatorship. In a scenario of social mobilisation, on 24 March 1976, the Military Junta leaders overthrew Isabel Perón and occupied positions of power, naming Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla as President. That was the start of what the new Government called its “National Reorganisation Process”.
Far from limiting themselves to simply combating guerrilla action, the Military Junta developed a project planned and intended to destroy all forms of popular participation; they implemented a system of indiscriminate repression of all political, social and union forces. The State subjected the population to total terror in the endeavour to impose "order", quashing all dissident voices in the doing. Among many other actions, the new Government officially suspended political and syndical activity, dissolved the Congress and censored the media. But over and above all the cruelty and repression, one group will remain engraved on the memory as part of the history of Argentina and the whole world: the disappeared.
“Forced disappearance” was the most sinister and bloody method employed during Argentina’s Dirty War. Anybody considered by the military regime as “subversive” was kidnapped and turned into a mere number. They were detained and taken to the over 340 clandestine detention centres, where they were constantly interrogated, systematically tortured and, in many cases, shot or thrown into the La Plata River.
The restoration of democracy in 1983 saw the emergence of CONADEP: the National Commission on the Disappeared. Its final report, entitled “Nunca más” (“Never again”) states that, contrary to the arguments of the rulers responsible for executing such a sinister plan, they didn’t stop at hounding members of organisations who practiced violent acts. Victims who never had any involvement whatsoever in such activities run into their thousands. Although there are 9,000 registered disappeared, human rights organisations set the figures at over 30,000, given CONADEP’s findings that a never-ending list of disappearances were never reported. The National Commission on Forced Disappearance of Persons, signed in 1994, considers disappearance to be a crime against humanity.
In addition to the kidnapping of adults was a plan to appropriate boys and girls. The military considered that the children of the disappeared had to lose their identities for their delivery to military families, who became their “new parents”.
Although the fate of thousands of disappeared persons remains a mystery, following the abolition of the Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws giving total impunity to those responsible, Argentine justice has started to reopen cases and investigate these crimes. The right to life, to personal integrity, not to suffer inhuman detention conditions were systematically violated under the repression.
The white scarves of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have become a worldwide symbol of the fight for human rights.
Giza Eskubideen Aldarrikapena
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/bsq.htm
Euskadiko GGKEen Koordinakundea
http://www.ongdeuskadi.org/principal_e.asp
Terrorismo de Estado en Argentina: