OPINION / VIEWPOINT
Who’s strangling the desaparecidos?
Published: Nov 30, 2021 05:29 PM
Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: Website of Buenos Aires city

Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: Website of Buenos Aires city

Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Every Thursday, a group of grannies have been accustomed to gathering around the plaza since 1977. They don't talk or protest much. Instead, they are wearing white headscarves and waving white banners, on which the names embroidered and photos posted instantly drive people into the darkness of the past. 

They are the moms of the desaparecidos - "The Missing Ones" during the Dirty War, which is an unbearable trauma in Argentine history. 

After a coup in 1976, a military junta led by General Jorge Videla overthrew the Isabel Peron administration, the first female president in the world, and initiated a vicious dictatorship and a bloodbath of left-wing workers and others. An estimation of up to 30,000 youngsters was believed to be labeled as "left-wing" terrorists, and were kidnapped and tortured, and finally went missing. Among them 9,000 were believed to be eventually killed by the junta, an abominable human rights abuse committed with the support and connivance of the US government against the backdrop of the Cold War.        

The US has long viewed Latin America as its backyard ever since the infamous Monroe Doctrine came out in 1823. The existence of massive left-wing power in Latin America was certainly a firm no for the US, especially considering the fact that the existence of Cuba had been overwhelmingly suffocating. 

This is why the US, on one hand, was preaching peace and democracy and, on the other hand, was enormously supportive toward vicious acts conducted by the junta government. According to a declassified National Security Archive, a top US diplomat met with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti in 1976 and told him that "We wish the new government well... We understand you must establish authority... If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly."

It kind of reminds me of some sort of decades-old mafia movie: When a bunch of hooligans whispered "Boss, shall we take him down?," a gravelly voice would come from afar - "Better do it clean."

Certainly, in addition to connivance, the US government had done much more to help the junta throughout the administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In 1976, the International Monetary Fund granted a $127 million loan to Argentine militants. In the same year, the US Congress nodded on a $50 million military assistance to the junta government. During the Carter presidency, the US Department of Defense spent $700,000 on training Argentine military personnel on collecting intelligence on the left-wings. 

When President Reagan came into office, countering Communism became his priority, which resulted in the increasingly intimate partnership between Washington and Buenos Aires. An agreement was signed between the two that Argentina would help to train Nicaraguan anti-government personnel with the support of America. In return, a secret $50 million aid would be granted to the southern anti-Communist ally. It is fair to say that behind all the desaparecidos, America was pulling the invisible strings and strangling them to death.  

Years have gone by like the rapids in La Plata River, yet going back to the Plaza de Mayo, the voice of celebrated folk singer Mercedez Sosa, a witness and protester against the Dirty War, could still be circulating around the heart of Buenos Aires.

"Who said that everything's lost?

I am here to offer my heart,

So much blood carried away by the river,

I am here to offer my heart..."

This is what the desaparecido moms are there for. As long as the headscarves, many of which were made of the desaparecidos' diapers when they were infants, photos, names and their devastated hearts are there, the bloody stains caused by the shameless complicity between the US and the junta could never be wiped off from history.

Simon Bolivar, "the Great Liberator," could be way too conservative in stating that "America is spreading poverty to the Americas in the name of freedom." 

Well, we have seen US-related subversion in Bolivia, US-made sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, US-made invasions in Grenada, US-related assassination against the president in Chile, US-made surveillance on Brazil, US-made exploitation of Panama and Mexico... and, as above-mentioned, the US-sponsored Dirty War in Argentina. Uncle Sam was not only strangling the desaparecidos, it was strangling the people living in the ancient land of Latin America. 

History could be satirically similar sometimes. Just after a short period of time, in 1982, the US stabbed its Pampas ally in the back by supporting its Anglo-Saxon friend in some sort of maritime military competition, the Malvinas War.

Did any of you learn the lesson a hard way? 

Oops, I saw France sobbing silently.

The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Global Times, China Daily etc. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.