All wars are dirty, but some wars are dirtier than others.

Most of us in the United States think of civil wars within the context of our own civil war where the geographic lines were clear and the combatants wore different colors. The reality is that in most civil wars the battle lines are not so clear and combatants not so easily identified. In the 1970s and early 1980s Argentina suffered through a quiet civil war that played out in the shadows while average citizens tried to continue with their daily lives. No battle lines were drawn on the map. Combatants dressed like ordinary people. Neither side followed the traditional rules of war. The violence spiraled out of control until the conflict degenerated into “La Guerra Sucia” (“The Dirty War”). 1

With political unrest and incivility dominating the news and our own cities burning, we may have the makings of a civil war within our own borders. Perhaps it would be wise for us to learn a few lessons from Argentina’s Dirty War.

Napoleon supposedly said, “God fights on the side with the best artillery.”2  Men and women on both sides of the battle lines invoke the name of their god for protection and victory, but most often, in the name of a military victory, they ignore or rationalize a departure from the moral code given by that same god. They justify deceit, torture, and killing innocent people as long as they achieve a righteous ending. 

The rebels of Argentina called themselves “Montoneros” adopting a pejorative term used for indigenous raiders of a past era. They pledged to fight against the encroaching and evil imperialist Yankees of the United States in the name of the oppressed people and replace the current quasi-democratic governments with socialism. They spoke of championing the cause of the downtrodden, the worker, and the poor. The road to victory would be long and require them to fight by any means necessary.3 

The first act of violence was to kidnap and execute the former Argentine dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu for his “crimes.” They left his body in a farmhouse outside of Buenos Aires and it wasn’t discovered for almost a month. They began the violence, but it was far from over.

In November of 1971 they took control of a Fiat car manufacturing facility and torched 39 vehicles. In July of 1972 they bombed in the Plaza de San Isidro injuring and killing policemen and a fireman. They bombed the Sheraton in October of 1973. Then on September 16, 1974, they detonated over forty bombs in one day in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The indiscriminate violence most often killed or wounded the innocent working class they had pledged to liberate. Hundreds of workaday soldiers and policemen were killed or injured by the attacks. In 1976 over 150 soldiers or policemen were killed by the Montoneros.4 

In spite of their claims of altruistic intentions, the socialist revolutionaries had a history of capitalistic extortion of their own. In addition to the bombings they kidnapped and/or assassinated military leaders, political opponents, and foreign business executives. Sometimes they held mock trials and executed them, and other times they demanded ransoms to finance their revolution. They extorted millions of dollars for their cause, including $60 million (the largest ransom in history) from the kidnapping of the Born brothers, heirs to a large food supply chain conglomerate.5 Then with the help of the shady banker, David Graiver, they invested their capital in a variety of questionable banking ventures.6 Extortion and capitalism seemed to work well for the socialist revolutionaries hell-bent on stopping the capitalist extortionists.

The Montoneros hoped that the violence would destabilize the country and provide a fertile philosophical ground for their anti-imperialist message. However, their lackluster manifesto didn’t resonate with the average Argentine citizen and they only alienated the majority seeking stability and peace.

To make matters worse, the political leaders of the day failed to quell the violence and often just looked the other way leaving the police and military to endure the violence. By March of 1976, the Argentine military leaders had reached their limit. A military junta took over the failing government with General Videla as acting president. Then the real violence began.

Having borne the brunt of most of the terrorist activity, the military junta began to crush the enemy. They called it El Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (The National Reorganization Process) or El Proceso for short. The goal was to defeat the urban guerrilla forces and restore order and security in order to save their nation. Like the enemy they were determined to defeat, they felt justified to use any means necessary.7 

The civil unrest degenerated into “La Guerra Sucia,” a dirty war where any act of torture, violence, extortion, kidnapping, or murder was accepted by both sides as a necessary means for accomplishing a “righteous” end. Both sides claimed the moral high ground while they systematically abandoned the moral code they claimed to live by. Without the rule of law, a civil war became a dirty war. Anarchy prevailed and liberty was lost on all sides.

The military junta set aside due process and began to “disappear” anyone considered to be subversive to El Proceso. They muzzled the press and other free speech. They raided homes in the middle of the night and arrested citizens without due process. They set up secret prisons with torture chambers filled with thousands of captured guerrillas or anyone else suspected of subversive behavior. Executions took the form of anything from a simple bullet to the head, to tossing drugged prisoners out of aircraft into the ocean. Captured expectant mothers were kept alive until the babies were delivered. Those babies were given away to families loyal to El Proceso and the mothers were never heard from again.8

In the process of “saving the nation,” thousands of innocent people disappeared. The violence put an end to the enemy, but it also destroyed any shred of the rule of law that may have remained. Thousands of people disappeared in the name of a process that was intended to restore order. 

In the end, neither side achieved the victory they hoped for. The Montoneros were destroyed and scattered, never to achieve the socialist change they hoped for. The military junta returned power to elected civilian officials and many were prosecuted for their crimes. El Proceso eliminated the immediate enemy, but left a gaping hole in the psyche of a country that will take generations to heal. The ends did not justify the means, nor did the means achieve the desired end.

Right now, we see violence in our streets. Rioting, looting, and destruction of public property are being used as tools for political change. Lawless behavior is lauded as a necessary means to accomplish a “righteous” end. The rule of law is being trampled in the name of social justice or for the sake of security and order. Both sides are abandoning their moral code in order to achieve victory even as they plant their flag in some moral high ground that has long since been abandoned.

If we aren’t careful, the violence will spiral out of control and we may find ourselves in the middle of our own dirty war. We must NOT abandon the rule of law to achieve victory or we will lose the battle, the war, and our liberties.

On April 30, 1977, a dozen mothers linked arms and marched around the Plaza de Mayo. Each of them had a child that had disappeared without a trace because of the government crackdown on subversion. At the time they defied the order against assembly and marched around the plaza across from the Casa Rosada (the equivalent of our White House) to protest the military government’s suspension of due process and the violent results.9 Nobody seemed to notice.

It is estimated that almost 30,000 people were “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War. Perhaps they were guilty. Perhaps they were innocent. Perhaps they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps they were only guilty by association. It didn’t matter. They were rounded up in the middle of the night, incarcerated, tortured, and executed. Their bodies were buried in undisclosed locations or dropped into the ocean. Any record of them or their disappearance was eliminated. There was no presumption of innocence. They were never given due process or a trial. They were “disappeared” from existence.

At first the group of mothers walking around the plaza went mostly unnoticed. Leaders scoffed at their insignificance and called them ‘las locas’ (crazy). People said to themselves, “Their children were probably guilty anyway. They deserved what they got.” Their voices were easily dismissed, but the “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) persisted.

On December 10, 1977 (International Human Rights Day), the mothers published the names of all their missing children in a newspaper ad. The very same night, Azucena Villaflor (one of the original founders) was kidnapped from her home and never heard from again. Most likely she met the same fate as the missing children—tortured, executed, and disappeared.10 The junta hoped the intimidation tactics would silence the protests.

A few months later, the group had grown from dozens to hundreds of mothers who locked arms every Thursday and marched around the plaza. Their movement began to gather attention, and political momentum. They could no longer be silenced or ignored. In 1978 Argentina hosted the World Cup and won, but while the country celebrated the victory, international journalists spotlighted the mothers walking around the plaza every Thursday. Their simple act of protest turned the tide of public opinion, both domestically and internationally, against the ruling military junta.

It took several years, but eventually, the military finally capitulated and returned power to civilian elected officials. A group of mothers and grandmothers managed to captivate a nation and force a change. But what if people had given more credence to their claims earlier? Could innocent lives have been saved if the voices of the marginalized had been heeded sooner? If the military junta had listened to their protests and made policy corrections could they have actually achieved the goals outlined by El Proceso? Perhaps, but we will never know because the voices of the marginalized were largely ignored. Eventually, many of the military leaders were prosecuted for their crimes. 

In spite of our understanding, or lack thereof, of those protesting (peacefully) in our streets, we should make an extra effort to understand their plight. Is there truth to what they say? Have they been marginalized in some way that we can redress? Can we make sure their voices are heard even though we may not agree with the solutions they propose? Sometimes just taking the time to validate the emotions of those who feel slighted or wronged can deescalate the situation and cool the rhetoric. Then we have the opportunity to have productive dialogue and effective change.

It starts when we take the time to listen to the voices of those who feel marginalized, even if we don’t understand, or agree.

It is impossible to discuss the political history of Argentina without spending hours on Juan Domingo Perón. He began his rise to power in the military, climbing to the rank of Colonel in his early thirties, and began his political career after supporting the military coup of 1943. He quickly climbed from cabinet positions to the Vice President and was elected President of Argentina in June of 1946. Charismatic and politically astute, President Perón formed alliances with disparate political groups and remained in power until September of 1955 when he was ousted by another military coup of his enemies and exiled. (The incoming military junta outlawed his political party and even the mention of his name.) Even from exile he continued to influence Argentine politics and eventually returned for another term as president in 1973 and died in office July of 1974.11

Unfortunately, his story is an archetype of the generalissimo-cum-dictator that is so prevalent in history. Argentina suffered through six military coups in the 20th century (1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976).12 Countries cycle of from military coup to popular president to dictator back to military coup because the power resides in a single strong executive and not with the people. People put their trust in an individual and not in principle. Liberties protected by enduring and tested law were only as good as the current self-appointed leader.

When the cycle repeated itself in 1976, people were willing to turn a blind eye to the heavy-handed approach of the military because they had been conditioned to accept violent exchanges of power followed by liberty-limiting measures of the new government. Peaceful exchanges of power by election had become a distant memory. This gave the military junta tacit approval to eliminate human rights and the liberties of the individual in the name of security.

When you put a person or politics over principle you begin to ignore or rationalize away the bad behavior of the candidate or elected official you support and accept actions you would vehemently condemn from a political rival or opponent. You tell yourself that such behavior is justified because the opposition is underhanded and intellectually dishonest. You begin to defend the person, or party, at all costs, no matter the behavior, in an effort to remain in power. (By the way if you are reading this and thinking this applies to your political opposites, you are part of the problem. Go look in the mirror.) All candidates and elected officials are flawed and imperfect. They are all human. We will always have to overlook some imperfections in order to vote for them. However, we should support them and their causes without worshipping them. We should celebrate their victories even as we speak out against their bad behavior or ineffective policies. We can vote for them without idolizing them.

We have a long tradition of peaceful exchange of power through the voting process. But it is more than tradition. It is a principle upheld by time-tested law and constitutional principles that elevate the liberties of the individual above the power-seeking politician. For the process to continue, we must continue to put principle above person or politics. We must accept the legal results of elections. If we win, we should be gracious in our victory but guarded in our support of the victor or the winning party. If we lose, we must suffer patiently until our next opportunity to vote, but allow the elected officials room to perform their duties without constant threat of legal action. Above all, we must not allow any person or political party to persuade us that violence or the suppression of constitutional liberty is necessary while we still have a fair election process in place.

We have suffered through turbulent times as a nation, including one civil war with battle lines drawn geographically. We are experiencing turbulent times today, and if it continues to escalate the battle lines will be invisible ideological lines that cut through homes, neighborhoods, and cities. Because of our protected liberty to think and speak as we please, this ideological civil war will pit brother against sister, neighbor against neighbor, and friend against friend. We will be surrounded by both allies and enemies at the same time. 

Perhaps we can avoid an escalated conflict by learning a few lessons from Argentina’s Guerra Sucia. If we can learn from their history we can avoid justifying the means by the ends, give an ear to marginalized voices, and vote for candidates (or party) without worshipping them. Maybe it can help us avoid our own guerra sucia. I certainly hope so. Buena suerte!