Line #48 UsefulNotes/NationalReorganizationProcess


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/massera_videla_agosti.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:From left to right: Admiral Emilio Massera, Lieutenant-General Jorge Videla, and Brigadier-General Orlando Agosti, leaders of the first junta]]
3	->''"First we will kill all the subversives; then we will kill all their collaborators; then their sympathisers; then those who remained indifferent; and finally, we'll kill the undecided."''
4	-->--'''Brigadier General Iberico St. Jean''', governor of Buenos Aires
5
6	The National Reorganisation Process, known in Spanish as ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'' or ''El Proceso'' (The Process), was the name given to a series of military juntas who controlled Argentina from March 24, 1976 until December 10, 1983. Generally regarded as the darkest era in Argentine history, The Process saw the suppression of civil rights, the intrusion of the military into every facet of Argentine life, and the "disappearance" of thousands of Argentines as the military tried to violently cleanse the country of all political dissidents, real and imagined.
7
8	Argentina had a long history of military coup d'états prior to the Process, with the post-independence era being a period of civil war and coup d'etats between the caudillos, and the 1930 military coup that began the authoritarian period of the 'Infamous Decade'. It was a 1955 military coup that had briefly deposed the populist titan UsefulNotes/JuanDomingoPeron. Upon Perón's death in 1974, and the failure of his wife and designated successor UsefulNotes/IsabelPeron to maintain domestic stability, the military stepped in to restore order, as it had done many times before. The main justification was that the country was on the brink of civil war between the Left and Right Peronists, beginning with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezeiza_massacre Ezeiza massacre]] that happened just as Perón's plane was landing in Argentina.
9
10	The country was wracked at the time with terrorism and political violence, mostly perpetrated by two underground insurgencies; the socialist Montoneros and the communist People's Revolutionary Army, better known as the ERP. The Montoneros were a special case - Marxist supporters of the deceased Perón prior to falling out with him and being declared criminals, the Montoneros had made a name for themselves by assassinating anti-Peronist businessmen, rival trade unionists, and government officials and military officers they didn't like. The ERP was already fighting the army, but the Montoneros were at war with the Right Peronists' main paramilitary organization, the fascistic Triple A. Now the military had decided it was time to put an end to their chaos once and for all. The Montoneros were hunted down by the police in the cities, and the ERP were subjected to a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Independence full military operation]] that destroyed them after two years of fighting. Both operations were successes but at the cost of many innocent civilians tortured and killed because they were thought to be subversives, who were later added to the death toll of the Dirty War. As for Triple A, they disbanded themselves after their boss, José Lopez Rega, resigned; although it's widely believed that ex-Triple A militants were quickly reintegrated into the military's ranks as torturers and assassins.
11
12	With backing from right-wing Argentines and later the CIA, the first junta, made up of Army Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Jorge Rafael Videla, Navy Chief Admiral Emilio Massera, and Air Force Chief Brigadier-General Orlando Agosti, removed Isabel Perón from power and installed themselves as Argentina’s new rulers. The military coup had high popular support from ordinary Argentines, who was exhausted by the instability, Isabel's incompetence, and the ''Rodrigazo'' economic disaster following Perón's death. Many believed that like all past military governments, the Process would be temporary, and civilian rule would be quickly restored.
13
14	But it was not to be, as the Process clearly showed its intent to stay. Over the next seven years, three more juntas would dance in Videla, Massera, and Agosti’s shoes. It's widely believed in Argentina that Videla, the official head of the junta, was in fact a figurehead who did the talking for the military, and the real decision-making and power lay with the already-notorious Massera, who was a seasoned political veteran that had also masterminded the coup in the first place, and would go on to be the key architect of the Dirty War itself. Or at least, early on -- Massera wanting to outright become president led to a power struggle with Videla circa 1978 that ended with Massera leaving the junta; ironically, part of Massera's squabbles with Videla led to him becoming one of the first officials from the junta itself blowing the whistle on its human rights violations, in a bid to delegitimize Videla. But ultimately, all would play a role in ensuring that the Process would go down as the worst perpetrator of state terror in South American history.
15
16	The Process quickly gained control over the media and all the other institutions of government. Far from being a typical temporary Argentine junta, military officers were assigned to almost all official posts as the civilian government was shut down outright. Despite the professed apolitical nature of the junta, the entire country took a hard swing to the right, with social services being cut, traditional values promoted, and the economy opened up to foreign business interests. As promised, the junta stepped up the campaign against the Montoneros, and quickly eliminated them. Then, with their actual enemies defeated, The Process turned on the Argentine public in what became known as "the Dirty War."
17
18	Videla, the junta's official spokesperson, had once said that “As many people as necessary must die in Argentina so that the country will again be secure." Ordinary Argentines will tell you that the only thing the Process was good at was killing people, and it's obvious who won the Dirty War. From 1976 to 1983, somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000 Argentines were arrested without trial on charges of being subversives, confined in secret prisons, gruesomely tortured and/or raped, and eventually executed and buried in unmarked graves. [[DeathFlight Others were hurled, drugged and insensate, into the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean from low flying airplanes and helicopters, their bodies never to be discovered.]] Thousands more still were subjected to lengthy prison terms and torture before being released into the world broken by the experience. To add a macabre twist, the juntas also kidnapped the children of dissidents and sold them to rich Argentine families, enriching themselves in the process.[[note]]Which was only one of the ways of making profit. Typically, a raided household would be stripped of everything of value (the house itself included, which was sometimes burnt down after the looting).[[/note]] Unwilling to limit their actions to their own country, the juntas made their intelligence service an integral part of the Pan-South American ''Operation: Condor'', collaborating with UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet’s Chile, Alfredo Stroessner’s Paraguay, and the military juntas of Bolivia, Uruguay, and Brazil to terrorize, repress, and assassinate any and all political opposition to their rule across the continent. The eventual death toll reached somewhere around 60,000, making ''Operation: Condor'' the worst politicide in the history of modern South America. As Central America exploded in revolution in the 1980s, the Process took an unusually active role in the conflicts that followed, notably being one of the main backers of the Nicaraguan Contras and even sending security advisors to them.
19
20	Despite all of this, and even with a considerable drop in popularity during the later years, the Process might well have remained in power, had the third junta not declared war on Britain. Having lost [[UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar the Malvinas War]], the junta was swept away in a wave of popular discontent and the Process collapsed. The new government under UsefulNotes/RaulAlfonsin (a human rights attorney) prosecuted the leaders of the first three juntas before military tribunals, and turned numerous other perpetrators over to civilian courts, before the threat of another revolt forced him to back down. The 1990s saw all of those involved pardoned by President UsefulNotes/CarlosMenem, and an attempt was made to forget the entire affair, only for Captain Adolfo Scilingo’s public admission of guilt for his part in the death flights to start a whole new round of confessions, exhumations, arrests, and trials, as perpetrators and victims alike began speaking out in the 2000s. The Argentine Supreme Court struck down Menem's pardon as unconstitutional, and many of those involved were rearrested; Massera and Videla would both spend the rest of their lives in custody. The resulting media frenzy effectively re-traumatized Argentine society, and ensured that the legacy of the Process will never fully go away.
21
22	Although the popular view over the Process has always been completely negative (notwithstanding the occasional crackpots), it has still been the source of many controversies over the years. When Alfonsín took power in 1983 people deplored ''both'' the guerrillas and the military government. This soon led to the "Theory of the Two Demons": the crimes of the guerrillas and the military could not be considered on equal standing, the crimes of the military were far greater. This doctrine was widely accepted at first but became distorted over the years: firstly, it was changed to imply that the guerrillas commited no crimes, and later to imply that the guerrillas were actually heroes, and that to say otherwise would equal supporting the junta. Menem, a victim of the military himself, pardoned the military leaders in a bid to cease the political rivalries, but it backfired and people felt that they were receiving impunity instead. The Kirchners resumed the trials against the military and increased the public awareness over the events of the Process; but there was much controversy over their frequent habit of linking their political opposition to the Process. This includes both those who were actually against the Process back in the day but happened to be against the Kirchners, and those who were simply too young or not even born yet. And the occasional keyboard warrior that claims not to agree with them but follow the collaborators of the former regime.
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24	Young people would in fact develop a new view over the whole thing: that while the Process was the worst regime to ever govern Argentina and deserved eternal condemnation for its crimes, it was all dated history and the government should be focused on current crises rather than over things that took place several decades in the past, but the rise of far-right groups that avoided condemning it showed the problem hasn't stopped. But they believed the "Theory of the Two Demons" to be nonsense, as the guerrillas were arguably destroyed by 1976 and were no serious threat to the nation at all, making the crimes of the Process terror for the sake of terror and thus completely unjustifiable on moral and lawful grounds.
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26	The Kirchners were also criticized for the historical revisionism over the conflict, not about the actions of the Process itself (which are not disputed) but about the role of Peronism: their version glosses over the similar crimes already being committed by Perón and his cronies, and that the Peronists announced that they would have supported the military self-amnesty had they won in 1983. Again, the process was more complicated. The majority of high-ranking Peronist politicians were either dead, exiled or in prison so anyone who disagreed was powerless to say anything.
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28	The number of disappeared people is also a source of controversy: most investigations number them somewhere around the 10,000 people (the CONADEP reported 8,961 victims wich were taken inmediatley after the end of the regime so fear and doubt was a factor of the lower numner) But 30,000 is the estimated number, taking into account both extermination camps (like ESMA) and the amount present (over 700) as the military didn't bother to count the deaths. Even denying the number is often a dog-whistle for far right groups, like doubting the number of Holocaust victims.
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30	The Argentine Left and some Peronists tend to claim that the true purpose of the Process was to impose by force an economic system that would destroy the Argentine economy and turn the country into a US colony, but economic data shows that the economy was already in a disastrous state as a result of the ''Rodrigazo''. Again, this is not without a point as the opening of importations, the foreign takeover of national companies, and the fiscal de-regulation give support to this point. And de-classified CIA documents confirm that "protecting American interests" was one of the factors.
31
32	While they overthrew Isabel Perón and killed hundreds of suspected Montoneros, the Process was notably not anti-Peronist. Peronism was not banned like in 1955, and the communists had already been fought by both Peróns, with Isabel signing 'annihilation decrees' in 1975 to wipe out the Montoneros and ERP. Again, the vast majority of the deaths were composed of workers, union-leaders, politicians, high-school students, writers and other civilians with Peronist or leftist backgrounds. While other groups like radicals remained mostly untouched. And the Kirchner government re-opened the trials, whereas previously this was untouched by both right-wing Peronist groups and radicals, leaving both sides as looking like they did not care for the victims until 2003.
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34	The four juntas were: 1) Lieutenant-General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Massera, Brigadier-General Orlando Agosti; 2) Lieutenant-General Roberto Viola, Admiral Armando Lambruschini, Brigadier-General Omar Graffigna; 3) Lieutenant-General Leopoldo Galtieri, Admiral Jorge Anaya, Brigadier-General Basilio Lami Dozo; 4) Lieutenant-General Cristino Nicolaides, Admiral Ruben Franco, Brigadier-General Augusto Hughes.
35
36	See UsefulNotes/ArgentinesWithArmoredVehicles for the forces they commanded. See UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar for the war they lost. See UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet for their equally vile neighbor and contemporary. See UsefulNotes/JuanDomingoPeron for their notorious predecessor.
37
38	----
39	%%!!Tropes as portrayed in fiction:
40
41	!!Works featuring The Process include:
42	'''Comic Books'''
43	* ''ComicBook/AnimalUrbano'' is a violent superhero whose OriginStory takes place during the military government. The villains of the stories (written in the 1990s) are usually people who committed crimes back then.
44
45	'''Film -- Live-Action'''
46	* ''Film/{{Azor}}'' a 2021 French-Swiss film. A private Swiss banker disappears in 1980s Argentina, leaving unsavoury rumours in his wake. His business partner goes to replace him and gain the upper hand in the rivalry between them.
47	* The film ''Los rubios'' (The Blonds) is a docudrama showing one woman's quest to uncover what happened to her disappeared family during The Dirty War.
48	* The film ''La Noche de los Lapices'' (Night of the Pencils) follows the famous story of how seven high school students were suddenly abducted, blindfolded, tortured, raped, and ultimately, executed by the dictatorship. Only one of the seven survived to tell the tale and testify against his torturers in court.
49	* ''Chronicle Of An Escape'': A 2006 Argentine film telling the stories of four men who narrowly escape death at the hands of one of the junta's death squads.
50	* The movie ''Kamchatka'' is about a family hiding from the junta in rural Argentina.
51	* ''Imagining Argentina'', starring Antonio Banderas, tells the story of a man who uses his psychic powers to try and locate his disappeared wife, while helping other victims of the junta try and uncover what has happened to their loved ones. It includes some truly ugly torture scenes.
52	* ''Garage Olimpo'' is the story of a dissident journalist captured and tortured at the titular location, one of the juntas most well-known torture sites.
53	* ''A Wall of Silence'' is about a film director whose husband was disappeared under The Process. She struggles to move on, but cannot, while trying to determine what the responsibility of artists is when it comes to representing what happened during The Process.
54	* ''Captive'' (2003) is about a student, Cristina, who discovers that she is one of the children who was kidnapped during The Process and sold off to a wealthy family. She is left trying to find her real relatives, and looking to uncover just how much her adoptive parents really know. Her grandmother is another major character, who has spent sixteen years trying to locate her.
55	* ''Film/TheOfficialStory'' is about an upper-middle class couple who discover that their adopted daughter is the kidnapped child of one of the disappeared. It won several awards.
56	* ''Hermanas'' is about two sisters who flee Argentina during the junta after their father disappears. Eight years later, the girls meet up for the first time and try to rebuild their relationship as the film flashes back to their family's life during The Process.
57	* ''The Lost Steps'': Yet another film dealing with a stolen child, this one has Monica Erigaray discovering that not only is she the granddaughter of a dissident writer, but that the man she believes to be her father was a TortureTechnician known as "The Toad" during the junta.
58	* ''Clandestine Childhood'' is about a married couple of Montoneros who escape the Process and then return to Argentina under assumed names to try and bring the junta down.
59	* ''The Girlfriend'' is about a married couple trying to come to terms with the disappearance of both their son, and the wife's Jewish friend. The wife, Maria, eventually joins the Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo to protest the regime.
60	* ''Veronico Cruz'' is about a rural shepherd boy whose father was disappeared by the regime and who eventually ends up as a sailor during the attack on the Falklands.
61	* ''Film/ElClan'' is about the 1980s scandal of the Puccio family, whose patriarch Arquímedes kidnapped people during the Process, got huge amounts of money for their rescue, and then killed them, keeping it up even after the regime fell and democracy was restored.
62	* ''Film/FrancisPrayForMe'', a biopic of Jorge Bergoglio before becoming pope, has a segment set during the NRP. Yorio and Jalics, two priests close to Bergoglio, were detained at the time, and in recent years a journalist accused Bergoglio of handing them to the military.
63	* ''Film/Argentina1985'', about the Trial of the Juntas that took place in 1985; an unprecedented event in Argentine history only comparable to the Nuremberg Trials.
64
65	'''Literature'''
66	* The novel ''The Islands'' deals with the aftermath of Falklands Islands War. Protagonist Felix is a ShellShockedVeteran, still carrying the baggage of the conflict and what he did under The Process. One of the other characters, the mysterious Major X, is a torturer-turned-would-be-liberator of the islands, who has no regrets about what he did, while Felix's superior officer, Verraco, is a sociopath who has one of his own men tortured to death in much the same way the junta tortured its victims.
67	* The novel ''Malvinas Requiem'' tells the story of a group of soldiers who desert and hide underground as soon as they arrive at the Falklands Islands. The novel sets them up as deliberate counterpoints to the victims of The Process, with the characters engaging in a lengthy discussion of the horrors perpetrated by the junta. "They say there's ten thousand of us on the island" one soldier comments. "They say Videla killed fifteen thousand," another shoots back.
68	* Creator/ChristopherHitchens wrote extensively on the National Reorganization Process, actually interviewing General Videla when it was at its height.
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70	'''Live-Action TV'''
71	* ''Series/HistoriaDeUnClan''
72	* In an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', Brennan and Booth go to Buenos Aires for their honeymoon where Brennan helps another scientist, who is cataloguing a mass grave filled with the bodies of "disappeared" victims. They then stumble onto a body of recently deceased man, [[ArgentinaIsNaziland who is revealed to be Nazi war criminal in the lam]]. At the end, they figure out that [[spoiler: the Argentinian scientist was the Nazi's granddaughter, and after she disavowed him for being a Nazi and he mocked her for being a "half-breed mongrel", she killed him in a fit of rage, claiming that [[DiedLaughing he laughed as she beat him]] with [[NaziGold a gold bar he had been stashing]]]].
73
74	'''Webcomics'''
75	* Webcomic/AquaRegia: This story is set in an alternate timeline where the Process never fell. Add cyborgs to this, and you have a pretty cruel {{dystopia}}.

Context UsefulNotes / NationalReorganizationProcess