Videla believed that the military needed to intervene to restore order and crush subversive elements, particularly the Peronist movement, which he saw as a threat to national security.
The coup was greeted with cautious optimism as many Argentines, tired of political instability and violence under Isabel Perón's presidency, hoped the military would bring an end to the terror.
The U.S. initially backed Videla's junta, viewing him as an anti-communist force during the Cold War. However, under President Jimmy Carter, U.S. support waned due to growing concerns over human rights abuses.
Operation Condor was a secret network among South American dictatorships to coordinate the persecution and elimination of political opponents, including exiles, across national borders.
The junta censored literature, films, and music, banned public gatherings, enforced strict dress codes, and implemented a surveillance program in schools to root out Marxist influence.
ESMA, known as the 'Argentine Auschwitz,' was one of the most notorious secret detention and torture centers, where around 5,000 people were kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared, including more than 30 children born in captivity.
The mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began a silent protest by walking around the pyramid in the Plaza de Mayo, wearing white headscarves to symbolize their missing children. They demanded answers from Videla's regime.
Videla denied the existence of human rights abuses and concentration camps, dismissing international concerns as an 'anti-Argentine campaign' and a 'myth.'
Videla claimed that Argentina was a Western Christian country and that subversion, including promoting ideas against Western and Christian values, was a form of terrorism punishable by disappearance.
Videla's government focused on a free-market economy, abolishing price controls, tariffs, and quotas, and reversing populist redistribution policies to stabilize the economy.
Videla’s dirty war begins. ‘Subversives’ are rooted out, with torture centres established across the land - including one known as the ‘Argentine Auschwitz’. Education, music, children’s books and haircuts are subjected to new regulations. And as the Junta garners international attention, Videla will employ elaborate means to gloss over the atrocities…
A Noiser production, written by John Bartlett.
Many thanks to Edward Brudney, Robert Cox, Marguerite Feitlowitz, Francesca Lessa, Sara Méndez, Ernesto Semán.
This is Part 2 of 4.
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