Argentina’s Dictatorship Was Not a “Dirty War.” It Was State Terrorism.
Argentina’s 1976–1983 military dictatorship relied on widespread torture and disappearances to eradicate all political opponents, real or imagined. Seeking to conceal the junta regime’s one-sided terror, the Right still refers to those years as a “dirty war.” But the only accurate way to describe the dictatorship is as a period of “state terrorism.”
Grandmothers of the disappeared at Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Argentina during the “Dirty War.”
In the United States and across much of the Anglophone world, the term “dirty war” has become a mainstream label to describe the years of dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. From the White House to the academy to the international press, the term has been picked up as a political shorthand for those dark years when state repression, kidnapping, and all manner of human rights abuses were used by the state to maintain its military-backed power.
But to what extent is the term “dirty war” an accurate one? To what extent is it neutral? With the implication of having two warring sides, each attacking the other with, if not equal force, then at least some comparable strength, the term implies a very different power dynamic than that which existed during the years of Argentina’s dictatorship. Sometimes extended to describe other violent regimes in the Southern Cone as well, the term distorts the truth of South American history more broadly, even if some may use the term naively. Understanding the history of the term “dirty war,” and the ideological and political positions that underpin it, will help us to discard it altogether and reach for language that better describes the one-sided murderousness of the regime that took power by coup in 1976.
War, What War?
It is historically inaccurate to describe the years of dictatorship in Argentina as a dirty war. There were no two sides vying for control over territory, nor was there a professional army (hidden or not) to rival the state’s forces, be they the official armed forces, the police, or various paramilitary formations.
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