A Foundation of Terror: Tucumán and the Proceso, 1975–1983

Abstract

The chapter examines the origins and practices of the army’s counterinsurgency program in Tucumán, known as Operation Independence. This counterinsurgency is notable for having commenced over a year before the coup d’état on March 24, 1976, during the democratically elected presidency of Isabel Perón. While the essay notes the similarities between the state terror campaigns in the province and the nation as a whole, it argues that there were fundamental differences that marked Tucumán’s experience as notably distinct. This includes the indiscriminate targeting of the civilian population and the launching of an ambitious nation-building campaign to transform the rural poor’s culture and political identities. While the lessons of Operation Independence became a foundation for the “Proceso,” its peculiarities warrant its conceptualization as a distinct chapter in the grim history of Argentina’s last dictatorship.