Abstract
The chapter is devoted to show some particularities of the repressive system during the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983) and to adjust current hypotheses concerning its characteristics, by altering the scale of observation and focusing on the repression dispositif in Northern Patagonia. On the one hand, it rebuts the common sense assumption that “nothing had happened in Patagonia during the 1976 dictatorship” while brings to the fore one pattern of clandestine detention that had been, if not overlooked, at least minimized in comparison with the “clandestine centres of detention” (or “concentration camps”) based on the centre of the country. The proposed scale of observation is considered useful as well as a way to show one further particularity of the dictatorship: the degrees of relative autonomy certain forces or police/security institutions had between 1976 and 1983, when the Armed Forces were in command of the national government and its legal and illegal repressive plans.
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Notes
- 1.
My use of dispositif here follows the lines of Michel Foucault, signifying a heterogeneous set of discourses, institutions and buildings, legal decisions, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical and moral claims; a network of discursive and non discursive practices. “[a] species – so to speak – that is being formed and the main function of which is, at a given historical moment, to respond to an emergency” (Foucault 1984, 124). To what extent thinking about repression in terms of this conceptual framework alters our understanding of it? True, it does not do so radically, but it demands that we bear in mind that the execution of the repressive programme consisted of much more than a sum of institutions—which by the way were themselves repressive by nature. In a way it was a network, and its threads were not only these institutions—whose practices and knowledge had to be adapted to the function—but also discourses and meanings as well, a whole network of relations that, more than giving it freedom to, became part of its actions.
- 2.
Cf. Directiva del Consejo de Defensa 1/75 “Fight against subversion” Henceforth Directive 1/75.
- 3.
The “Informative Community” consisted of meetings of varying frequency in which representatives of all security forces (Army, Gendarmerie, provincial police, Federal Police and State Service of Intelligence—SIDE) exchanged the information that they had obtained.
- 4.
Raúl Guglielminetti was a fundamental piece of the repressive machinery in this region. His action illustrates the close link between the state and parastatal action of the repression dispositif, both before and during the dictatorship. During his stay in the region, while he worked for the Army as Civil Intelligence Staff (PCI Personal Civil de Inteligencia), in the Destacamento de Inteligencia 182 Neuquén from late December 1970 till May 1976, he played a multiplicity of roles. In all the country, he was known as a member of the Batallón de Inteligencia 601 and through his involvement in crimes against humanity in Argentina and in Latin America. Raúl Guglielminetti (or “mayor Guastavino”, as he used to be called) has now become one of the icons of the systematic repression programme in the region (Scatizza 2017).
- 5.
Even today—2018—in the city of Neuquén, trials are taking place for crimes against humanity in the region. The main trial—from which subsidiary trials have emerged—is the “Expte 8736/05, Reinhold, Oscar Lorenzo y otros s/Delitos c/la libertad y otros” in the Federal Court of Justice N° 2 Neuquén (henceforth Causa Reinhold). Some of these trials are complete, and others are standing. The main documentary corpus of my analysis is precisely this case. The trial began in 2005, based on previous juridical investigations from 1984, which were suspended by virtue of the Law 23492 called “Ley de Punto Final” in 1986. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed a sentence that declared this law and other “impunity laws” (such as the “Ley de Obediencia Debida”) invalid and inconstitutional. In many parts of the country, the federal courts advanced previous investigations, this time towards prosecutions on charges of “crimes against humanity” of the members responsible for the state terrorism.
- 6.
Henceforth U9.
- 7.
The Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (Workers Revolutionary Party) and its armed branch, the ERP Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People’s Revolutionary Army) was a revolutionary Marxist group. Together with Montoneros (connected to peronismo), they fought for control of power between late 1960s and early 1970s. Their structures were practically decimated by the time the Armed Forces assumed power in March 1976 and annihilated in the first months of the military government. (There is abundant literature about both organizations, most of it in Spanish; Mattini 1995; Gillespie 1982; Plis-Sterenberg 2006.)
- 8.
Puebladas (from “pueblo”, people in broad sense) is a term meaning a series of massive popular uprisings in different parts of the country in this period, usually led by sectors of the local bourgeoisie, supported by middle classes and popular sectors. Not necessarily of a revolutionary character but meant to preserve the statu quo, these uprisings lasted a few days or even a few weeks.
- 9.
Henceforth CDC.
- 10.
Henceforth CCD.
- 11.
I shall insist on this idea, even though I have in mind the need to discuss and critically approach the concept of “concentration camp” for the case of Argentina, in comparative historical perspective with other historical experiences such as Nazism or Franquism. Such discussion, however, is not the topic of this article.
- 12.
Cf. Inquiry statement by Adel Vilas before the Federal Camera in Bahía Blanca, 1987.
- 13.
Not only did the annihilation decrees determine the subordination of the police forces to the Armed Forces, but the later Directive 404/75 was even more precise in this respect; it stated that “the police means taking part in an operation shall remain under direct control of the military authority”, and that “in the course of their specific missions, the police force shall execute such actions against subversion […] that the corresponding military authority require” (14).
- 14.
Clear examples are the cases of the Pailos siblings; Juan Domingo, Julio Eduardo and Jorge Adolfo, as well as the case of Ricardo Novero, Raúl Sotto and Oscar Contreras. They were repeatedly tortured and permanently threatened with death by the police agents Antonio Camarelli, Saturnino Martínez, Miguel Angel Quiñones, among others. These policemen were finally found guilty of these crimes (cf. “Causa Castelli”, Tribunal Oral Federal en lo Criminal Neuquén, September 2016).
- 15.
Santiago Garaño and Werner Pertot (2007) have contributed to this comprehensiveness and complexity. In their Detenidos-Aparecidos. Presas y presos políticos desde Trelew a la dictadura, they analysed the connection between prisons and clandestine centres of detention, which together shaped the “concentrationary experience”.
- 16.
Cf. Prudencio García (1995) for further possible degrees of autonomy that the repressive forces could have acquired (or not), such as “economic autonomy”, “institutional autonomy”, “doctrinal autonomy” or others.
- 17.
- 18.
This relative independence of the PFA also existed in relation to the Judicial Power. For instance, people whom they intended to arrest or to interrogate for some reason were falsely accused of storing and using drugs, or they were unjustly incorporated in standing legal processes for drug-related crime (Scatizza 2017).
- 19.
Directive of the General Commander of the Army N° 404/75, “Fight against Subversion”; Directive of the Counsel of Defence N° 1/75 “Fight against Subversion”; Regulation RC-16-5-“Unit of Intelligence” (1973).
- 20.
Fiscal request of Trial in the “Causa Reinhold”, 2011.
- 21.
I thank my colleague Fernando Lizarraga for an illuminating discussion on this issue.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the editors of this volume and the Legislature of Neuquén Province as well the Deliberative Council of Neuquén for the financial support to attend the conference that originated this book at UCL. I also thank Ana María Oliva for the proofreading of this article.
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Scatizza, P. (2020). Anti-subversive Repression and Dictatorship in Argentina: An Approach from Northern Patagonia. In: Grigera, J., Zorzoli, L. (eds) The Argentinian Dictatorship and its Legacy. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18301-1_3
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