Dirty War Quotes
The speech was an attempt to justify the Dirty War and the kidnappings, tortures, and killing of many citizens.
Roosevelt was totally wrong on this. The explosion of the Maine which started the Spanish American War was later proved to be an accident,
In the midst of the Argentine Dirty War where the right wing government was murdering and torturing their political enemies of the left, most of the Catholic Church Priests and other Church Authorities had sided with the government and morally overlooked their atrocities and crimes against humanity. Others were fearful as Bishop Enrique Angelelli had been murdered by the military death squads in 1976. Bishop Hesayne was one of the few members of the Church hierarchy who criticized church officials for their silence.
A military junta had seized power because the electorate had elected a President not in military favor.
The admiral, who was the intellectual leader of the junta during the “Dirty War,” confessed to the facts but claimed that the drastic steps were appropriate and necessary. Further, that there was no “guilt” involved in an act of executive necessity. The court did not agree and he was convicted, but was later pardoned along with the other war criminals by President Carlos Menem.
He was finally brought to justice after being protected by the right wing for many years. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. See related quote.
This speech was given before it was discovered that graduates of these programs, particularly, the School of the Americas, were guilty of mass atrocities and dictatorial government such as the Argentinean “Dirty War” in the late 1970s. See also his {631951}
Argentina was in the midst of the Dirty War where the military ran a reign of terror. Anyone who was suspected of opposing the junta was kidnapped, tortured, and often killed secretly. See President Videla: {41563}
A woman whose children were kidnapped and tortured by Argentine government officials during the Dirty War appealed for assistance to the Papal Nuncio. Amnesty International had validated the facts of the case.
Tens of thousands of Government opponents and independent thinkers of all kinds were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Argentina’s Dirty War conducted by the military junta which Videla headed. See {41586}. After democracy was returned to Argentina, he was tried and convicted for murder and other government atrocities committed during his administration. See {41542}.
The school was one of the more notorious concentration camps where tens of thousands of Argentines were tortured and murdered. It was also known as the Argentine Auschwitz.
![La Prensa [Argentina]](https://images.quote.org/63671_La Prensa [Argentina]_0_thumbnail_47x47.jpg){kind=small}
This was three weeks after the coup that began the Dirty War that ended with tens of thousands of Argentines tortured and murdered.
The phrase came to be used to describe conflicts within a country whereby the insurrectionists and the Government forces both used terrorist tactics involving fear, murder, torture and intimidation. The phrase was picked up exactly and translated to Spanish and English to describe, for example, the “Dirty War” in Argentina, when in 1976 a military coup signaled a reign of terror against “subversive” elements.
