The clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers were secret facilities (ie, black sites) used by the Armed, Security and Police Forces of Argentina to torture, interrogate, rape, illegally detain and murder people. The first ones were installed in 1975, during the constitutional government of Isabel Perón. Their number and use became generalized after the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, when the National Reorganization Process took power, to execute the systematic plan of enforced disappearance of people during the Dirty War. With the fall of the dictatorship and the assumption of the democratic government of Raúl Alfonsín on December 10, 1983, the CCDs ceased to function, although there is evidence that some of them continued to operate during the first months of 1984.
The Armed Forces classified the CCDs into two types:
Definitive Place (in Spanish: Lugar Definitivo, LD): they had a more stable organization and were prepared to house, torture and murder large numbers of detainees. Temporary Place (in Spanish: Lugar Transitorio, LT): they had a precarious infrastructure and were intended to function as a first place to house the detainees-disappeared.
The plan of the de facto government, which exercised power in Argentina between March 24, 1976, and December 10, 1983, the clandestine centers were part of the plan to eliminate political dissidence. Similar operations were carried out in other countries in the region, with the express support of the US government, interested in promoting at all costs the control of communism and other ideological currents opposed to its side in the Cold War. According to data from 2006, there were 488 places used for the kidnapping of victims of State terrorism, plus another 65 in the process of revision that could enlarge the list. In 1976 there were as many as 610 CCDTyE, although many of them were temporary and circumstantial.
Argentina hosted over 520 clandestine detention centers during the course Dirty War. There was no standard for the location, torture methods, or leadership of detention centers, but they all operated on the purpose of political opposition, punishing prisoners suspected to be involved in socialism or other forms of political dissent. Little information is known about the true nature of the centers during their operation, due to the mass murder of inmates to maintain secrecy.
General overview The use of detention centers in the Dirty War, the period of state terrorism in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, caused immense fear for victims throughout the country. After being kidnapped and interrogated, the prisoners would be subjected to the harsh and overcrowded conditions of the various detention centers. Once the kidnapped were forced into detention, they effectively disappeared, becoming los desaparecidos. While there was no standard for detention centers, all of them incorporated a torture room. Physical torture was combined with emotional torture, with prisoners humiliated and dehumanized by the hands of the leaders; prisoners also lost basic human rights, unable to talk, shower, eat, and sleep.
The first CCD were installed in 1975, before the military coup of March 24, 1976. In that year La Escuelita in Famaillá (Tucumán) and El Campito (in Campo de Mayo, province of Buenos Aires) were already in operation. Also in 1975 a CCD operated in the Acindar plant in Villa Constitución, presided over by José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, as part of the repressive structure organized to contain the strike declared by the UOM union in May of that year.
In 1976 there were 610 CCDs, but many of them were temporary and circumstantial. After the first months following the coup d'état, the number stabilized at 364 CCDs. In 1977 the number was reduced to 60. In 1978 there were 45 CC, and by 1979 the number of centers reached 7. In 1980 there were only two left: ESMA and El Campito (Campo de Mayo). In 1982 and 1983 ESMA was the only concentration camp still in use.
In Buenos Aires there were 60 centers, 59 in the province of Córdoba and 22 in Santa Fe. Five large centers were the axis of the whole system: ESMA and Club Atlético in the City of Buenos Aires; El Campito (Campo de Mayo) and El Vesubio in Greater Buenos Aires (Province of Buenos Aires); and Perla in Córdoba.
Despite their differences, the CCDs were organized with a similar structure and operating regime. All the CCDs had one or more torture rooms, large spaces to keep the disappeared in very precarious conditions, and a housing center for the torturers and guards. Almost all of them had some kind of medical service. In some cases there were permanent religious services for military personnel.
The Task Groups (in Spanish: Grupos de Tareas, GT, also known as "patotas") were in charge of carrying out the kidnappings, generally at night. The disappeared detainees were immediately taken to the corresponding CCD, where they were constantly hooded and handcuffed. They were immediately severely tortured and interrogated by the GT members themselves. The length of this initial period of torture varied considerably, but in general terms it could be considered to be between one and two months. After this initial period of torture-interrogation, they would be held for one to two months:
Murder of the detainee-disappeared. In all the CCDs the same euphemism was used to refer to the murder of the detainee-disappeared: "the transfer" (in Spanish: "el traslado"). The methods used for the murder and disappearance of the corpses ranged from the so-called death flights, mass shootings, mass graves, "NN" graves, incineration of corpses, etc. Blanqueo: the detainee-disappeared was legalized and placed at the disposal of the National Executive Power. From 1980 onwards, this situation could lead to deportation and exile, through the use of the constitutional option (Art. 23), or to prosecution by military tribunals and prison sentences. Freedom. Continuity as a detainee-disappeared for various reasons (as slaves, collaborators, hostages, etc.).
During their permanence in the CCD, the detainees-disappeared were systematically dehumanized through various means: substitution of a number for their name, rape, animalization, humiliation, overcrowding, intolerable housing conditions, isolation, forced nudity, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, etc.
There was also a common policy and procedure for disappeared detainees who were pregnant. In this case, the murder was postponed and a clandestine childbirth took place with the suppression of the identity of the baby, who was handed over to people closely linked to the repressive system, and in some cases participants in the murder of the biological father and/or mother.
On December 1, 1977, the newspaper Clarín published an article entitled "La ardua recuperación" (The hard recovery) in which it extensively describes the visit of a group of journalists, invited by the Army, to a detention center that it does not identify, where they interviewed several detainees, whom it does not identify either and that it describes as "extremists who surrendered voluntarily". The article is accompanied by a photograph in which a young woman can be seen with her back turned sitting at a table, with a caption that reads:One of the detainees, in one of the reading rooms of the establishment, where they serve their sentence.Clarín never explained the details of the article, nor did it make itself available to the courts to verify whether the persons interviewed were disappeared, as well as which was the detention center visited by its journalists and whether the military officers involved may have been committing crimes against humanity. Researcher Marcelo Borrelli of the University of Buenos Aires analyzed the publication and maintains that "it seemed to have been written by the military intelligence services". He details the discursive mechanisms of the newspaper to praise the system of reclusion of the "extremists" who surrendered voluntarily and the distinction between "the two youths", on the one hand the "lost" youth who had political concerns and affective traumas of family origin, and on the other hand the apolitical youth, entirely dedicated to excel in their profession.
At the end of the Dirty War and a change in government, prisoners were released on the street, blindfolded, with the torturers' identities kept a secret.
Torture
Beginning as early as 1976, people suspected of being involved in political opposition to the Argentinian regime were kidnapped from homes and public places and brought to detention centers. Once these prisoners were brought to the respective camp, methods varied towards the type and severity of the torture. A New York Times article written on October 4, 1976, shares the experience of a victim who was blindfolded, hit, and forced to be nude. These initial conditions were meant to scare the victims into revealing socialist secrets. This was followed with a process of interrogation and more intrusive torture methods. Accounts of sexual abuse, cigarette burns, and electric shocks were common during these eight years of victimization. Methods as extreme as throwing prisoners out of airplanes were employed to terrify victims witnessing the executions.
As more political opponents were captured and tortured, there was no government opposition to the human rights violations that were transpiring. Most victims and their families remained silent to avoid further persecution. However, there was a movement called the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) that began in 1977, a year after the beginning of the Dirty War. These mothers marched along the Argentinian government, participating in nonviolent protests to fight for the return of their children. Unlike the tangible torture that the kidnapped felt, the pain of the mothers in this movement was expressed through their actions. In many ways, this can be seen as a form of torture, the torture that the Mothers could not have their beloved children back in their lives. Some mothers would protest for the rest of their lives, refusing to give up on their child's memory.
US involvement in Argentina The United States, through its covert CIA and other intelligence agencies, has declassified certain documents that prove their knowledge of Operation Condor during the 1970s. Operation Condor is an umbrella operation of the CIA, in which six Latin American countries banded together to remove all potential political opponents in the Southern Cone. The Dirty War connects as a specific event to the larger Operation Condor.
In a conversation between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and many of his colleagues, one of them argues that the Argentinian junta was overdoing the control it had over its citizens. Kissinger remarks that the treatment and policy of detention centers are, in fact, good for United States interests while also stating that this junta will need "a little encouragement from [the United States]" to pursue its efforts.
Kissinger spoke openly to the leaders of Operation Condor and supported their efforts; he believed that "the quicker you succeed, the better." Kissinger shows the tolerance of the United States regarding the pain and torture of other people in other nations held both inside and outside the detention centers. He has also been described as giving the "green light" to the torturers. Many of the leaders of America during this time had a similar train of thought.