Days of Destruction: Political Violence and Its Legacies in Argentina's 'Dirty War'

FAIN: FA-55334-10

James P. Brennan
Regents of the University of California, Riverside (Riverside, CA 92521-0001)

I am seeking an NEH Fellowship to write a book on Argentina's so-called "dirty war" of the 1970s, its causes, character, and consequences. In postwar period, some of the most notorious examples of political violence and human rights abuses took place in Latin America. In Argentina, guerrilla organizations employed violent tactics that counted among their victims, trade union leaders, politicians, businessmen, and military officers. Military governments practiced an even more ruthless state terrorism that led to the death, disappearance, torture, and unlawful arrest of tens of thousands of citizens. In response, vibrant human rights' organizations emerged and adopted novel tactics and organizational forms to confront arbitrary military rule. After Argentina's military government fell in 1983, there occurred some of the most consequential debates about accountability and punishment for the regimes and individuals that perpetrate such crimes.