La Guerra Sucia

Last year in Spanish class we read a fictional book called La Guerra Sucia, which is about an American journalist and Argentine family affected by the Dirty War. The journalist is assigned the task of reporting on rumored disappearances of civilians in Argentina. She receives some documents, which include a letter written by an Argentine mother. In the letter, the mother pleads to journalists to help her find her missing son, who is a student. The journalist meets with the mother and hears about the missing son. The mother takes the American to the Plaza de Mayo, where mothers and grandmothers of disappeared people gather with white scarves and pictures to protest in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace. The apartment of the son is a complete mess because of the state officials' searches. The journalist conducts an interview with a colonel associated with the government and asks about los desaparecidos, and the officer denies any disappearances. One day, the missing son escapes from captivity and meets his mother and the journalist. He talks about what happened. After putting some puzzles together, the journalist gets to know ESMA (Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada or Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy), although she does not know what it is exactly. She visits the place and happens to witness torture through a window showing the basement. But she is caught by the same colonel that she had interviewed, and afterwards we never hear of her in the book.

ESMA was used as an illegal, secret detention center during the Dirty War. It was the largest of its kind and committed approximately one-sixth of the total murders during the eight-year period of state terrorism. One killing method was death flights, in which conscious victims were pushed out of moving planes. As a result, numerous bodies of victims washed up on beaches hundreds of kilometers south of Buenos Aires. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a big association that is still active to this day. The dynamic force created by the women has been very significant and brave, considering the traditional limitations on women and motherhood in Latin America (reminds me of Ursula). Right now, efforts to punish those who had roles in the Dirty War and to find the biological parents of illegally adopted children are going on.