The Guerra sucia (The Dirty War) began on March 24, 1976, when the ruling military junta imposed a state of martial law. Headed by Generals Videla, Viola, and Galtieri, the authorities used extreme terrorist tactics to silence their opponents. Today, the number of lives the government claimed is unclear. At least nine thousand deaths have been confirmed, and it is believed that the real number is much higher. Some human rights groups have estimated the total as high as over thirty thousand.

In 1983, after the fall of the military dictatorship, the new Argentine president, Raúl Alfonsín, created a fact-finding commission to investigate human rights abuses and uncover the fate of the desaparecidos (missing persons). Headed by the influential Argentine writer, Ernesto Sábato, the commission produced a document titled Nunca más (Never Again) which revealed some of the most atrocious human crimes conceivable. The commission discovered that the Argentine military had carried out a deliberate campaign of terror, with systematic rituals of kidnapping, torture, detention, and execution. Secret police abducted their victims at night, ransacking their homes and seizing them in front of their families. They took the captives to secret locations throughout the city, where they subjected them to extreme forms of torture. In one abhorrent practice, known as “submarine,” they covered prisoners’ heads with hoods and submerged them in water to the point of unconsciousness. Psychological torture and sexual abuse ran rampant. Those prisoners who survived the ordeal were taken to detention centers where they endured substandard medical care and unhygienic conditions. The final step involved ritualized execution by death squads and burial in unmarked graves that the victims were forced to dig, or tied up victims flown out to sea and thrown into the ocean. The “disappeared” caused further torment to their family and friends who never knew their fate. This system of oppression, which controlled society through extreme terrorist tactics, stands as one the most notorious cases of human rights abuse in recent history.

Although few Argentines had the courage to resist, a group of courageous mothers who had lost their loved ones in the Dirty War held weekly Thursday vigils in the Plaza de Mayo. Their public protest called international attention to the plight of the desaparecidos. As tensions mounted, the military regime appealed to nationalist sentiments by invading the nearby Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands), which, since 1833, had fallen under the disputed territorial ownership of the British. This move resulted in a humiliating defeat, with a death toll of thousands of British and Argentine lives. After the fiasco, the military had no other choice than to agree to free elections. With the restoration of democracy under President Raúl Alfonsín (1983–1989), the Argentine people demanded justice. They established public tribunals that convicted Generals Videla, Viola, and Galtieri. Weekly vigils in the Plaza de Mayo continue to this day.