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Amnesty Vs. Justice: The Dirty War

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Rebekah Sheridan
12/16/15
Amnesty vs Justice

Ernest Hemingway once said, “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” There has been many wars throughout history that innocent people or victims have suffered from. A well-known example is World War II, where the Jews or anyone who helped the Jews got tortured and killed in the concentration camps, because Adolf Hitler and the Nazis blamed Jews for everything like losing World War I and economic crisis the country faced. Hitler scapegoated them for the country’s issues and made them “pay” for it. In my opinion, this is the kind of war that are extremely inhumane and “dirty”. The Dirty War of Argentina and Chile was a very dark time in Latin American history. …show more content…

The tables turned after President Juan Peron died in July 1974 and his wife, Isabell Peron became the new President. She will always be reminisced by her tacit support of an anti-guerrilla death squad known as the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance). This organization was secretly led by José López Rega, Minister of Social Welfare and personal secretary of Juan Perón. He opposed the Peronist left and other leftist organizations. The AAA acted against a wide range of government opponents, not just communists. The guerrillas responded to the Triple A's atrocities with their own campaign of terror, killing hundreds, including innocent bystanders. By 1976, Argentina seemed to be in its deepest state yet. Due to immense civil unrest and inflation running at 600 percent, the military stepped into politics yet again with public support. Little did people know that the worst was yet to come. On March 24, 1976 a military junta led by Gen Jorge Videla seized power on the country, in response to a period of political instability and growing violence. This made it easy for him to seize power due to the unstable condition of the country. The military's aim was to wipe out left-wing terrorism - but the terror carried out by the state exceeded anything previously seen in Argentina. Between 10,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared before Argentina returned to civilian rule with the election of President Raul Alfonsin in October

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