Overseas Interventions by the United States: part three
Nicaragua and Argentina
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is a country whose relations with the U.S. stretch back many years. The United States occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933. During World War II, Nicaragua offered a second line of defence for the Panama Canal, protecting American control of the isthmus and shipping by allowing the U.S. to build a canal in the event of possible trouble in Panama. Nicaragua was ruled for decades by the Somoza family. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, a West Point graduate, was a loyal ally to the United States during the Cold War. The Somoza regime centralised power and wealth into the hands of a tiny, loyal elite who maintained control of virtually all aspects of Nicaraguan economic and political life with an iron fist; this included industry, banking, the judiciary, the press, and the infamous National Guard.[1] With U.S. support, the regime prospered while the majority of Nicaraguans struggled and the Somoza government was hugely unpopular as a result.[2] The U.S. has important military bases there, from which Washington launched the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba in 1961, military operations that led to the removal of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and the intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965. In 1952, Truman held a state dinner for Somoza during which the Nicaraguan leader offered to help overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala if the U.S. would provide the necessary arms.[3] The eventual overthrow of Arbenz was conducted by CIA mercenaries who departed from Nicaragua and Honduras backed by U.S. air support and Somoza was a reliable informant to the U.S. during the Guatemala coup in 1954.[4]
The World Bank lent generously to Nicaragua under the Somozas, despite flagrant human rights violations and widespread corruption. Between 1951 and 1956 Nicaragua received nine World Bank loans. By 1976, U.S. economic aid to Nicaragua, through bilateral and multilateral means, reached more than $100 million. [cadtm ref]
Under Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the National Guard engaged in widespread torture, rape, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and persecution of political opponents and civilians, some of whom were executed.[5] Trained in the U.S. and at American facilities in Panama, the National Guard functions both as a police force and the military, and with U.S. funding, training and weapons they would evolve into “the most powerful military force in Central America” according to the Washington Post.[6] The origins and function of the National Guard in Nicaragua are remarkably similar to the SAVAK in Iran, under the Shah, who were also backed by U.S. training, support and funding. The Somoza family accumulated wealth through bribery, land confiscation and by embezzling foreign aid after a devastating earthquake in 1972 but their violent and corrupt 43-year rule had left the majority of the population poor and disenfranchised.[7] Regardless of his heinous actions, Washington stood by Somoza as he had been loyal ally against communism.[8] An uprising formed against Somoza and his authoritarian rule, as armed rebels started taking hostages and eventually fled north where they fought ongoing battles with the National Guard. Farmers, students, the Catholic church, and many others turned against Somoza, in response people sympathetic to the rebels were tortured, raped, and executed by the National Guard.[9] When women staged a mild protest using pots and pans to make dissenting noise the Guard deployed tear gas to silence them. In 1978, in the city of Masaya, a week-long protest ended with the Guard opening fire on crowds and killing 40 people as a result.[10] Initially, the U.S. stood by Somoza, granting substantial loans for “social projects” even when they knew about the ongoing violence and unrest but eventually President Jimmy Carter demanded that human rights abuses stop otherwise all aid and support from Washington would cease.
In 1979, a popular uprising would spell the end of Somoza’s reign when the Sandinistas, a broad coalition of disaffected groups in Nicaragua, came to power in the Nicaraguan Revolution. It is estimated that some 50,000 people died during the revolution in order to defeat the National Guard and remove Somoza from power.[11] The Sandinistas immediately implemented radical, top-down change in the country including land reform, controlling imports, and nationalising various parts of the economy, including the banking sector.[12] [13] To prevent the new Sandinista regime from allying with Cuba and the Soviet Union, President Jimmy Carter sent generous aid to Managua. However, as part of their reforms, the Sandinistas made formal agreements with the Soviet Union and Cuba. After the brutal reign of violence and repression under the Somoza’s, the Sandinistas wanted a break from their violent past and, crucially, that meant an end to America’s interference in their country. They had grand desires of sovereignty and wanted a mixed economy with the right amount of state control, the goal was that wealth and prosperity would be evenly distributed throughout the country. Washington was not impressed; a key strategic alliance, that was decades in the making, was falling apart before its eyes, furthermore those in the Reagan administration feared that the Sandinista revolution would spread to El Salvador.
The U.S. now had a problem; a key ally in Somoza had been removed and a regime sympathetic to the Soviet Union and Cuba had been installed. America was also not happy with the arms trafficking by the Sandinistas to rebels in El Salvador. Ronald Reagan instructed the CIA to start funding and supplying the Contras, a group that formed in opposition to the Sandinistas comprised of what was left of the National Guard and Somoza loyalists, and a war soon erupted in the central American nation, called the Contra War. Reagan suspended aid to Nicaragua and backed the Contras earnestly, providing them with tens of millions of dollars every year, a group that would, in time, go onto to commit countless acts of violence and terror against the Nicaraguan people. Human Rights Watch states that the Contras “were major and systemic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflicts”. Among their crimes includes unprovoked attacks on civilians, selectively targeting and murdering non-combatants.[14]
The Contras received training, funding, weapons, and support from the United States. Under the junta regime, Argentina decided to assist America in training the Contras, in order to repair relations with the United States which had been strained under the Carter administration, with much of the training taking place in neighbouring Honduras.[15] In November 1981, the CIA Director William Casey met with the Argentine military and they purportedly agreed that Argentina would oversee the Contras with Washington providing money and weapons with President Reagan sanctioning $19 million to fund the Contras. Emboldened by U.S. and Argentine support, recruitment increased and the scope of the Contras’ operations grew considerably; they began a targeted campaign to destroy public infrastructure such as clinics, schools, cooperatives, power stations, and even whole villages, essentially making the country ungovernable.[16] They engaged in murder, torture, and other forms of violent repression as they went along as well.[17] Much of this was confirmed by John R. Stockwell, one of the highest-ranking CIA officers who, after leaving the organisation, went public with a lot of revelations about the real nature of CIA’s involvement across the world, Nicaragua included. Stockwell claims that considerable infrastructure was constructed in Honduras to assist the U.S. and the Contras with their operations in Nicaragua, including a dozen bases, 8 airstrips, hundreds of planes and approximately 30,000 troops all stationed in Honduras.[18]
The CIA led the recruitment initiative for the Contras, enlisting mercenary guerrilla forces and over time the CIA would go on to provide millions of dollars to the Contras. The CIA, along with the U.S. military, led an operation to blow-up two bridges in Nicaragua and to mine the Corinto harbour as well, in a bid to slow down trade in the country by disrupting petroleum and cotton imports into Nicaragua.[19]
A bill passed down from Congress in 1983, called the Boland Amendment, prohibited CIA involvement in Nicaragua and referred to “the C.I.A. [having] armed, clothed, fed and supervised the contras”.[20] In a bid to disrupt the Sandinistas, Reagan ignored the report and the CIA continued assisting the Contras. Manuals circulated by the CIA contained advice on how to create civil disruptions and how to create Molotov cocktails and use fuel tanks as weapons. Other pamphlets instructed the guerrillas to target high ranking judges, police and other state officials for assassination.[21] In a rather embarrassing segment, Ronald Reagan was forced to publicly address these manuals in the 1985 presidential debates with Walter Mondale.
According to declassified CIA documents, covert activities in Nicaragua included political action, paramilitary action, propaganda, and civic action.[22] As with previous overseas interventions, such as in Iran and Guatemala, the CIA engaged in a targeted propaganda campaign, this time domestically, with CIA propaganda op-ed pieces written and published in The New York Times and Washington Post.[23] Called ‘white propaganda’ the stories exaggerated the threat to the U.S. and spoke of the Contras as “freedom fighters”.
In the mid-80s, explosive reports surfaced claiming that the Contras were linked to drug trafficking in the United States. The CIA worked alongside a well-known Honduran drug trafficker, Alan Hyde, whose extensive trade routes and storage facilities in the Caribbean Sea the U.S. had used to smuggle arms to the Contras. The problem was that Hyde was using these shipping lanes to smuggle crack cocaine into the U.S., principally Los Angeles, when the CIA were informed that he was a renowned cocaine dealer they turned a blind eye and ignored the claims.[24] Pilots would transport arms and other military hardware from the U.S. to the Contras and then drugs on the return flight back to America. Profits from the drug sales were used to fund the Contras. The extent to which the CIA was complicit in the drug network is a hugely controversial issue to this day (several investigations concluded that the allegations were unfounded) despite considerable evidence to the contrary, much of which comes from former CIA agents themselves.
Among these is David MacMichael, a former CIA agent turned whistleblower who explained the relationship between CIA activity in Latin America and the drug trade: "Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it's very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips. By developing a system for the supply of the Contras, the U.S. built a road for drug supply into the US."[57] John Stockwell insists that planes from Honduras were flying into CIA training centres in Florida, Louisiana and Alabama regularly.[25]
In 1984, with the approval of President Reagan, three Nicaraguan harbours were mined, damaging several large vessels and outright destroying smaller fishing boats, leading to significant disruption in Nicaragua and an international outcry. The plan was hatched by the CIA along with National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane. Shortly after, Nicaragua brought a case to the International Court of Justice alleging that the United States had violated international law with flagrant interference in their domestic affairs. Nicaragua won the case but what followed can only be described as a farce; the United States somehow concluded that the International Court of Justice had no jurisdiction over its affairs and vetoed the decision to pay reparations to Nicaragua at the UN General Assembly.
Human Rights Watch formally declared that the Contras were a United States operated group, who owed its existence to Washington, calling it a “U.S. sponsored and funded guerrilla force notorious for its human rights abuses.”[26] Former CIA operative John Stockwell echoes these sentiments, he maintains that the Contras would not have been able to wage a war without American money, support and training. He says, rather bluntly, that:
“We created this force, it did not exist until we allocated money. We’ve armed them, put uniforms on their backs, boots on their feet, given them camps in Honduras to live in, medical supplies, doctors, training, leadership, direction, as we’ve sent them in to destabilize Nicaragua.”[27]
Ronald Reagan famously described the Contras as “freedom fighters”, I am not sure how blowing up granaries and bridges and terrorizing whole villages constitutes fighting for freedom, I guess I will just have to keep an open mind regarding that.[28] He cited the smuggling and trafficking of arms by the Sandinistas into El Salvador, an allegation that remains tenuous to this day, one that is also highly ironic given the revelations in the Iran-Contra affair. He also claimed that the Sandinistas were smuggling drugs into America but the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), no less, denied this and said that the Contras were responsible for the drug trafficking. When After he assumed the presidency in 1989, George H. W. Bush continued to defend the Contras publicly and provide assistance to the rebel group.
Ultimately, the Contras made little progress in their attempt to take back Nicaragua and were largely confined to the border regions with Honduras. When American support ended, the Contras accepted a peace deal and quickly dissolved thereafter. Nicaragua is another poor country with little in the way of geopolitical agency that was destabilised by the United States and the regimes it supported, whilst the Contra War itself would not have been possible without U.S. assistance.
Argentina
Under the leadership of Juan Peron, Argentina prospered and state investment in public utilities and nationwide infrastructure provided solid foundations for economic growth, higher living standards and increased prosperity soon followed.[1] However, in 1976, the junta seized power from Isabel Peron in a coup and Jorge Rafael Videla assumed power.[2] The Argentine military had the backing of the Gerald Ford administration in Washington and the CIA as well as Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The rise of Martinez de Hoz, as Minister of the Economy, under the military-backed junta, and the policies he enacted represented a transfer of wealth and resources from the people back to the elites and ruling class. Many high-ranking U.S. officials such as Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller made no secret of their admiration for Hoz and supported his administration and their policies throughout. State Department documents obtained in 2003 by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act show that in October 1976 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other high-ranking U.S. officials gave their full support to the Argentine military junta before the coup and urged them to hurry up and finish their actions before the Congress cut military aid.[3] Kissinger was warned by Assistant Secretary of State William Rogers that the regime of Videla’s junta would result in violence and killing. Carlos Osorio, a U.S. National Security Archive Analyst no less, says of the United States’ role in the Videla dictatorship that: "The U.S. knowingly supported a national security doctrine that disregarded all civilized norms and any adherence to human rights, and tens of thousands of Argentines paid the ultimate price."[4]
Within a year of the coup, economic conditions in Argentina declined rapidly. Wages lost 40% of their value, factories closed and poverty spiralled out of control. Clean water was increasingly harder to come by and preventable disease ran rampant.[5] By the time the 80s began, the Argentine economy was in freefall. But the economic decline pails into insignificance when measured against the decline in human rights and civil liberties under the junta.
Under the junta, state terrorism became the norm and torture, violence, kidnappings, and other acts of political repression were commonplace. Targets included social workers, students, trade unionists, writers, journalists, artists, and anyone suspected to be a dissident or opposed to the junta. The military junta provided a brutal public demonstration of both its force and its intentions by tying a man to the 67.5m high Obelisk, one of Buenos Aires’ most prominent landmarks, leaving him hanging and then machine-gunning him to death in plain sight.[6] Robert C. Hill, the American ambassador in Buenos Aires, tried his best to prevent the junta from engaging in human rights abuses during the Dirty War, despite Kissinger’s opposition to Hill’s stance. In one particularly disturbing case, the son of an embassy employee was kidnapped and never seen again.
As in Chile under Pinochet, kidnappings were a regular occurrence under the junta and, once taken, these prisoners were mercilessly tortured at camps throughout across the country.[7] The police would enter crowded city buses and forcefully remove people against their will.
The junta and their policies would eventually push more than half the population below the poverty line and according to one prominent journalist, Rodolfo Walsh, Buenos Aires had been turned into a shanty town of 10 million people. Walsh, you campaigned vigorously against the junta’s brutality was murdered in a gun fight with the military. His body incinerated and dumped into a river.[8] During the nine years of terror by the junta, it has been estimated that anything up to 30,000 people were captured and never seen again.[9] Among them, 250 children under the age of 18 were tortured some of the victims were as young as 13.[10] Called the “los desaparecidos” (“the missing ones”), many kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and then thrown alive into the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires.[11] Assassinations were also carried out via mass shootings and the throwing of people from airplanes into the South Atlantic. State Department documents reveal that 55 people per month were kidnapped and that 80% of those kidnapped and tortured had no knowledge or history of subversive activity.[12] It is believed that Argentina had 340 concentration camps around the country and that 12,000 prisoners were held without receiving a proper legal hearing. The U.S. State Department knew full well that it wasn’t just political dissidents who were targeted but a much broader list including labour leaders, workers, the clergy, human rights advocates, scientists, and doctors.[13] The kinds of tactics used for torture and interrogation were also well known: a horrific list comprising of electric shocks, sexual abuse, removal of teeth and fingernails, castration, and burning with boiling water, acid, and oil.
The infamous Nights of the Pencils operation occurred when, following peaceful protests demanding school and political reforms, armed men from the Buenos Aires Provincial Police arrived at houses around La Plata and dragged away 10 people, a mixture of men and women some as young as 16. The group were beaten, tortured, raped, and murdered with only four of them surviving the ordeal the fate of the remaining six has never been disclosed. One of the survivors, Emilce Moler, recounted: "They tortured us with profound sadism. I remember being naked. I was just a fragile small girl of about 1.5 m and weighed about 47kg, and I was beaten senseless by what I judged was a huge man".[14]
Many people, both opponents of the government as well as innocent people, were “disappeared” in the middle of the night. They were taken to secret government detention centres where they were tortured and eventually killed. This included many children, including new born babies, kidnapped by the junta who believed that if parents were subversive then their children would be as well. As many as 500 children were reportedly kidnapped and taken from their families, a group called the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo campaigned for decades to find the truth behind these kidnappings.[15] It was later revealed that two former Ford motor company executives, Pedro Muller and Hector Sibila, were charged with conspiring with the junta, helping them kidnap and torture workers at a Ford factory just outside of Buenos Aires. The two men provided personal details, photos and addresses to the junta on approximately 25 workers and union leaders who they felt had subversive leanings, abductees were blindfolded and then violently beaten and tortured.[16] A New York Times article published in 2002 claims that Ford manufactured the greenish-grey Falcons used by death squads in the kidnapping of thousands of people. Similar charges were also brought against Mercedes-Benz, an investigation found that 16 employees of the German manufacturer were abducted and only two survived. Mercedes-Benz were said to have made trucks for the army.[17]
Declassified State Department documents taken from a meeting with the Argentine foreign minister Cesar Augusto Guzzetti in 1976 prove that Henry Kissinger knew about the kidnappings and disappearances.[18] In April 1976, Congress approved a request by the Ford administration, supported by Henry Kissinger, to grant $50 million in assistance to the junta.[19] Congress later approved an additional $30 million in military aid, Washington provided training and military supplies to the Videla regime during the Carter administration. Washington sold $120 million in military supplies as well. Additionally, the U.S. spent $1.1 million training approximately 217 Argentine military personnel.[20] Much of this funding and support ceased in 1978 when, during the Carter administration, the U.S. reversed its position on Argentina when the full scale of violence was revealed and Washington took a much firmer stance towards the junta. However, events transpired that brought about another geopolitical realignment in Latin America. In Nicaragua, the pro-U.S. Somozas were removed from government and the Sandinistas came to power.
The Reagan administration felt that the U.S. had sufficient leverage over the military dictatorship in Argentina that would prove useful in their support of the Contras in Nicaragua. So, in 1981, in a bid to get Argentina back on board with their Latin American operations, Reagan argued that the human rights record of Argentina had improved and that funding, training and support should resume as such. Reagan even invited the head of the junta, General Roberto Viola, to Washington in March 1981.[21] During Operation Condor, Argentina would be a key ally to the U.S. Argentina assisted America in training and arming the Contras, a rebel group from Nicaragua made up from pro-Somoza factions, tasked with removing the Sandinistas and making the country ungovernable. Some of the most notorious generals in the Dirty War played a pivotal role in America’s Central America operations. The programme to train the Contras was led by an Extra-Territorial Task Force (Grupo de Tareas Exteriores, GTE), was headed by José Osvaldo Ribeiro, part of the Army Intelligence Battalion 601 who had previously helped organize and run detention centres across Argentina. Raúl Antonio Guglielminetti is another Battalion 601 officer who had operated detention centres in Argentina. Leandro Sanchez Reisse who faced trial in Argentina in connection with a kidnapping case testified in the U.S. Congress in 1987 that Battalion 601 operated out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, disguised as businesses, with the authorization of the CIA. Furthermore, both Guglielminetti and Sánchez Reisse were reported to have received intelligence training in the U.S. in 1976. These actions had been undertaken by the CIA without oversight or approval from either Congress or the White House.
Under the junta, Argentina’s debt rose from $7.9 billion to $45 billion by the time the junta had left. The destination of this money is a murky issue indeed; $10 billion went directly to the junta to pay for military purchases and over half of what remained, $19 billion, was moved offshore.[22] In the early 80s, as the Falklands War with the British began to play out and the junta slowly began to lose their grip on power, another crisis was unfolding. The Latin American debt crisis was steadily playing out across South America and, along with the debts that the junta had saddled the country with, would cripple the Argentine economy for years, if not decades, to come. The pain of the junta’s brutal dictatorship would soon be replaced with the pain and hardship of economic decline, as poverty and inflation spiralled out of control.
After a comprehensive defeat in the Falklands War, the junta voluntarily relinquished power and free democratic elections were held once again. However, court proceedings and independent investigations against the junta, and those who colluded with them, would go on for decades.
Notes
Nicaragua
[1] DeYoung, K. (1977) Somoza’s Nicaragua. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/10/16/somozas-nicaragua/7e04dac5-be8d-4e64-a010-8a0e5feb9784/.
[2] Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs - The Iran-Contra Affairs (no date). Available at: https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-background.php.
[3] Stone, O. and Kuznick, P (2022) The Untold History of the United States. Ebury Press. p. 262
[4] Stone, O. and Kuznick, P. (2022) The Untold History of the United States. 7th edn. Ebury Press. p. 265
[5] Walker, Thomas W.; Wade, Christine J. (2019). Nicaragua: emerging from the shadow of the eagle. Routledge.
[6] DeYoung, K. (1977c) Somoza’s Nicaragua. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/10/16/somozas-nicaragua/7e04dac5-be8d-4e64-a010-8a0e5feb9784/.
[7] Times, N.Y. (1978) “NATIONAL MUTINY IN NICARAGUA,” The New York Times, 30 July. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/30/archives/national-mutiny-in-nicaragua-nicaragua.html.
[8] Grandin, G. (2017) “Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism,” The SHAFR Guide Online. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim190060009.p. 112.
[9] Times, N.Y. (1978) “NATIONAL MUTINY IN NICARAGUA,” The New York Times, 30 July. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/30/archives/national-mutiny-in-nicaragua-nicaragua.html.
[10] Nicaragua 1978 - Chapter II (1978). Available at: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/nicaragua78eng/chap.2.htm.
[11] Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs - The Iran-Contra Affairs (no date b). Available at: https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-contras.php.
[12] Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs - The Iran-Contra Affairs (no date c). Available at: https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-background.php.
[13] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. P.170
[14] Human Rights Watch World Report (1989). Available at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Nicaragu.htm.
[15] Kornbluh, Peter (1987). Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention. Washington: Institute for Political Studies. p. 127
[16] The secret wars of the CIA - John Stockwell (2012). Available at: https://libcom.org/article/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell.
[17] Kornbluh, “Nicaragua: U.S. Pro-insurgency Warfare against the Sandinistas,” Low-Intensity Warfare, ed. Klare and Kornbluh, p. 140
[18] The secret wars of the CIA - John Stockwell (2012). Available at: https://libcom.org/article/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell.
[19] Woodward, Bob. Veil The Secret Wars of the CIA. 2005 ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1987. Print
[20] Excerpts of the Report of Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair | The American Presidency Project (no date). Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/excerpts-the-report-congressional-committees-investigating-the-iran-contra-affair.
[21] Wikipedia contributors (2023) “CIA activities in Nicaragua,” Wikipedia [Preprint]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Nicaragua#The_Freedom_Fighter's_Manual.
[22] "Scope of CIA Activities Under the Nicaragua Finding" (PDF). Brown University. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
[23] Miller, Jonathan S. (March 13, 1985). "'White Propaganda' Operation" (PDF). Letter to Pat Buchanan, White House Director of Communications. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
[25] The secret wars of the CIA - John Stockwell (2012). Available at: https://libcom.org/article/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell.
[26] Human Rights Watch World Report (1989). Available at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Nicaragu.htm.
[27] The secret wars of the CIA - John Stockwell (2012). Available at: https://libcom.org/article/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell.
[28] The secret wars of the CIA - John Stockwell (2012). Available at: https://libcom.org/article/secret-wars-cia-john-stockwell.
Argentina
[1] Evans, Michael. "The Dirty War in Argentina". gwu.edu. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
[2] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.107
[3] Evans, Michael. "The Dirty War in Argentina". gwu.edu. Retrieved 16 March 2017.
[4] On 30th Anniversary of Argentine Coup: New Declassified Details on Repression and U.S. Support for Military Dictatorship (no date). Available at: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/index.htm.
[5] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.109
[6] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.110
[7] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.111
[8] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.117
[9] "40 years later, the mothers of Argentina's 'disappeared' refuse to be silent". TheGuardian.com. 28 April 2017.
[10] Hernandez, B.V. (2011) “Argentina marks ‘Night of the Pencils,’” BBC News, 16 September. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14910859.
[11] Argentine filmmaker remembers his country’s disappeared (2016). Available at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/argentine-filmmaker-remembers-his-countrys-disappeared.
[12] [Department of State report, "Next Steps in Argentina" https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6020968-National-Security-Archive-Doc-19-Department-of/] Secret, January 26, 1979
[13] "State Department Opens Files on Argentina's Dirty War". National Security Archive. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
[14] Hernandez, B.V. (2011) “Argentina marks ‘Night of the Pencils,’” BBC News, 16 September. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14910859.
[15] Wills, M. (2019) “The Stolen Children of Argentina,” JSTOR Daily [Preprint]. Available at: https://daily.jstor.org/stolen-children-of-argentina/.
[16] Jazeera, A. (2018) “Argentina convicts two ex-Ford executives in torture case,” Human Rights News | Al Jazeera, 12 December. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/12/argentina-convicts-two-ex-ford-executives-in-torture-case.
[17] Rohter, L. (2002) “Ford Motor Is Linked to Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’” The New York Times, 27 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/world/ford-motor-is-linked-to-argentina-s-dirty-war.html.
[18] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.119
[19] On 30th Anniversary of Argentine Coup: New Declassified Details on Repression and U.S. Support for Military Dictatorship (no date b). Available at: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/index.htm.
[20] Iain Guest (1990). Behind the Disappearances: Argentina's Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations. University of Pennsylvania Press.
[21] Human Rights Watch World Report (1989). Available at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1989/WR89/Argentin.htm#TopOfPage.
[22] Klein, N. (2008) The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. p.196-7