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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
This article addresses one of the instances of the transnationalisation of state terrorism that took place at the end of the Cold War in Latin America. It examines the collaboration of the Argentine military dictatorship with the governments of Guatemala and Honduras in their ‘fight against subversion’ (1980–3) through previously unexplored archives. It presents the different degrees and forms of inter-governmental collaboration, the people responsible, the time frame, and the institutions, seeking to elaborate on the role of this collaboration in the repressive processes of each nation's historical experience. In general terms, this article contributes to transnational studies of the right wing during the recent history of the Latin American Cold War.
Este artículo trata sobre las experiencias de la transnacionalización del terrorismo de Estado que tuvo lugar a finales de la Guerra Fría en Latinoamérica. Aquí se examina la colaboración de la dictadura militar argentina con los gobiernos de Guatemala y Honduras en su ‘lucha contra la subversión’ (1980–3) utilizando archivos no explorados hasta ahora. Se muestran los diferentes grados y formas de la colaboración intergubernamental, sus responsables, su temporalidad y las instituciones, buscando analizar el papel de dicha colaboración en los procesos represivos de la experiencia histórica de las dos naciones. En términos generales, este material contribuye a los estudios transnacionales sobre la derecha política durante la historia reciente de la Guerra Fría latinoamericana.
Este artigo aborda uma das experiências de transnacionalização do terrorismo de Estado ocorrida no final da Guerra Fria na América Latina. Examina a colaboração da ditadura militar argentina com os governos de Guatemala e Honduras na sua ‘luta contra a subversão’ (1980–3) através de arquivos até então inexplorados. Mostra os diferentes graus e formas da colaboração intergovernamental, os responsáveis, o recorte temporal, e as instituições, e busca aprofundar o papel desta colaboração nos processos repressivos da experiência histórica das duas nações. Em linhas gerais, este artigo contribui para os estudos transnacionais da direita durante a história recente da Guerra Fria latino-americana.
1 Julieta Rostica, ‘El antiimperialismo de la derecha. La Confederación Anticomunista Latinoamericana (1972–1980)’, in Kristina Pirker and Julieta Rostica (eds.), Confrontación de imaginarios: Los antiimperialismos en América Latina (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2021), pp. 215–39. Works by Ernesto Bohoslavsky, Magdalena Broquetas, Marcelo Casals and Aaron Coy Moulton, among others, are key studies of the transnational Right during the Latin American Cold War.
2 A ‘national security state’ is one in which ‘the military is the highest authority … the military not only guarantees the security of the state against all internal and external enemies, it has enough power to determine the overall direction of the society’: Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Brave New World Order: Must We Pledge Allegiance? (Eugene, OR: Orbis, 1992), p. 35. Under the aegis of Operation Condor, clandestine, transborder and supra-state repression was carried out from the end of 1973 by Southern Cone and European countries as well as the United States. See, among others, Fernando López, The Feathers of Condor: Transnational State Terrorism, Exiles and Civilian Anticommunism in South America (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016); Slatman, Melisa, ‘Archivos de la represión y ciclos de producción de conocimiento social sobre las coordinaciones represivas en el Cono Sur de América Latina’, Revista Taller, 1: 1 (2012), pp. 47–66Google Scholar; and Patrice McSherry, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). The Operation Condor trial, which ran from 1999 to 2016, prompted further academic research, such as Francesca Lessa's The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022). Another example of collaboration between Latin American national security states is investigated in the article by Avery, Molly, a, ‘Promoting “Pinochetazo”: The Chilean Dictatorship's Foreign Policy in El Salvador during the Carter Years, 1977–81’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 52: 4 (2020), pp. 759–84Google Scholar.
3 The ‘Revolutionary War’ theory originated in French military doctrine: Mario Ranalletti, ‘Una aproximación a los fundamentos del terrorismo de Estado en la Argentina: La recepción de la noción de “guerra revolucionaria” en el ámbito castrense local (1954–1962)’, Anuario del Centro de Estudios Históricos, 11: 11 (2011), pp. 261–78. The term ‘fight against subversion’ is a direct translation from the Spanish ‘lucha contra la subversión’ which, abbreviated to ‘LCS’, appeared frequently in the Argentine dictatorship's documents. All translations from Spanish are by the author.
4 Eduardo Luis Duhalde, El estado terrorista argentino (Buenos Aires: Ediciones El Caballito, 1983); Oscar Raúl Cardoso, Ricardo Kirschbaum and Eduardo van der Kooy, Malvinas: La trama secreta (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1983); Roberto Russell and Juan Tokatlián, ‘Argentina y la crisis centroamericana, 1976–1985’, Documentos e Informes de Investigación, no. 36, FLACSO/PA, April 1986; Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986); Christopher Dickey, With the Contras (London: Faber and Faber, 1986); Emiliano Balerini Casal, ‘Argentina en el conflicto centroamericano: La dictadura y el internacionalismo revolucionario (1977–1984)’, Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2020, among others.
5 Vanni Pettiná identifies three main historiographical currents on the Cold War and adds one which seeks to correct the reductionism of the previous ones: La Guerra Fría en América Latina (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2018). Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (London: Allen Lane, 2017) places the developing world centre stage in the interpretation of world conflict and is thus very relevant to Latin America. Also important is the work edited by Daniela Spenser, which returns to Latin American actors a certain autonomy in the face of bilateral conflict and superpower nations: Espejos de la Guerra Fría: México, América Central y el Caribe (Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 2004).
6 Ariel C. Armony, Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977–1984 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1997), p. 33.
7 Ibid., p. 123.
8 In Buenos Aires: Archivo General del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto (MREC) – Forti Collection, Dirección de Comunicaciones (DC) and Dirección América Latina (DAL); Archivo General del Ejército (AGE), Servicio Histórico del Ejército (SHE), Dirección de Asuntos Humanitarios (DAH) and Dirección General de Bienestar (DGB), Ejército Argentino, Ministerio de Defensa; Biblioteca Nacional de Aeronáutica – Fuerza Aérea Argentina; Biblioteca General Belgrano de la Escuela Superior de Guerra; Archivo de Documentos Históricos, Biblioteca Prebisch, Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA); Archivo Nacional de la Memoria (ANM); Archivo General de la Nación (AGN). In Guatemala City: Archivos, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores; Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional de Guatemala (AHPN). In Washington, DC: National Security Archive (NSA), George Washington University.
9 I follow Daniel Feierstein in his use of the term ‘genocide’ to characterise the period in Rostica, Julieta, ‘Ensayo crítico sobre la interpretación de genocidio de la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico de Guatemala’, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 9: 31 (2017), pp. 61–79Google Scholar; I have borrowed the term ‘institutional dictatorship of the armed forces’ from Waldo Ansaldi and César Tcach: Rostica, Julieta, ‘Las dictaduras militares en Guatemala (1982–1985) y Argentina (1976–1983) en la lucha contra la subversión’, Latinoamérica, 60 (2015), pp. 13–52Google Scholar.
10 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio (Guatemala City: United Nations Office for Project Services, 1999): http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/guatemala-memoria-silencio/guatemala-memoria-del-silencio.pdf (all URLs were last accessed 15 June 2022).
11 Ibid., chap. 2, ‘Las violaciones de los derechos humanos y los hechos de violencia’: this chapter is spread over vols. 2 and 3 of the CEH report, and comprises paras. 738–3882.
12 IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Guatemala, 13 Oct. 1981: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/guatemala81eng/intro.htm, Section E, ‘Missing Persons’.
13 Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), ‘Ixil Genocide Trial’: https://nisgua.org/ixil-genocide-trial/.
14 IACHR, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Guatemala, 5 Oct. 1983: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Guatemala83eng/TOC.htm.
15 IACHR, Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Guatemala, 3 Oct. 1985: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/guatemala85sp/indice.htm (in Spanish); quotation from chap. 2, Section D, para. 15.
16 CEH, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, chap. 2, p. 409, paras. 2046–7.
17 Ibid., p. 426, para. 2092. I quote a translation from the Spanish as the original CIA document is not available.
18 Ibid., pp. 108–9, paras. 1068–73, and confidential information.
19 Jennifer Schirmer, The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); quotations from Spanish translation: Las intimidades del proyecto político de los militares en Guatemala (Guatemala City: FLACSO, 1999), p. 265.
20 Ibid., p. 267.
21 Manolo E. Vela Castañeda, Los pelotones de la muerte: La construcción de los perpetradores del genocidio guatemalteco (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2014), p. 214.
22 Erick Weaver and the Central America Research Institute, ‘La diplomacia del banano: El desarrollo de las relaciones entre los Estados Unidos y Honduras’, in Víctor Meza (ed.), Honduras: Pieza clave de la política de Estados Unidos en Centroamérica (Tegucigalpa: Centro de Documentación de Honduras [CEDOH], 1990), p. 61.
23 Leticia Salomón, Poder civil y fuerzas armadas en Honduras (Tegucigalpa: CEDOH/Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales, 1997), p. 73; ‘General Peace Treaty between the Republics of El Salvador and Honduras’, UN Treaty Series, vol. 1310 (1983), pp. 226ff.: https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/HN-SV_801030_GeneralTreatyOfPeaceElSalvadorHonduras.pdf.
24 Weaver, ‘La diplomacia del banano’, p. 78.
25 The ‘Guardia Nacional’ was Nicaragua's police and military force during the lengthy dictatorship of the Somoza family (1937–79), which was brought down by the Sandinista Revolution. The majority of former National Guardsmen took refuge in Honduras. See Dirk Kruijt, ‘Revolución y contrarrevolución: El gobierno sandinista y la guerra de la Contra en Nicaragua, 1980–1990’, Desafíos, 23: 2 (2011), p. 70.
26 Juan E. Méndez, Human Rights in Honduras: Signs of ‘the Argentine Method’ (New York: Americas Watch, 1982).
27 Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH), Los hechos hablan por sí mismos: Informe preliminar sobre los desaparecidos en Honduras 1980–1993 (Tegucigalpa: Guaymuras, 2002 [1st edn, 1994]), pp. 145–252. The report was translated into English by Human Rights Watch /Americas in 1994: https://www.hrw.org/reports//pdfs/h/honduras/honduras947.pdf.
28 Méndez, Human Rights in Honduras, p. 11.
29 CNDH, Los hechos hablan por sí mismos, pp. 350–3.
30 Marvin Barahona, Honduras en el siglo XX: Una síntesis histórica (Tegucigalpa: Guaymuras, 2005), pp. 239–41.
31 Weaver, ‘La diplomacia del banano’, pp. 80–1. It is supposed that when he writes ‘Alto Mando y Escuela de Oficiales y del Estado Mayor’ Weaver is referring to the Honduran Escuela de Comando y Estado Mayor (Command and General Staff College); see below, ‘Foreign Missions and Military Advisors’. The exiles in question were possibly former members of the Nicaraguan National Guard.
32 Leo Valladares Lanza and Susan C. Peacock, ‘En búsqueda de la verdad que se nos oculta’, Informe preliminar del Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos sobre el Proceso de Desclasificación [1998]: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/latin_america/honduras/hidden_truths/verdad.htm, Section D, ‘Solicitud al Gobierno de Argentina’.
33 Foreign Assistance Act Activities, 22 USC 2151, Public Law 95-148, 31 Oct. 1977: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-91/pdf/STATUTE-91-Pg1230.pdf.
34 Confidential memorandum, Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State, to the Vice-President, 1 Sept. 1978, Subject ‘Meeting with Argentine President Videla’, pp. 5–13 in Office of the Director of National Intelligence, IC on the Record, Declassified, Argentina Declassification Project (ADP), Part 3: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-3.pdf.
35 Secret note, Tiscornia (Ambassador), EGUAT (Argentine Embassy in Guatemala), to Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores (Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs), 21 July 1978, MREC, Forti, no. 329.
36 Secret note, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores, 20 July 1978, MREC, Forti, no. 326.
37 Cyrus Vance, ‘Secretary's Meeting with Foreign Minister Pastor’, to US embassies Quito, Buenos Aires and Managua, 10 Aug. 1979, pp. 297–302 in ADP, Part 1: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf.
38 MREC, Memorias de 1980 (Buenos Aires: MREC, 1980), p. 103.
39 Ibid., p. 106.
40 Secret cable, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Ceremonial-Política-Central-Gabinete-Cultura (Ceremonial-Politics-Central-Cabinet-Culture), 6 May 1980, MREC, Forti, cr [received cable(s)] 314–19; ‘Minutas visita oficial Guatemala–Honduras, Comodoro Carlos R. Cavandoli (1979)’, MREC, DC, AH 0483.
41 Sofía Menchú, ‘Guatemala condena a cuatro militares por crímenes contra una joven y un menor durante guerra civil’, Reuters, 24 May 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/delito-guatemala-militates-idLTAKCN1IO3G8-OUSLD.
42 Secret cable, Lertora (Counsellor), EGUAT, to Cancillería (Foreign Ministry), 8 Aug. 1980, MREC, Forti, cr 529–35; secret cable, Ros (Director-General of External Policy) and Freixas (Minister), Departamento América Central y Caribe (Central American and Caribbean Department), to EGUAT, 22 Aug. 1980, MREC, Forti, ce [sent cable(s)] 195–201; ‘Declaración Conjunta del 27 de agosto de 1980’, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Memorias de los trabajos efectuados por el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores durante el período comprendido del 1 de julio de 1980 al 30 de junio de 1981 (Guatemala City: Editorial del Ejército, 1982), pp. 218 and 258.
43 Memo no. 65, EGUAT, to Canciller (Foreign Minister) Brigadier Mayor D. Carlos Washington Pastor, 29 Oct. 1980, MREC, DAL, AH 0042, ‘Cables 1980’.
44 Ibid. and Ordinary cable no. 725, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Central-Sur-Política-Informaciones-Prensa (Central-South-Politics-Information-Press), 31 Oct. 1980, MREC, DAL, AH 0042, ‘Cables 1980’. The meetings referred to are listed in the memoirs of the Argentine Foreign Ministry: MREC, Memorias de 1980, p. 107.
45 Ordinary cable, Lertora, EGUAT, to Económicos-Central (Economics-Central), 5 Nov. 1980, MREC, Forti, cr 740. See also BCRA, Communication B 838, 10 Oct. 1983. The financial agreement between the Argentine Central Bank and the Bank of Guatemala (signed 24 Nov. 1980) was for a loan of US$30 million. The commercial agreement was signed on 7 Oct. 1982: https://tratados.cancilleria.gob.ar/tratado_ficha.php?id=k5+nmw==.
46 ‘Minutas visita oficial Guatemala–Honduras, Comodoro Carlos R. Cavandoli (1979)’.
47 Ibid.
48 MREC, Memorias de 1980, p. 108. The financial agreement granted a US$15 million revolving credit line for the purchase of Argentine products; the scientific and technical cooperation agreement was the same as the one signed with Guatemala mentioned above.
49 ‘Minutas visita oficial Guatemala–Honduras, Comodoro Carlos R. Cavandoli (1979)’.
50 MREC, Memorias de 1981 (Buenos Aires: MREC, 1981), pp. 131–2.
51 See note 3 above.
52 Julieta Rostica, ‘La transnacionalización de ideas: La escuela contrasubversiva de Argentina a Guatemala’, Revista Diálogos, 19: 2 (2018), pp. 170–97.
53 Stella Segado and Germán Martínez (eds.), Actas de la Dictadura: Documentos de la Junta Militar encontrados en el Edificio Cóndor, vol. 4: Actas 124 a 212, 19 de diciembre de 1979 – 2 de febrero de 1982 (Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Defensa, 2014), Acta no. 125, p. 41.
54 Ibid., Acta no. 156, p. 140.
55 Ejército Argentino, Boletín Reservado (BRE) no. 4693, 13 Dec. 1976. The Argentine army's Boletines Reservados (Confidential Bulletins) are not available to the public; I received special permission to consult them.
56 Dirección Nacional de Derechos Humanos y Derecho Internacional Humanitario, Ministerio de Defensa de la República Argentina, Equipo de Relevamiento y Análisis en los Archivos de las Fuerzas Armadas, ‘Informe a solicitud de Julieta Rostica’, Nov. 2016, p. 35. EMGE's Jefatura II ran Argentina's intelligence operation. Military attachés normally report to the chief of the diplomatic mission to which they are attached.
57 Directiva del Consejo de Defensa no. 1/75 (Lucha contra la subversión), Octubre de 1975: http://www.desaparecidos.org/nuncamas/web/document/militar/175.htm.
58 Programa Verdad y Justicia, El Batallón de Inteligencia 601 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Infojus, 2015).
59 Ibid., p. 16.
60 These details are based on my conversation with historian Melisa Slatman and a memo dated 6 Feb. 1980 entitled ‘Reorganization of 601’ by James J. Blystone, Regional Security Officer at the US Embassy in Buenos Aires, which includes an ‘Organizational Chart of “601”’: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/index.htm. My conjecture about the involvement of SIDE personnel is supported by the numerous cables from 1981 and 1983 in the MREC archive (e.g. Caja AH 0577) referenced with the word ‘SIDE’.
61 Lorenzi file, AGE.
62 ‘Informe a solicitud de Julieta Rostica’, p. 11.
63 Ibid., p. 10.
64 CNDH list, Los hechos hablan por sí mismos, pp. 354–7. I made an unsuccessful public information request seeking this list of personnel.
65 IACHR, ‘Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Argentina’, 11 April 1980: http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/argentina80eng/toc.htm; Guadalupe Basualdo, Movilización legal internacional en dictadura: La visita de la CIDH y la creación del CELS (Buenos Aires: Teseo, 2019); Magdalena Lisińska, Argentine Foreign Policy during the Military Dictatorship, 1976–1983 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), especially Chapters 4 and 6.
66 Secret note, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores, 20 July 1978, MREC, Forti, no. 326; secret note, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores, 21 July 1978, MREC, Forti, no. 329.
67 Note, Alfonso Alonso Lima, Viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Guatemala (Guatemalan Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs), to Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz, Ministro de Gobernación (Minister of the Interior), 26 Sept. 1980, AHPN, GT PN 51-01 S012, F64842, document no. PN 21983; memo, Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas, Jefe de la Segunda Sección del Estado Mayor General del Ejército (Commander of the Second Section of EMGE), to Coronel de Infantería, Director General de la Policía Nacional (Infantry Colonel, Director-General of the National Police), 30 Sept. 1980, AHPN, GT PN 51-01 S012, F64843, document no. PN 2-3227-IC/clp.
68 Mendoza Palomo was charged in the CREOMPAZ case (note 85) with enforced disappearances and crimes against humanity committed in Military Zone 21 (Cobán) during his mandate as EMGE chief of staff 1981–2: https://www.facebook.com/ElCasoCreompaz/; López Fuentes was indicted in 2011 for genocide as EMGE chief of staff 1982–3: see NISGUA, ‘General Héctor López Fuentes Indicted for Genocide’, 21 June 2011: https://nisgua.org/general-hector-lopez-fuentes-indicted-for-genocide/.
69 Secret cable, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Central-Política-Informaciones-Ceremonial (Central-Politics-Information-Ceremonial), 23 Nov. 1980, MREC, Forti, cr 798.
70 Decree no. 1782, Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, Ley constitutiva del Ejército de Guatemala, El guatemalteco, 11 Sept. 1968, art. 56. Guatemalan decrees can be consulted at the Biblioteca Enrique Gómez Carrillo y Archivo Legislativo del Congreso de la República, Guatemala City.
71 Secret cable, Claraso de la Vega, Departamento América Central y Caribe, to EGUAT, 16 March 1981, MREC, Forti, ce 88; secret cable, Simone, Subsecretaría General (Under-Secretary General), to EGUAT, 16 March 1981, MREC, Forti, ce 89.
72 Reports, Jefe del Cuerpo de Radio Patrullas de la Policía Nacional (Commander of the Radio Patrol Corps of the National Police), to Coronel Germán Chupina Barahona, Director General de la Policía Nacional, 6 April 1981, AHPN, GT PN 31-02 S008, F58118, document no. PN 1737/Ioc; 8 April 1981, AHPN, GT PN 31-02 S008, F58115, document no. PN 1772/hcb; 10 April 1981, AHPN, GT PN 31-02 S008, F58114, document no. PN 1805/hcb.
73 Report, 2do (Second-in-Command) Jefe del Cuerpo de Radio Patrullas de la Policía Nacional to Coronel Germán Chupina Barahona, Director General de la Policía Nacional, 30 April 1981, AHPN, GT PN 31-02 S008, F58117, document no. PN 2121/hcb.
74 Secret note, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to Subsecretario de Relaciones Económicas Internacionales (Undersecretary for International Economic Relations), 5 Jan. 1979, MREC, Forti, no. 7; memo no. 7340, Cuerpo de Detectives (Corps of Detectives), Policía Nacional, to Coronel de Infantería Germán Chupina Barahona, Guatemala [City], 30 March 1979, AHPN, document no. 1268609; Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Memorias de los trabajos efectuados por el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores durante el período comprendido del 1 de julio de 1979 al 30 de junio de 1980 (Guatemala City: Editorial del Ejército, 1982), pp. 230 and 242–3.
75 Secret cable, Tiscornia, EGUAT, to América Central-Política-Informaciones (Central American-Politics-Information), 2 June 1980, MREC, Forti, cr 389–94.
76 Note, Eugenio Miguel García Santos, Encargado de Negocios (Commercial Attaché), to Jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas de Honduras (Commander of the Honduran Armed Forces), 8 Jan. 1980, MREC, Forti, no. 5.
77 BRE no. 4738, 21 Oct. 1977.
78 BRE no. 4812, 2 March 1979. From 1979 the course was called ‘Curso de Inteligencia para Oficiales de Ejércitos de Países Amigos’ (Intelligence Course for Officers of Friendly Countries’ Armies), whilst still being referred to as ‘COE-600’.
79 BRE no. 4844, Annex: ‘Plan de cursos complementarios, Año 1980’, p. 31. In Spanish, ‘places of temporary detention’ are ‘lugares de detención temporaria’, abbreviated to LDT. This acronym LDT appears frequently in the dictatorship's documents, and is associated with clandestine detention centres.
80 BRE no. 4907, Annex: ‘Plan de cursos complementarios, Año 1981’, p. 33.
81 BRE no. 4844, Annex: ‘Año 1980’, p. 31.
82 Data calculated from various BREs and different annual lists obtained through access to public information requests; information on the officers’ roles is taken from Carlos Osorio, Units and Officers of the Guatemalan Army, vol. 1 of The Guatemalan Military: What the U.S. Files Reveal, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book no. 32, 1 June 2000: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB32/vol1.html.
83 Tribunal Primero de Sentencia Penal, Narcoactividad y Delitos contra el Ambiente, Condenado por genocidio: Sentencia condenatoria en contra de José Efraín Ríos Montt (Fragmentos) (Guatemala City: F&G Editores, 2013).
84 Tribunal Primero de Sentencia Penal, Narcoactividad y Delitos contra el Ambiente de Mayor Riesgo Grupo ‘C’, ‘Sentencia caso Molina Theissen’, C-01077-1998-00002, Organismo Judicial, Guatemala, 23 May 2018, p. 369; Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (Sons and Daughters for Identification and Justice against Oblivion and Silence, HIJOS) Guatemala: https://www.facebook.com/hijos.guatemala/posts/1712630365638749/.
85 Hemeroteca PL, ‘Byron Barrientos y el conflicto armado interno’, Prensa Libre, 31 July 2016: https://www.prensalibre.com/hemeroteca/byron-barrientos-y-el-conflicto-armado-interno/. The Comando Regional de Entrenamiento de Operaciones de Mantenimiento de Paz (Regional Command for Training in Peace-Keeping, CREOMPAZ) is now a training centre for UN peacekeepers; during Guatemala's armed conflict it was a military intelligence base and a clandestine detention centre, as well as a site of torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and sexual violence. According to the report on 14 exhumations undertaken at the site by the Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala (Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation), the base houses 565 skeletons in 85 graves, 90 of which are of children, with signs of torture, blindfolds, and shackles and chains around the ankles and neck. 143 of these skeletons are confirmed to be of people who were forcibly disappeared between 1981 and 1988. This is the largest single case of enforced disappearances in Latin America. See Jo-Marie Burt and Paulo Estrada, ‘Tied Up in Appeals, CREOMPAZ Enforced Disappearance Case Remains Stalled’, International Justice Monitor, 13 June 2017: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2017/06/tied-up-in-appeals-creompaz-enforced-disappearance-case-remains-stalled/. The numbers of victims increases as evidence emerges. See the ‘Caso CREOMPAZ’ Facebook page (note 68) for current information.
86 The Guatemalan army's special operations force. See Vela, Los pelotones de la muerte, pp. 249–95.
87 Sophie Beaudoin, ‘Will Someone Finally Be Held Accountable for Efrain Bamaca's Enforced Disappearance?’, International Justice Monitor, 2 Dec. 2015: https://www.ijmonitor.org/2015/12/will-someone-finally-be-held-accountable-for-efrain-bamacas-enforced-disappearance/.
88 Rostica, Julieta, ‘La colaboración y coordinación de la represión de la disidencia política entre Argentina y Honduras: Avances de investigación (1979–1983)’, Secuencia, 111 (2021)Google Scholar, Table 2.
89 Secret note, Bianculli (Ambassador), Argentine Embassy in El Salvador, to Coronel Ehlert (Military Attaché, EGUAT), 14 Oct. 1981, MREC, Forti, no. 20.
90 Osorio, Units and Officers of the Guatemalan Army.
91 Sala, Laura Yanina, ‘Enemigos, población y Guerra Psicológica: Los “saberes contrasubversivos” argentinos y su (re)apropiación por los militares guatemaltecos’, Revista Diálogos, 19: 2 (2018), p. 148Google Scholar.
92 AGE, Ejército Argentino, Boletín Público, no. 4195, 5 April 1978; Osorio, Units and Officers of the Guatemalan Army. Bishop Gerardi was a Mayan rights activist and member of the Catholic Church's Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (Recovery of Historical Memory, REMHI) project set up to account for abuses committed during Guatemala's armed conflict. The Bishop was murdered shortly after the publication of REMHI's report, Guatemala: Nunca Más: http://www.odhag.org.gt/publicaciones/remhi-guatemala-nunca-mas/. The verdicts in the Gerardi case are available at http://www.odhag.org.gt/gerardi/caso-gerardi/.
93 Information compiled from the service records of Argentine army personnel, from BREs, and from the minutes of the JCOs, among other documents. See also ‘Informe a solicitud de Julieta Rostica’. Access to the service records is by request to the Argentine army.
94 JCO, 1981, AGE.
95 Quotation from JCO, 1979, AGE. The United States Army School of the Americas, located in the Panama Canal Zone until 1984, trained Latin American officers, promoting US ideology.
96 Guatemala, Decree 295/81, 9 April 1981: Colabella file, AGE; and Argentina, Decree S (Secret) 295/1981, 28 May 1981: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-295-1981-243904.
97 See, for example, MREC, DAL, AH 0010, ‘Conflicto entre Honduras y El Salvador, 1969’.
98 In the folder entitled ‘Conflicto entre Honduras y El Salvador de 1979’, I found a set of newspaper articles that apply the domino theory to the Central American region: MREC, DAL, AH 0011.
99 Argentina, Decree S 1258/1980, 23 June 1980, as republished in the Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina (hereafter BORA; copies of this journal can be consulted at the Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación, Buenos Aires), 123, no. 33.082, 4 March 2015. The OAS requested the Argentine government, amongst others, to provide these observers, in accordance with the 1970 San José Agreement, Costa Rica, and the Act of Managua of 9 August 1976, at the Special Commission of the Thirteenth Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs: https://www.oas.org/consejo/MEETINGS%20OF%20CONSULTATION/Actas/Acta%2013.pdf.
100 JCO, 1980, AGE.
101 Ibid.
102 Note no. 122, Argentine Embassy in Honduras, to Cancillería, 2 July 1979, MREC, DAL, AH 0017.
103 ‘Informe a solicitud de Julieta Rostica’, p. 24.
104 Ordinary cable, Jorge Balbi, Consejero, Departamento América Central (Counsellor, Central American Department), to EMARGUA-EMARES-EMARHON-Santo Domingo y Puerto Príncipe/Organismos/Informaciones/Política (Argentine Embassies in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, and Organisations/Information/Politics), 12 June 1980, MREC, Forti, ce 145.
105 Argentina, Decree S 193/1981, 7 May 1981: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-193-1981-244003.
106 Arroyo, for example, was appointed Deputy Military Attaché to Guatemala in July 1981 and, concurrently, military observer on the Honduran–Salvadorean border: ibid.
107 McSherry, Predatory States, pp. 48–9.
108 Ibid., p. 49.
109 Directive 3-‘R’-13, Estado Mayor de la Defensa Nacional, Palacio Nacional, Guatemala, 040800, May 1983: https://www.yumpu.com/es/document/view/45099489/directiva-no-3-aaeuraoeraaeura-00013-ministerio-de-la-defensa-de-guatemala; Comisión de Asesoramiento Legislativo, PEN no. 91/83, RO no. 2110/81, draft law ‘establishing various rules to regulate the treatment to be accorded to foreign military members of the COPECOMI during the period when the Argentine Republic will be the seat of the aforementioned organisation’, 1983, available at the AGN; Argentina, Decreto S 1387/1981, 18 Sept. 1981, as republished in BORA,113, no. 30.077, 25 Feb. 2015, p. 59.
110 Ayala and Guajardo files, SHE; Ferrari file, DAH and Argentina, Decree S 1387, 18 Sept. 1981, as republished in BORA, 123, no. 33.077, 25 Feb. 2015; for Ojeda: Argentina, Decree S 2259/1980, 31 Oct. 1980: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-2259-1980-244794.
111 Ojeda file, DGB; Ferrari file, DAH.
112 CNDH, Los hechos hablan por sí mismos, pp. 350–7.
113 Armony, Argentina, pp. 97 and 101.
114 Sala, ‘Enemigos, población y Guerra Psicológica’, p. 148.
115 Note, Eugenio Miguel García Santos, Encargado de Negocios, to Jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas de Honduras, 8 Jan. 1981, MREC, Forti, no. 2.
116 Argentina, Decree S 43/1981, 29 Dec. 1981, as republished in BORA, 123, no. 33.077, 25 Feb. 2015, p. 63.
117 Ibid.
118 Argentina, Decree S 348/1983, 11 Feb. 1983: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-348-1983-253408.
119 Congreso Nacional de Honduras, Decree 98-84, Ley Constitutiva de las Fuerzas Armadas, Tegucigalpa, 27 Oct. 1984: https://www.tsc.gob.hn/biblioteca/index.php/leyes/5-ley-constitutiva-de-las-fuerzs-armadas-de-honduras.
120 McSherry, Predatory States, pp. 208, 214–16, 220–3; Armony, Argentina, pp. 98–9.
121 Encrypted cable, Ossorio Arana (Ambassador), Argentine Embassy in Honduras, 18 Aug. 1982, MREC, Forti, cr 296.
122 See McSherry, Predatory States, pp. 182, 195–6, 207, 214; and Armony, Argentina, pp. 132–3.
123 Programa Verdad y Justicia, El Batallón de Inteligencia 601, p. 119; ‘Informe a solicitud de Julieta Rostica’, p. 8.
124 JCO, 1985, AGE; original capitalisation.
125 Gigante file, ANM. At around the time that Gigante is thought to have presented his ‘Directiva Nacional Contrasubversiva’, Viola was Commander-in-Chief of the army and a member of the military junta; Suárez Mason was head of the Primer Cuerpo del Ejército (First Army Corps), based in Buenos Aires.
126 BRE no. 4912, 5 Dec. 1980.
127 Gigante file, ANM.
128 De la Vega file, DGB.
129 Barros file, AGE.
130 Barril file, AGE.
131 Secret cable, Lertora, EGUAT, to Económicos-Información-Política-Central-Delegación Ejército (Economics-Information-Politics-Central-Army Delegation), 29 Aug. 1980, MREC, Forti, cr 575–6.
132 BCRA, Acta no. ‘S’ 1, 14 Jan. 1982.
133 On this type of cooperation, see the following documents in MREC, Forti: secret note, Lertora, EGUAT, to Jefe del Área América Latina (Head of Latin American Area), 8 Sept. 1978, no. 383; secret cable, Lertora, EGUAT, to Económicos-Política-Informaciones (Economics-Politics-Information), 21 July 1980, cr 486; secret cable, Lertora, EGUAT, to Económicos-Información-Política-Central-Delegación Ejército (Economics-Information-Politics-Central-Army Delegation), 29 Aug. 1980, cr 575–6.
134 Sergio Joselovsky, ‘I love Nicaragua’, Revista Humor, 118 (1983), pp. 122–3. This publication can be consulted in the Hemeroteca, Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno, Buenos Aires.
135 Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, Nunca Más (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1984).
136 The case linked the illegal detention, torture and rape of Emma Molina Theissen, an activist at the University of San Carlos, with the enforced disappearance of her under-age brother, Marco Antonio: ‘Sentencia caso Molina Theissen’, pp. 310–58.
137 Armony, Argentina, pp. 107–44.
138 Eduardo Gitli, ‘El proyecto económico de Estados Unidos en Centroamérica’, in Eduardo Gitli (ed.), Centroamérica: Los desafíos, los intereses, las realidades (Mexico City: Gernika, 1989), p. 113.