A Warning on the Exercise of Power ---- This book could not be more timely, given that the United States is reverting to its old Monroe Doctrine methods and supporting far-right dictatorships in Latin America, which it considers its extended backyard. To preserve this backyard, they fomented coups d'état, as in Chile in 1973, supported highly authoritarian regimes, havens for Nazi leaders, as in Uruguay and Paraguay, and, as is our focus today, advised on techniques of repression, imprisonment, and torture inflicted upon opponents. French intelligence services also contributed (see Pablo Daniel Magee, *La plume du condor*, Ed. Syllepse, 2025), particularly in Argentina. After the 1976 coup d'état orchestrated by the armed forces under the leadership of the heads of the three branches of the military-Videla, Massera, and Agostini-the hunt for left-wing activists intensified until 1983. Nearly 30,000 people were killed or disappeared.
Two academics, Marina Franco and Claudia Field, coordinated the publication of a book about a particularly odious clandestine detention center: the Naval Mechanics School in downtown Buenos Aires. Of the 5,000 people detained there, only about 300 survived. In the aftermath of the dictatorship, often lengthy, though exemplary, trials condemned the perpetrators of these crimes. However, one can question the eradication of their ideology. Like the Nazis, they likely considered their actions justified. The pardons granted by President Menem and the policies pursued by Javier Milei amply demonstrate this through the trivialization, even the tacit approval, of these acts. Horror is still at our doorstep, and Brecht is still right! What Argentinians are experiencing today constitutes a challenge to social gains and progress.
Crimes Against Humanity
This book is essential for understanding. The Cold War had barely ended, and there was widespread panic surrounding far-left movements, an obsession with Cuba, and a focus on the internal and external enemy, subversion. In this context, the military, supported by the United States and France, deemed it necessary to establish state-sponsored counter-terrorism. Six hundred clandestine centers blanketed Argentina. The authors of *Crimes Against Humanity at ESMA*, published by Anamosa, employ a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on photographs, testimonies, written accounts, and confessions. They scrutinize the methods of arrest, the disposal of bodies through incineration or theft-deaths committed by helicopter, sometimes alive, sometimes not-the brutality of the torture, the forced labor, a form of slavery. Pregnant women give birth clandestinely, and their children are given to military families. Detainees are treated as objects, things subject to the whims of their torturers, like in Nazi concentration camps.
We delve into the workings of the repression: infiltration, the use of prisoners, financing through theft, document forgery, and close living quarters with the executioners. The complicity with government ministries, lawyers, and notaries is evident, allowing them to acquire real estate and fortunes abroad. ESMA even has a branch in Paris, with the complicity of the Argentine ambassador to France.
How can solidarity exist among the detainees? Mistrust, ambiguity, and confusion prevail.
This must be denounced again and again!
Sometimes things spiral out of control. Let's remember the assassination of the two French nuns, which forced France to protest. The organization of the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina provided an opportunity to denounce human rights abuses. In 1980, at the French National Assembly, survivors testified to the horrors committed. And it was the Falklands War, disastrous for the Argentine regime, that hastened its downfall.
Today, the ESMA building is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, transformed into a museum and memorial, but it remains under threat from the Javier Milei regime. The fight is therefore never over, and the memory must not be lost.
And the authors call on us to remain vigilant.
"This book serves as a warning about what unlimited power can do to individuals, about the danger posed by the rise of authoritarianism that denies some people their right to exist, and about the most subtle forms that cruelty can take."
* Marina Franco and Claudia Field (eds.)
Crimes Against Humanity at ESMA
Anamosa, 2026
Marina Franco and Claudia Field will be guests on the radio program Femmes libres (Free Women) on Wednesday, March 11, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Radio Libertaire.
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=8842
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Link: (en) France, Monde Libertaire - IDEAS AND STRUGGLES: Crimes Against Humanity at ESMA (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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