Located along the chocolate colored mighty Plate river, Parque de la Memoria commemorates the sad history of Argentina during the 1976-1983 National Reorganization Process (also called the Dirty War) waged by the military junta. At the end of the rule of Isabel Peron (the third wife of Juan Peron, after Evita), a civic-military dictatorship took over the country to hunt down political dissidents and supporters of socialist, left wing ideas. They formed death squads such as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance or Alianza Anticommunista Argentina (AAA) and tens of thousands of civilians were brutally killed during these years of government sponsored terrorism.


Operation Condor was launched in 1975 with US backing. As per wikipedia, "the United States government provided planning, coordinating, training on torture, technical support and supplied military aid to the Juntas during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and the Reagan administrations. Such support was frequently routed through the CIA." Up to 30,000 people were killed in Argentina (and many other abroad), and upto 400,000 imprisoned, especially intellectuals, students, journals and writers - harking to similar atrocities (albeit at a smaller scale) during the Naxalite movement and Operation Steeplechase in India some years earlier, and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia until recently. A lot of people simply disappeared, and were called the desaparecidos. In fact, mothers of the disappeared, Asociacion Madres de Plaza de Mayo still meet every Thursday at the Casa Rosada.

The park is 300m from a military airport, and a lot of the disappeared were simply flown up and thrown into the ocean.	Coups are like a Latin American disease - 1954 Paraguay to overthrow the government of Federico Chavez, the US supported 1964 Brazilian coup to overthrow President Goulart, the 1971 coup in Bolivia that established dictator Hugo Banzer instead of Torres, the 72-73 Uruguay coup to establish President Bordaberry, the 1973 Chilean coup that established general Pinochet instead of President Salvador Allende, and finally the 76 Argentine coup that deposed president Juan Peron and established the military junta led by General Videla.	Translated, it reads "Space given to state terrorism"

This sculpture by Roberto Aizenberg shows his pregnant wife and children who disappeared during the Dirty War		Pensa resun hecho revolucion - Thinking is a revolutionary fact.

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