In 1974 Juan Perón died and power transferred to his third wife and widow, Maria Estela Martínez de Perón.

The Montenero’s (the left-wing revolutionary group who voted for Perón) went underground. They declared their opposition to the government.

On November 6th, 1974, a state of siege was declared and 3000 suspected “subversives” were placed in preventive detention.

Meanwhile, to the north in Tucumán, the ERP (People’s Revolutionary Army), an anti-Peronist revolutionary group, tried to set up a stronghold.

Notably, Tucumán has a lot of symbolic significance because it’s where Argentine independence was signed in 1816.

In response, the military set up secret detention centers, used torture, and were found to have “deliberately used terror to intimidate the entire local population.”

Tucumán became the testing ground for the tactics that would come to define the military juntas of the Dirty War, where secret detention centers were set up across the entire country to systematically disappear, torture, and ultimatelyy murder estimated tens of thousands of Argentine citizens.

It all began under a civilian government. 1974-1975 was a turbulent time: “An Argentine newspaper reported that during this period there was a politically motivated killing every five hours, and a bomb explosion every three.”

According to Nick Caistor, Argentines were likely relieved, not knowing what would come next, under the rule of Lt General Jorge Rafael Videla. The coup took place on the night of 23/24 March 1976.

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QOTD: Are you interested in Latin American history?

We hear this phrase a lot in society right now: “Do your own research.” And, in the internet age we all get to live with the consequences of that perception that reliable research is just freely available to us. So, as a one time professional researcher (as many of you know my Ph.D. Is in comparative literature) I wanted to write about what makes that impossible.

It boils down to this: well done research requires a lot of context. It isn’t possible to pick up any topic and “research” it with equal skill. Especially in this era, when propaganda and misinformation are so prevalent. And, unfortunately, in an anti-intellectual environment, doing your own research seems to mean disregarding experts in the name of pursuing your own gut.

There’s a phrase for that, it’s “confirmation bias,” when we go on the hunt for the information or resources that confirm what we want to believe.

Now, can experts be wrong? Sure. And a lot of scholarly debate involves drilling down into nuance to correct the incorrect or add specificity to where things have been too broad. But research requires a baseline acceptance that certain resources are basically reliable, that they rely on concrete quantitative and qualitative data when available. That primary and secondary sources have been utilized to verify claims. That, as you research, you are drawing from a wide range of perspectives that have been properly vetted.

In doing my research for this series I’ve relied on investigative journalism, peer reviewed sources, official documentation by human rights organizations. I disregard unverified or unverifiable claims and I do that through cross-referencing.

I also question my perspective, my motives if I find myself pursuing an unverifiable phantom. I learned to do all of this through a decade of training. The skill doesn’t come cheap and it continues to cost time and resources to maintain. It isn’t static, it requires repetition with every new subject. #fountainpen #notes #journalspread