The Detenidos Desaparecidos (Disappeared Detainees) of state terrorism in Argentina are victims of forced disappearance before, during, and after the last civic-military dictatorship in Argentina, the National Reorganization Process, from 1976 to 1983. Held in clandestine detention centers, they were subjected to torture and, in many cases, killed. The first disappearances and clandestine detention centers began in 1975 under the constitutional government of Isabel Perón and continued until 1984 during the constitutional government of Raúl Alfonsín.

Declassified U.S. government documents from 2006 reveal that a Chilean intelligence agent reported in a 1978 cable to his superiors that Argentine military personnel from Battalion 601 estimated they had killed or disappeared approximately 22,000 people between 1975 and mid-1978. Around the same time, according to these documents, the then-U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill, stated: "It is our estimate that at least several thousand were killed, and we doubt it will ever be possible to establish a more specific figure."

Human rights organizations, unions, and most left-wing political parties traditionally assert that the number of disappearances is approximately 30000. In a 2009 letter, , then , used this figure, citing variables such as the number of detention and extermination centers, the proportion of habeas corpus petitions filed, and statements from the military themselves. He stated that "the figure of 30000 is neither arbitrary nor capricious, although it is regrettable to reduce the dimension of the Argentine tragedy to an accounting issue," as "the massive, criminal, and abject nature is not measured by arithmetic results, at least for those of us who believe that killing one person is killing humanity."

Definition The Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, signed in 1994, classifies forced disappearance as a crime against humanity that is imprescriptible and defines it as follows:

Context The from 1976 to 1983 pursued political persecution, kidnapping, torture, and murder in a secretive and systematic manner within the framework of state terrorism in Argentina. These practices were also employed in other Latin American dictatorships under Operation Condor in South America and Operation Charly in Central America.

The use of forced disappearance by a totalitarian state seeks impunity by obscuring evidence of the crime, instilling terror in victims and society through uncertainty about the fate of the disappeared, and hindering citizens' ability to act while fostering division. Disappearance renders the opponent a homo sacer, a person who can be killed with impunity.

The practice of disappearance fundamentally relies on producing unknownness. Consequently, uncovering what happened, recovering collective memory, and demanding truth became central demands of victims and human rights organizations. A key slogan chanted during protest marches against the military government was: "The disappeared, tell us where they are!".

Forced disappearance exacerbates the repression and pain, as families struggle to accept the death of loved ones without closure, prolonging the search for their remains and the truth about their fate.

Background Hitler's Night and Fog Decree The system of forced disappearance was first formalized by Nazism through Hitler's Night and Fog Decree of December 7, 1941, reconstructed by the Nuremberg Trials. Nazi ideologues argued that the decree introduced a "fundamental innovation" in state organization: the system of forced disappearances.

The core order of the Night and Fog Decree was:

According to Hitler, other opponents were to be detained during "the night and fog" and clandestinely taken to Germany without any further information beyond the fact of their detention.

The decree's rationale explained:

The reconstructed text further specified:

In Argentina, a truck driver who witnessed the testified that when he asked a military officer about the fate of the bodies he was transporting, the officer replied: "They go to the fog of nowhere."

The Night and Fog Decree is cited as a precedent for Argentina's forced disappearance policy in some judicial rulings. Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón referenced it in a November 2, 1999, ruling ordering the prosecution of 98 Argentine military officers for crimes against humanity:

It was also referenced in a 2006 ruling by the Oral Criminal Court No. 1 of La Plata in the "Etchecolatz" case:

French School Forced disappearance as a repressive method was introduced in Argentina by the so-called "French military school" from the late 1950s. France suffered a catastrophic military defeat in 1954 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu against the Viet Minh, ending the First Indochina War and paving the way for Vietnam's independence. This defeat against a militarily inferior but popularly supported force shocked the French armed forces, trained in conventional warfare. From this context, French military officers developed the concept of "subversive warfare," later replaced by the "doctrine of revolutionary warfare" (DGR).

Shortly after the Indochina defeat, France faced another independence war led by the Algerian National Liberation Front, which, like in Vietnam, had strong popular support. In this context, French Colonel Charles Lacheroy published La campagne d’Indochine, ou une leçon de guerre révolutionnaire in 1954, outlining tactical and strategic concepts developed over the previous two years. Lacheroy described revolutionary warfare as a "new type of war," "unconventional," where psychological action is critical, and the rearguard becomes more important than the troops. As the enemy is embedded in the population, the fight is less about territory and more about the "hearts" and "minds" of the local population. Lacheroy admitted that such wars require methods "repugnant to human conscience."

The French Army adopted Lacheroy’s ideas and applied them in Algeria when the decolonization war began in November 1954. Torture and forced disappearance were explicitly used as weapons and applied systematically. Death squads were created to kidnap, interrogate under torture, and disappear individuals.

Colonel Marcel Bigeard, head of paratroopers in Algeria, detailed the operation in an interview:

General Paul Aussaresses further described the modus operandi:

Several authors have noted the connection between Nazi atrocities, Vichy France, the wars to preserve colonialism in Indochina and Algeria, and their persistence in the French far-right.

From May 1958, DGR techniques were taught at Bigeard’s initiative. The courses used Colonel Roger Trinquier’s manual La guerra moderna, which openly justified torture. Held at the Paris War School, they included a month of "practice" in Algeria. The first students were Argentines, including General , selected by the Argentine General Staff to learn what became known in Argentina as the "French doctrine."

These techniques were transmitted to Argentine military officers at the Superior War School in Argentina and later at the School of the Americas.

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, established by the United States in July 1963 in the Panama Canal Zone, was a key center for promoting the establishment of totalitarian dictatorships and the use of subversive terrorism, state terrorism, and drug trafficking in Latin America. Over 60,000 military and police personnel from up to 23 Latin American countries were trained there, including ideological training in the U.S. during the Cold War, torture techniques, and media manipulation. Among them were several criminals active in Argentina, including dictators Jorge Rafael Videla, Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, and Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri.

In 1996, the United States declassified documents containing instructional manuals on the use of torture, extortion, and summary execution, targeting members of unions who "distributed propaganda in favor of leftist extremist groups or their interests," "sympathized with demonstrations or strikes," or made "accusations about the government's failure to meet the basic needs of the people."

One of the most notorious torture manuals was KUBARK, which described the process of torture by electric shock. The manuals were declassified by the CIA in 1994.

Critics, including Panama’s newspaper La Prensa, dubbed it the "School for Assassins." Panamanian President Jorge Illueca called it "the gringo base for destabilizing Latin America." In a 1993 open letter to the Columbus Ledger Enquirer, former instructor Commander Joseph Blair stated: "In my three years of service at the School, I never heard anything about lofty goals like promoting freedom, democracy, and human rights. Latin American military personnel came to Columbus solely for economic benefits, opportunities to buy quality goods exempt from their countries’ import duties, and free transportation, paid for by U.S. taxpayers." According to Democratic Senator Martin Meehan (Massachusetts): "If the School of the Americas held an alumni reunion, it would bring together some of the most infamous and undesirable thugs and wrongdoers in the hemisphere."

In 1976, a U.S. Democratic Party parliamentary commission during Jimmy Carter's administration acknowledged the criminal practices taught and promoted at the School and forced its suspension. In 1977, under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties regarding the Panama Canal, the U.S. agreed to Panama’s demand to relocate the School to Fort Benning, Georgia.

Practice of Forced Disappearance General Jorge Rafael Videla explained in an interview with journalist María Seoane:

On U.S. television on September 14, 1977, Videla stated:

On the last Sunday of October 1979, a month after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights visited Argentina, Pope John Paul II publicly addressed the issue of the disappeared and those detained without trial in Argentina at St. Peter's Square. On December 13, 1979, Videla held a press conference in Buenos Aires, where journalist José Ignacio López asked him about the Pope’s statements, prompting a lengthy response invoking his Christian view of human rights, including the following reflection, which became historic:

Detentions were typically carried out by heavily armed military or paramilitary groups of four or five individuals, who coordinated with security forces to clear the area of operation. Victims were seized on the street, in bars, cinemas, their homes, or wherever they were at the time.

Once detained, they were taken to a clandestine detention center (up to 610 are estimated to have operated) where they were interrogated under systematic torture. In most cases, they were ultimately killed, and their bodies were disappeared through , buried in mass graves, or marked as unidentified (N.N.).

In the early years, although the media did not provide direct information about what was happening, they occasionally reported on detentions or the discovery of bodies:

Detentions were carried out by military and police forces, sometimes with active collaboration from civilian officials or authorities of the companies, schools, or universities the victims were associated with. No agency provided information on the victims’ whereabouts to their families. Judges did not process the habeas corpus petitions filed, and in many cases, the lawyers filing these petitions were themselves disappeared.

Number of victims

Documents In 1978, Chilean secret agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel sent a report listing some of the dead and disappeared between 1975 and July 1978 in Argentina, stating that up to that date, 22000 had been recorded. The document partially reveals the existence of individualized records of the disappeared, which were never acknowledged or found by those responsible.