Blog 8: Categorizing Political Violence

      The Dirty War in Argentina is a period from 1976-1983 when a war was declared on the citizens by Jorge Rafael Videla and his army after they overthrew the government lead by Isabel Martinez de Peron. Martinez de Peron took over as President of Argentina after her husband, then president Juan Peron, died of a heart attack. Following the coup d'état, Videla quickly made it known that anyone who opposed their actions would be immediately eliminated. The new government sought after groups of people that they saw as a detriment to society. According to a Human Rights Watch report in 2002, it is estimated that 15,000 people disappeared in Argentina during this period (Human Rights Watch). In 2000 a Spanish judge officially charged a former Argentine officer with genocide for his actions as part of the then newly formed government.  Does this event go hand in hand with the definition by David Samuels of what is classified as a genocide?
Samuels defines political violence as “the use of force by states or non-state actors to achieve political goals” (Samuels 2013, 258). The political goal of Videla and his force at first was to eliminate what they called the Marxist subversive threat. Samuels goes on to define genocide as “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder” (Samuels 2013, 279). It is believed that all, if not most, of those 15,000 estimated people that disappeared were actually murdered. Many were kidnapped as they walked outside at night. An article by Global Post states that “Most of them were taken from their homes under cover of night, and secretly detained for torture and execution — in euphemistic brevity, “disappeared”” (Mundra). The article goes on to say that although a majority of the bodies were never found, that it is believed that those kidnapped were buried in mass graves at detention centers such as one that was found in 2008 that had over 10,000 burned and broken bone fragments (Mundra). 
The one major difference that I see between the definition given by Samuels and the events that occurred in Argentina is that those committing these horrendous acts were of the same ethnic, religious, and national group as those they killed. The hatred was first pointed towards right activists that they believed were ruining the country but the attacks began to spread to those they decided they didn’t like or that they suspected would oppose them. This genocide does not line up with the likes of the Holocaust or the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, instead this it quickly became a matter of power and the willingness to kill any person who stood in their way or posed a threat to them, regardless of who they were.
Could the Dirty War be better classified then as terrorism? Samuels defines terrorism as the “threatened or actual use of violence for political purpose by non-state actors, directed particularly against civilian targets” (Samuels 2103, 276). We can modify this definition just a little to make it applicable to these events by showing that it was a form of state terrorism where the new government in place directed this violence at its own citizens. Samuels states one of the tactics of terrorism as being guerrilla warfare. This type of warfare  uses irregular military tactics such as sabotage and ambush. The ambushing occurred when they kidnapped citizens and stole approximately 500 children from their mothers after they were born in concentration camps and then were given to military families. 
In conclusion,  I believe that Samuels’ definitions are fairly accurate. There are a few discrepancies between what the Dirty War has been classified as and what Samuels’ states the definitions should be confined to. In my opinion, the Dirty War of Argentina can be seen as both a genocide and a form of terrorism. The government did not single out a particular group but they did participate in mass murders and typically used tactics associated with terrorism to carry out the elimination of those they felt would oppose their rule over the country.