Marie Trigona
Photos and Text by Marie Trigona

Some 30,000 people were disappeared during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Kidnapped by commando groups in the middle of the night, they were taken to clandestine detention centers. The largest and most notorious torture center, The ESMA Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires still stands today, but as a museum for Memory.

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Marie Trigona
Mujeres Libres

Alfredo Astiz: Using the false name of Gustavo Niño, Astiz
specialized in infiltrating peaceful organisations protesting
against extrajudicial execution, identifying their members and,
after a sufficient number had been identified, kidnapping them.

Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

Argentine courts have launched an investigation into crimes committed at the ESMA Navy Mechanics School during the nation's military dictatorship. The landmark human rights trial is one of the most far-reaching attempts to bring crimes of Latin America's bloody past to justice.

For more than three decades, survivors and their families awaited the trial that finally began on Dec. 11, 2009. During Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, the ESMA Navy Mechanics School served as a clandestine detention center, used to torture and disappear thousands of people. Now 17 former ESMA officers face charges of human rights abuses, torture, and murder.

The ESMA trial was scheduled to begin in November but was postponed at the request of the defense. Those on trial include Alfredo Astiz, Jorge Acosta, Ricardo Cavallo, and Adolfo Donda—cited by human rights groups as among the most brutal and sinister repressors in the Argentine security forces. In total, 13 marines, two police, one coast guard, and one army official are on trial.

More than 200 witnesses will testify in the historic trial. Groups have stressed the need for witness protection following a wave of threats and the disappearance of a key witness, Jorge Julio Lopez, three years ago. Even President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has supported the human rights trial, has received threats. While traveling in her presidential helicopter, the helicopter's transit radio signal was intercepted at almost exactly the same moment as the ESMA trial opened. Anonymous voices were broadcast saying the words "kill her," followed by the military hymn that was played when Jorge Rafael Videla took power in the March 24, 1976 military coup. Interior Minister Anibal Fernandez says the threats could be "closely linked" to the ESMA trial.

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Jaisal Noor

A BIG SLICE OF PROFIT: A Huesitos de Wilde employee slices
sheets of cured leather into strips that will be dyed, rolled and baked
into dog treats. Workers have direct control of their profits.

Maria Alejendra, a factory worker in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, spends her days cutting pieces of rawhide at the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative. Along with the 33 other original workers at the dog treat factory, Alejandra now makes twice as much money — 2,000 pesos a month — as she did under her former boss. Alejandra, 41, who has worked at the factory for 14 years, is now able to listen to music and drink maté, a South American herbal tea, while she works.

The Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative is just one of more than 250 worker-recovered businesses in Argentina, which employ a total of 13,000 workers. Part of a broader effort to recover factories, which started after the country’s economic collapse in 2001, the workers at Huesitos de Wilde first occupied the factory and took over production in January 2007. Though Argentina’s economy has improved since the crash, the current economic downturn has caused a recent increase in factory take overs, with a significant uptick since February.

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