The term describes a violent, dark period in Argentina’s history, from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, when the ruling military junta was at war with its left-wing opponents. The right-wing military had seized control in 1976 after a period of instability, and decided to purge their enemies. As Shannon O’Neil, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations puts it, the military’s thinking was this: “We’re going to get rid of the cancer that is in our society—i.e., the left wing. And these people that have communist ideas, and other vaguely communist-leftist ideas.” Trade unions, the press, students, and their sympathizers were all targeted.
