Somewhere in Argentina...

Every Thursday the women stand in silent protest by the president's palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They don't do much--just hold up photos of missing family members and, looking pleadingly at the pink building, weep. Occasionally the military police of dictator General Jorge Rafael Videla drag the women away to join the ranks of their relatives--the Desaparecidos--the disappeared ones, who are either jailed or killed by the government. But usually the police just watch the women mockingly. "They're crazy," one said. "Everyone knows that."

The truth is, not everyone knows that in Argentina. Most people will tell you they know someone who's disappeared. And many worry they may meet the same fate. When some Buenos Aires residents were asked about the padlocked door of a neighbor, they fidgeted. "Another 'disappearance'--the third this month in our building alone," one said. There was an uncomfortable silence. "Are we next?" another whispered.

Since seizing power in 1976, Videla's regime has abducted over 15,000 persons, according to Amnesty International. Other human rights groups estimate that 30,000 have been missing since 1970. Their crime? "Agitating" against the government. Some of these victims have actually organized against Videla--have actually bombed government buildings, killed diplomats and government officials, and openly criticized the regime. But according to one member of the disbanded "Montoneros" urban guerrilla group, only a small percent of those persecuted by the government now have direct connections with the terrorist left. "At our heyday in 1975, we numbered only several thousand, along with other revolutionary groups, such as the ERP (Marxist People's Revolutionary Army). By 1977, most of us were either killed or had fled the country. The Desaparecidos today are generally nonmilitant family or friends."

There is not much to protect the innocent. Laws permit searching without warrants, jailing without bail, trying without defense, and condemning without trial. If you look suspicious, associate with 'subversives,' or don't appeal to your neighborhood policeman, you can be seized without explanation. During one of many arbitrary street document checks, a young man was ordered by a guardsman to shave his beard. "He told me that I looked like a revolutionary, and that he'd jail me if I didn't remove it. So I shaved it--these guys are irrational but serious."

Youths in particular are victimized. Compared to other Latin American countries, one sees few young persons in the streets of Buenos Aires. And those one sees are often crippled from tortures with electric cattle prods, beatings, and limb dislocation.

Intellectuals--especially social scientists--constitute another prime target. The government closed the Di Tella Institute, formerly one of Latin America's most renowned research centers for sociological studies, and most of its staff are missing or self-exiled. The state-run universities offer only a highly censored curriculum in philosophy, political science, and anthropology, and the regime is considering outlawing psychiatry and psychology. "I'm not surprised," a psychiatrist said, "They don't want people to think."

The law school program has also been severely limited. "I decided to drop out and become an engineer," one former law school student said, "when they cut Plato out of our courses. Anyway, who'd want to be a lawyer in this lawless country?"

Dissenters must lead a double life. One family had a secret door in their closet where they hid such "subversive" material as banned Argentine Julio Cortazar's novels, Marx's complete works, and New York Times articles about Argentine repression. Although they vocally criticized the government in their apartment, in public cafes with friends they hyperbolically praised Videla's political policies. "You can't trust anyone," they explained.

Even within the military there is some liberal dissent. One man, speaking in muted tones at an air force base near Buenos Aires, said he joined the forces to protect himself and his family. "My brother was involved in leftist politics, and I was afraid I'd be indicted by extension. This way, I hope the government will think me and my parents above suspicion and will never know we're aiding him. But, "he adds, glancing at a poster over his head that warns "YOU have secrets the ENEMY wants. Don't abuse them, "everytime I look at that I wonder if they know about me."

Because of media censorship, journalists must be equally careful. During a visit to Cambridge in spring 1979, Robert Cox, former editor-in-chief of the conservative English language newspaper, The Buenos Aires Herald, adamantly said the North American press exaggerated the extent of repression and censorship in Argentina. He contradicted himself six months later when he explained in Time magazine why he and his family chose to defect to the U.S.

The strain of this double life takes its emotional toll. One does not see many smiling, relaxed people in the streets of Buenos Aires, and according to one psychiatrist, since 1976 cases of "psychosis" have escalated three-fold. "The tension of 'when will they come for me"?, the anxiety of not being able to trust people, the pain of losing loved ones and not being able to do anything about it is too much. It's like being in a war zone 24 hours a day."

Intensifying this strain is a sense that the military--and paramilitary--is ubiquitous. Many phones are tapped, letters censored, and on every corner in downtown Buenos Aires is positioned a guardsman with a machine gun and German metal World War II helmet. Even a foreigner is subject to this seemingly omniscient force. After a week in Buenos Aires, one noticed a man following her. When she pointed him out to friends, they frowned. "He's been following us for months. He probably thinks you're smuggling arms or socialist literature to us."

Perhaps one of the most frustrating strains the family of a Desaparecido must endure is the uncertainty of whether the missing are dead or will return. "The suspense is unbearable--if I knew M. were dead I would mourn and try to forget. But this way I don't know if I should entertain hope," one mother said. "And the government refuses to tell me anything. They just threaten me, saying I'll put my life in danger if I investigate further."

Under pressure from the UN and the Carter Administration, Videla accounted for onethird of the 15,000 Desaparecidos last year. But it generally does not assume responsibility for the unidentified, mutilated corpses washed up on the banks of the Plata River, or for the unmarked mass graves found outside the capitol.

Relatives of Desaparecidos interviewed seemed to agree that although Isabel Peron's 1973-76 regime paralleled Videla's brutal extermination of students, leftists, and intellectuals, its death-squad was more straightforward about its deeds. "At least they wore uniforms, at least they phoned the newspapers to tell them what they did," one woman said. "But now you get the feeling there's evil lurking under the surface that's not being admitted to."

One certainly feels something's being covered up. A bomb creating major damage on a Buenos Aires street last fall went unmentioned in the government-run media. In another attempt at pretense, the government has inadequately covered with cement several thousand machine gun holes in buildings where hundreds of rioting leftist students were massacred in 1975.

There is no way to ignore the situation while in Argentina, but one can't easily escape it either. Leaving the country is not an option for most people; in order to keep currency from leaving Argentina and to prevent political dialogue in other countries, the government is reluctant to let its citizens go abroad. Exit visa applications can wait as long as a year or two to be granted, but even then one cannot necessarily leave--passports still remain in government custody and often are not released. Frequently Argentines don't even bother to apply for one--out of fear. "I would do anything to go to the US or Europe, but what about my family?" laments one businessman. "I would endanger their lives if I sought political asylum elsewhere."

Is there any possible solution to this repressive mire, other than escaping it? Could the situation go on forever? According to one Argentine sociologist who lives in New York City, "Repression's been a tradition in Argentina since colonial times. We had dictatorships 25 years before Peron. People have known nothing else--they've been weaned on lack of liberty and learned to accept it."

And the lingering militant leftist underground is dwindling, said one active member. "Our forces have dried up, it is no longer possible to smuggle arms through Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The paramilitary knows where we are; it's only time before they kill us all."

The possibility of a coup from the more moderate Peronists, with whom the military has been shuffling the nation's control since 1943, seems slim. Although the majority of urban workers and professionals are Peronists, many interviewed are afraid of participating in a violent insurrection.

A rightist coup is not very likely either. Last November, a group of officers to the right of Videla--the duros--or "hard ones"--failed miserably in an attempted takeover. Videla's loyal forces were just too omnipotent.

Perhaps the only remaining hope is an uprising organized from the outside. Mere international pressure doesn't suffice, as Carter's and the UN's condemnation of Videla's violation of human rights has shown. The only outcome of the long-standing disapproval was the release of newspaper editor Jacobo Timerman, his imprisonment in his apartment and a profusion of heart-shaped bumper stickers stating "We Argentines Are Human and Right."

Short of arming the revolutionary underground--an unattractive prospect for most Western governments--the only possibility for change in Argentina is an international economic boycott. But the USSR and West Germany, which conduct a significant amount of trade with Argentina, would no doubt be unwilling to cooperate as would the United States under a conservative president such as Reagan.

In the meantime, Argentines try to anaesthesize themselves from the stress, from the pain. The cafes in Buenos Aires are always full, the cinema always well-attended. People still buy their groceries and go to work, trying to ignore the underlying crisis. As one automobile worker said, "You keep on living. Despite the terror, despite the hysteria, life goes on in its contorted way."

The militant leftist underground is dwindling, said one active member. "Our forces have dried up. It is no longer possible to smuggle arms. The paramilitary where are; it's only time before they kill us all."