Argentina Secret Detention Centers (1976-1983)
Based on the information gathered by the
National Commission on the Disappeared (CONADEP)

Introduction

About 340 secret detention centers [click for map] operated throughout Argentina between 1976 and 1983. They formed a separate and unofficial prison system that secretly functioned alongside the legal structure. The Armed Forces referred to them as 'Prisoner Assessment Centers'. They were intended to hold the thousands of people who disappeared in Argentina on the explicit orders of the military dictatorship. The policy was to eliminate political opposition; the means was an organized network of secret detention centers within which the government illegally detained, tortured and murdered 'disappeared' prisoners.

The Dirty War, Argentina's ultimate solution to the problem of extreme-left terrorism, turned out to be a sinister, murderous campaign against ideas and beliefs. The military government filled its secret detention centers with dissidents, trade unionists, social reformers, human rights activists, nuns, priests, pacifists, psychologists, journalists, students, pupils, teachers, lawyers, actors, workers, housewives, spouses, parents, friends, neighbours - tens of thousands of people who allegedly threatened national stability by conspiring to undermine the ``Western Christian way of life.''

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