By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA)
ARGENTINE DICTATORS SUPPRESSED PARTNERSHIP PARTISANS
From the Yagán Canoe People to Perón, generals, the Malvinas War, Milei, and Trump, Argentina’s dominators and cooperators oscillated.
Argentina’s history mixed two ancient options for the dimension of giving and taking that inheres in all societies.
TAKING
Our creators, the Anunnaki of the Planet Nibiru, which passes through our inner Solar System every 3,000-plus years, lived in a violently competitive, hierarchically ordered, rigid, caste-divided society. They created modern humans as their slaves and continue to surreptitiously control most of us, including the people of Argentina.
The Anunnaki organize people vertically: rulers boss subjects, officers order soldiers, landlords and business owners dominate tenants and laborers. Conquerors dictate to conquered peoples, governments compel obedience with guns, jails, taxation, religious nonsense, education control, and wealth manipulation.
To this very day, Argentina, like the rest of our world, inculcates or forces us into the ANUNNAKI DOMINATION pattern.
But DOMINATION DETERMINATION, the taking pole the Anunnaki live by and impose on us, is but one end of an entire dimension of both giving and taking.
GIVING
Giving, the other, albeit sub-rosa, pole of the give-take dimension, was developed here on Earth by Nibiran Princess Ninmah, aka The Great Goddess of Crete. The ideology of giving that she developed emphasizes kinship, reciprocity, mutual aid, negotiated relationships, labor organization, human rights, democratic participation, and protection of vulnerable people.
Small-scale hunters, gatherers, and horticulturists also competed, but they lived mainly cooperatively. And though they also competed, their competition did not destroy their partnerships. Horticulturists balanced competition and cooperation.
As populations grew in Argentina and elsewhere, they produced authoritarian leaders. Even governments that expanded giving and social welfare also dominated to restrict their opponents.
The Catholic Church in Argentina cooperated with rulers in some periods while individual Catholic priests and laypeople defended victims in others.
Argentina’s history therefore gives us an extraordinary laboratory for examining both DOMINATION AND COOPERATION.
Argentines created sophisticated adaptations, agriculture, maritime societies, extraordinary literature and music, science, industry, tango, and internationally famous sports traditions. They also endured conquest, dispossession, civil wars, dictatorships, disappearances, torture, economic catastrophes, and repeated struggles over who controlled the wealth.
Nonetheless, Argentina’s common people organized. Workers formed unions, Native communities survived Portuguese conquest, mothers confronted generals, citizens restored elections, students, pensioners and scientists marched.
The central question persisted for Argentina, as it does for every polity, WHO SHOULD GOVERN ARGENTINA — AND FOR WHOM?
BEFORE ARGENTINA — MANY PEOPLES, MANY WAYS OF LIFE
Long before Europeans arrived—and thousands of years before anyone drew the boundaries of ARGENTINA or CHILE—human communities occupied the mountains, grasslands, forests, river systems, coasts and islands of southern South America. The people living in South America were descendants of Ka-in, the Hybrid Anunnaki/Homo erectus son of Anunnaki Chief Scientist Enki.
Anunnaki scientist Ningishzidda excised Ka-in’s facial-hair genes to mark him and his descendants as the Ka-in line, the brother-killer. Anunnaki Commander Enlil banished Ka-in and his descendants from the lands that would become Iraq (to lands that became Iran). Anunnaki Princes Ninurta and Adad/Viracocha educated selected descendants of Ka-in in Bolivia and took them with them to supply labor and metallurgical expertise to build a spaceport atop the Andes Mountains. Europeans called the beardless technicians “Indians,” and some may indeed have come from India or Persia. These so-called Indians did not come from Siberia across the Bering Strait (that was an early anthropological error).
At CUEVA DE LAS MANOS in Patagonia, descendants of Ka-in inhabitants left hundreds of silhouettes of human hands together with paintings of animals and hunting.
The “Indians” developed different adaptations to Argentina’s range of environments.
In the northwest, peoples including the DIAGUITA-CALCHAQUÍ cultivated crops and developed irrigation systems.
In the northeast, GUARANÍ communities cultivated crops, fished, and traveled the great river systems.
Peoples of the Chaco combined hunting, fishing, gathering, and agriculture.
Across Patagonia lived societies including the TEHUELCHE.
And at the very end of South America lived several peoples adapted to TIERRA DEL FUEGO.
Among them were the SELK’NAM, HAUSH, KAWÉSQAR and the remarkable maritime people variously called YAGÁN, YAHGAN, and YÁMANA.
THE YAGÁN MADE THE SEA THEIR HIGHWAY
The ancestral Yagán world extended through the maze of channels, islands, coves, and stormy waters surrounding southern Tierra del Fuego—from the southern coast of Isla Grande through the BEAGLE CHANNEL and islands extending toward CAPE HORN. Today parts of that region lie within Argentina and other parts within Chile. The Yagán homeland came first. The international boundary came thousands of years later. The Yagán therefore belonged to a human geography that preceded both modern republics. Their civilization developed around extraordinary maritime knowledge.
Families moved through the channels in canoes. They hunted marine mammals, caught fish, gathered shellfish and plants, and exploited the varied resources of coast and sea. They manufactured harpoons, scrapers, projectile points, ornaments and ceremonial objects. Their ability to survive depended upon detailed knowledge accumulated across generations: currents, weather, islands, animals, landing places, food sources and the safe movement of families through the archipelago. Traditional Yagán society was egalitarian, with differentiated social roles embedded within a strong system of reciprocity. Their survival depended upon knowledge shared among people.
Their canoe travel embodied interdependence. Someone navigated, someone paddled, and someone watched children. Groups of Yagán People hunted, gathered, manufactured tools, maintained fires, and passed accumulated ecological knowledge between generations. Adults made collective decisions through discussion.
1516: EUROPEANS PROBED SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTH TIP
European ships entered an already populated continent when Spanish and Portuguese navigators began probing South America’s southeastern coast in the early sixteenth century. Guaraní, Charrúa, Querandí, Tehuelche, Selk’nam, Haush, Yagán, Kawésqar, and other peoples already occupied, traveled through, and understood these enormous landscapes, rivers, coasts, islands, and seas.
Europeans sought passages around the bottom of South America as a route to Asia. They looked for precious metals, claimed lands for their monarchs, and determined that the area supported Indians to convert to Catholicism and use as labor for commercial opportunities their home countries could gain. They probed the shoreline for places to establish and gain strategic control for their European sponsors.
1516: URUGUAY INDIANS KILLED SPANISH EXPLORER JUAN DÍAZ DE SOLÍS
In 1516, Spanish navigator JUAN DÍAZ DE SOLÍS entered the enormous estuary Europeans would eventually call the RÍO DE LA PLATA.
Solís thought the river’s huge opening might give Spain a waterway through South America toward Asia. Instead, his expedition encountered Natives on the estuary’s northern shore, in what is now URUGUAY. Solís and several companions went ashore where (probably) Charrúa Indians killed them, although the particular Native group remains uncertain. News of Solís’ murder showed Europeans that the Indians of South America’s tip could resist them.
European expectations of precious metals nevertheless helped shape the names Europeans attached to the region. RÍO DE LA PLATA meant River of Silver, while ARGENTINA ultimately derived from the Latin argentum—SILVER.
The promised mountains of silver lay far inland, but stories about silver drew explorers deeper into the continent.
1520: MAGELLAN MET THE PEOPLE HE CALLED “PATAGONIANS”
Portuguese navigator FERDINAND MAGELLAN, commanding a fleet for SPAIN, reached PORT SAN JULIÁN in present-day ARGENTINA on March 31, 1520.
He remained there through the southern winter.
At the Port, the Spaniards encountered the TEHUELCHE Indians, whom they called Patagonian Giants.
They initially communicated by gesture, then exchanged objects, food, and information.
Magellan ordered two Indian men to be seized and carried as prisoners back to Spain.
The land that would become Argentina therefore contained both poles that would recur repeatedly: exchange between peoples—and domination by outsiders.
MAGELLAN ENTERED THE STRAIT HE CALLED TIERRA DEL FUEGO
Leaving San Julián, Magellan continued south.
On October 21, 1520, his expedition reached the eastern entrance of the passage now called the STRAIT OF MAGELLAN.
The fleet spent more than a month navigating the twisting waterway and emerged into the Pacific in late November.
His map became the first surviving European map of the strait.
Along the southern shores, the sailors observed numerous fires, so Europeans consequently called the country TIERRA DEL FUEGO — LAND OF FIRE.
The islands and waterways were homelands of Fuegian peoples. SELK’NAM occupied much of Isla Grande; HAUSH lived toward its southeastern extremity; maritime YAGÁN communities occupied the Beagle Channel and islands farther south; KAWÉSQAR traveled the western channels.
The Yagán (Yámana) survived the cold, wet islands and channels of Tierra del Fuego through an intensely cooperative way of life.
Families traveled the waterways in bark canoes, fishing, gathering shellfish, hunting sea mammals, and maintaining fires that provided essential warmth.
Yagán women were skilled divers and canoeists. Yagán men hunted and fished.
Yagán organized around families and small mobile bands.
The Yagán shared food within kin and camp groups, and cooperation, reciprocal obligations, knowledge of the sea, and mutual assistance were crucial to survival.
But they also quarreled, sought revenge, fought feuds, and sometimes perpetrated violence.
They were mainly cooperation-oriented within their communities but turned aggressive and retaliatory when they quarreled.
1536 AND 1580: EUROPEANS ESTABLISHED BUENOS AIRES
PEDRO DE MENDOZA founded the first Buenos Aires settlement in 1536.
Hunger and conflict with local peoples led the Spanish to abandon Buenos Aires temporarily.
COWBOY SETTLERS GOT ARGENTINE SETTLERS AND INDIANS HORSING AROUND
June 11, 1580, JUAN DE GARAY established the permanent Spanish settlement from which Buenos Aires developed.
The Spaniards brought cattle, horses, and sheep to Argentina.
Escaped and feral animals multiplied across the grasslands.
Natives used them for new forms of mobility, hunting, warfare, and trade.
Colonial authorities claimed Indian lands and exploited their labor, while settlers and Indians fought, traded, negotiated, intermarried, and created new populations.
1578: FRANCIS DRAKE PASSED THROUGH THE STRAIT
In 1578, the English privateer and navigator FRANCIS DRAKE sailed through the Strait of Magellan during his circumnavigation.
Violent storms carried Drake’s ship south of Tierra del Fuego.
He proved that Tierra del Fuego formed part of an enormous unknown southern continent.
The English expedition alarmed the Spanish, who regarded the Strait of Magellan as a strategic gateway into their Pacific possessions.
1579–1584: SPAIN TRIED TO CONTROL THE STRAIT
Spain responded by sending PEDRO SARMIENTO DE GAMBOA to examine and secure the Strait of Magellan. Sarmiento sailed through the strait from west to east in 1579–1580, producing detailed European surveys and descriptions. Spain then attempted something much more ambitious: permanent colonization. In 1584, Sarmiento established two settlements, including NOMBRE DE JESÚS near the Atlantic entrance and REY DON FELIPE farther west. The venture became a catastrophe. Isolation, inadequate supplies, harsh environmental conditions, and starvation destroyed the colonies.
1616: THE DUTCH FOUND ANOTHER PASSAGE: CAPE HORN
On January 24, 1616, Dutch navigators JACOB LE MAIRE and WILLEM SCHOUTEN, sailing the EENDRACHT, passed through the waterway between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados—today’s LE MAIRE STRAIT. Several days later, on January 29, 1616, they rounded the great cape south of Tierra del Fuego. Schouten named it CAPE HORN, after his home city of Hoorn in the Netherlands. Their voyage demonstrated conclusively that ships could reach the Pacific by sailing south of Tierra del Fuego, rather than through the Strait of Magellan.
1769: CAPTAIN COOK MET FUEGIANS AT BAHÍA BUEN SUCESO
James Cook’s HMS ENDEAVOUR anchored at BAHÍA BUEN SUCESO — BAY OF GOOD SUCCESS — on January 16, 1769, on the southeastern shore of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. Cook, naturalist JOSEPH BANKS, botanist DANIEL SOLANDER, and other members of the expedition went ashore. There they met Fuegian inhabitants—generally identified with the HAUSH population of southeastern Tierra del Fuego.
Explorers, merchant ships, whalers, and sealers increasingly moved through the South Atlantic and around Cape Horn. They traded artifacts for food and sex, begat offspring with the Indians, competed for marine resources, and gave and got new diseases from each other. Although Europeans had ocean-spanning ships, the Indians knew better than them how to survive in the treacherous waters.
1826: HMS ADVENTURE AND HMS BEAGLE ARRIVED TO MAP THE SOUTH SYSTEMATICALLY
By the nineteenth century, Britain wanted accurate charts of the region and prepared two surveying vessels, HMS ADVENTURE, commanded by CAPTAIN PHILLIP PARKER KING, and HMS BEAGLE (initially commanded by CAPTAIN PRINGLE STOKES). They sailed from England on May 22, 1826. Their mission was to survey Patagonia, the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego, and adjoining Pacific coasts. The 1826–1830 expedition transformed European geographical knowledge of the southern extremity of South America. During that voyage, ROBERT FITZROY would assume command of HMS BEAGLE in 1828 after the death of Pringle Stokes.
1826 -1832: EUROPEANS EXPLORED SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTH TIP
From 1826 to 1830, HMS Beagle surveyed Tierra del Fuego; Robert FitzRoy took command in 1828 and explored the Beagle Channel in 1830. FitzRoy returned commanding HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin in 1832. On December 16, 1832, they reached Tierra del Fuego, and on December 17, Darwin went ashore at BAHÍA BUEN SUCESO, beginning his direct encounters with the Indians of the far south. From 1826 to 1830, HMS Beagle surveyed Tierra del Fuego; Robert FitzRoy took command in 1828 and explored the Beagle Channel in 1830. FitzRoy returned commanding HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin in 1832. On December 16, 1832, they reached Tierra del Fuego, and on December 17, Darwin went ashore at BAHÍA BUEN SUCESO, beginning his direct encounters with the Indians of the far south.
Missionaries followed explorers. An Anglican mission established at what became USHUAIA in 1869 created sustained European presence within Yagán territory. Missionaries recorded the Yagán language and culture, hyped Christianity, built permanent settlements, and introduced European clothing and economic practices. The religious settlers created states, ranches, mines, and businesses.
Argentina and Chile divided Tierra del Fuego through their 1881 boundary treaty. The Argentine government established a permanent state presence at Ushuaia in 1884 and, after 1885, expanded a sheep industry, occupied traditional Indian territories, and restricted Indian mobility. The Indians became ranch hands and city laborers. Tuberculosis and other introduced diseases drastically decimated the Indians.
The Yagán continue asserting their identity today. They organized the Comunidad Indígena Yagán Paiakoala and worked with CONICET archaeologists to present the history of their ancestors around Onashaga—the Beagle Channel.
YAGÁN COOPERATORS had said, Our canoes carried our families; we knew the channels that connected our tribes, saw where the animals moved, where shellfish grew, where storms gathered and where we could camp. Our families crossed these waters before either republic existed. But the DOMINATORS who ran Argentina and Chile countered: This side belongs to Argentina. That side belongs to Chile. Here is the boundary. We will chart these channels and place them upon our maps.
1500s–1816: SPAIN BUILT A COLONY; ARGENTINES BUILT A REVOLUTION
European ships entered an already populated continent.
Spanish exploration reached the Río de la Plata during the early sixteenth century.
The European expectation of precious metals helped give the future country its name: ARGENTINA derives from the Latin argentum—silver.
Spanish settlement proceeded unevenly.
Buenos Aires was permanently established in 1580.
European cattle, horses, and sheep transformed the pampas. Colonial authorities claimed Indigenous lands and exploited Indigenous labor while European settlers and Indigenous peoples fought, traded, intermarried, and created new populations.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ENTERED THE COLONIAL SYSTEM
The CATHOLIC CHURCH became one of Spanish America’s most powerful institutions.
Priests established churches, schools, and missions. Religious orders participated in education and frontier settlement.
Missionaries sometimes defended Indigenous communities against particular settlers and slave raiders while simultaneously seeking to convert Indigenous people and transform their religions and ways of life. Church, Crown and conquest thus became intertwined without becoming identical.
Buenos Aires grew increasingly important and in 1776 became the capital of the new VICEROYALTY OF THE RÍO DE LA PLATA.
Then imperial authority fractured.
British forces invaded Buenos Aires in 1806 and 1807. Locally organized forces drove them out.
The victories demonstrated that inhabitants could defend themselves without relying upon Spain.
Then Napoleon invaded Spain.
The MAY REVOLUTION OF 1810 established a revolutionary government in Buenos Aires.
Out of the independence struggle emerged JOSÉ DE SAN MARTÍN, a military man obsessed with freeing South America from Spain.
San Martín organized the Army of the Andes. In 1817, his forces crossed the Andes, helped liberate Chile, then took the fight north toward Peru.
On JULY 9, 1816, representatives meeting at Tucumán declared independence.
Spanish authorities said, The Crown governs these territories through established authority.
Revolutionaries reacted: People living here can govern themselves.
San Martín drove Spain from South America’s south, saying, Liberation cannot stop at one frontier.
1816–1916: CAUDILLOS, LAND, IMMIGRATION AND THE MAKING OF ARGENTINA
Removing Spain did not determine who would control the new country.
Federalists and centralists fought over how to distribute political power.
Provincial strongmen—CAUDILLOS—commanded armies and political loyalties.
Among the most powerful Caudillos was JUAN MANUEL DE ROSAS
Rosas governed Buenos Aires and became the effective strongman of much of the Argentine Confederation.
His regime combined nationalism, popular mobilization, patronage, landholding power, and violent repression of opponents.
After Rosas fell in 1852, constitutional institutions gradually consolidated, and Argentina then expanded southward.
JULIO ARGENTINO ROCA AND THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT
During the late 1870s and early 1880s, GENERAL JULIO ARGENTINO ROCA became the principal military figure in the campaign remembered as the CONQUEST OF THE DESERT.
The Argentine state seized enormous Indigenous territories across the pampas and Patagonia. The Settlers killed, captured, and displaced the Indians, and took their lands for ranching, agriculture, settlement, and private ownership. This expansion eventually connected with the incorporation of TIERRA DEL FUEGO.
Argentina and Chile established their border in 1881.
In 1884, Commodore Augusto Lasserre established an Argentine naval subprefecture at USHUAIA, giving the national government a permanent official presence there and strengthening Argentina’s claim to Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia acquired a permanent Argentine state presence in 1884.
For the YAGÁN, SELK’NAM, HAUSH and neighboring peoples, national expansion meant that places their ancestors had inhabited for millennia became surveyed territory, ranches, towns and national jurisdictions. The Yagán nevertheless maintained aspects of canoe mobility, hunting, and other practices even as they adopted European clothing and entered the new colonial economy.
ARGENTINA BECAME RICH
Beef, hides, wool, and grain poured through Buenos Aires.
Railroads crossed the pampas.
European investment increased.
Millions of immigrants arrived, especially from ITALY AND SPAIN.
Buenos Aires became one of the world’s great cities.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Argentina ranked among the wealthier economies on Earth.
But workers increasingly asked: WHOSE PROSPERITY?
Immigrants and Argentine workers created trade unions, mutual-aid societies, socialist organizations and anarchist movements.
Economic growth produced both fortunes and organized demands from the cooperatively oriented peoples whom the governing elite dominated.
LANDOWNING ELITES said, Territory, exports and investment will make Argentina powerful.
ARGENTINE INDIANS protested, Your frontier advances across our homes.
WORKERS wailed, We produce the wealth. We demand a voice in how it’s distributed.
1916–1955: THE PERÓNS’ PEOPLE POWER PROVIDED PROSPERITY
Argentina’s export prosperity could not insulate it from the Great Depression that devastated international trade.
A 1930 military coup began the INFAMOUS DECADE, characterized by electoral fraud, conservative government, corruption, and growing military intervention, much like the current and escalating takeover of the U.S. by Trump’s MAGA deplorables nowadays.
A military coup in 1943 led COLONEL JUAN DOMINGO PERÓN, then Secretary of Labor, to organize workers who demanded decent wages, pensions, and labor protections.
Perón’s military rivals imprisoned him in October 1945. Enormous working-class demonstrations demanded his release, and he won Argentina’s Presidency in 1946.
Beside Col Perón stood his wife, EVA DUARTE DE PERÓN — EVITA.
She became the emotional center of Peronism for millions of workers and poor Argentines.
Her Eva Perón Foundation distributed assistance, built hospitals, schools, and other institutions, and provided direct help to families.
In 1947, when women’s suffrage became law, Evita helped mobilize women into national political life.
The Peróns promoted industrialization, strengthened organized labor, expanded social programs, and pursued economic nationalism.
But the Peróns concentrated their power, pressured opposition media and opponents, and cultivated personal loyalty around them, conflating COOPERATIVE SOCIAL WELFARE AND WORKER MOBILIZATION with increasingly DOMINATING PERSONAL POWER that embodied nationalism, trade-union power, social welfare, military influences, mass mobilization and charismatic leadership.
PERÓN AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Perón initially shared considerable ground with the Catholic hierarchy.
Catholic social teaching, nationalism, family values and social welfare overlapped with parts of Peronist ideology.
But Evita’s welfare apparatus also moved the state into social territory traditionally occupied by Catholic charities.
By 1954–55, cooperation between the Peróns and the Catholics turned into open conflict.
Perón’s government eliminated compulsory religious education, legalized divorce, and restricted Church activities.
Catholic organizations became important centers of opposition, and violence exploded.
On JUNE 16, 1955, anti-Peronist Argentine naval aircraft bombed the PLAZA DE MAYO during an attempted coup, killing hundreds of civilians.
Peronist supporters subsequently attacked churches.
In September, the military overthrew Perón.
Evita had already died from cancer in 1952, only 33 years old.
Perón went into exile.
But PERONISM AND THE PEOPLE’S DESIRE FOR DEMOCRACY WITHIN A WELFARE STATE DID NOT DISAPPEAR.
President JUAN PERÓN said, Workers belong inside the nation and inside political power.
Vice President EVITA PERÓN said: Government must see the people whom privilege ignores.
Argentina’s WORKERS shouted, We built Argentina’s factories. Our labor gives us a voice.
DEMOCRATIC DEMONSTRATORS declared, Social justice and political liberty must sustain each other.
1955–1976: ARGENTINA COULD NOT ESCAPE PERÓN
Military governments banned Peronism and kept his name off ballots.
But they could not eliminate millions of Peronists.
Argentina cycled through elected presidents, military interventions, strikes, demonstrations, guerrilla movements, and counterrevolutionary violence.
Peronism itself fragmented. It contained militant left-wing youth, organized labor, social reformers, conservatives and an increasingly violent right.
After eighteen years in exile, Juan Perón returned to Argentina and again became president in 1973. became vice president.
But the movement surrounding him was tearing itself apart. Perón died on July 1, 1974. Isabel succeeded him as president.
Political violence and inflation intensified.
The far-right ARGENTINE ANTICOMMUNIST ALLIANCE—TRIPLE A murdered and terrorized leftists and perceived enemies.
Armed revolutionary organizations also kidnapped and killed opponents and attacked government and military targets.
The military increasingly presented itself as the institution that could impose order.
On MARCH 24, 1976, the armed forces seized the government.
1976–1983: GENERALS MADE PEOPLE DISAPPEAR
The military dictatorship called its program the PROCESS OF NATIONAL REORGANIZATION.
Its first dominant figure was General Jorge Rafael Videla.
Military and security forces abducted suspected opponents, students, workers, trade unionists, activists, journalists, and others.
The Military ran secret detention centers operated throughout the country.
In the army’s prisons, prisoners were tortured, pregnant detainees gave birth in captivity, and the military goons gave their babies to other families.
The goons drugged and bound people, put them on planes, flew them over the Atlantic or Río de la Plata, and threw them alive from the aircraft.
The regime’s repression also existed within the wider South American system of military and intelligence cooperation called OPERATION CONDOR.
The generals described their violence as defending Western Christian civilization against subversion. Christianity? I’m sure Jesus would disagree.
Their victims experienced what that claim of religious authority meant: Argentina got unlimited power over its citizens and unfortunate visitors.
In 1977, mothers searching for their missing children began gathering in the PLAZA DE MAYO.
The dictatorship possessed armies. The mothers possessed photographs.
The generals controlled detention centers. The mothers asked a question the regime could never completely silence:
WHERE ARE OUR CHILDREN? Their white headscarves became one of the world’s most recognizable symbols of civilian resistance to state terror.
Later, the GRANDMOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO pursued another question: Where are the children born to our disappeared daughters?
Through extraordinary persistence, families, investigators and genetic scientists subsequently restored identities to people who had been taken as babies.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH COLLABORATED WITH MILITARY MURDERS, BUT SOME PRIESTS OBJECTED
Important sectors of Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy maintained close relationships with the armed forces, shared parts of the regime’s anticommunist worldview or failed to confront state terror publicly. Yet priests, seminarians, lay Catholic workers and religious activists were also among the dictatorship’s victims. Liberal Clergy who worked with poor communities or defended persecuted people could themselves be branded subversive.
THE UNITED STATES AND THE GENERALS
American diplomats reported Argentine security forces kidnapped, tortured, and killed youths.
Republicans, especially Secretary of State HENRY KISSINGER, condoned the murders.
They let the generals know the U.S. allowed their methods
U.S. Pres. CARTER asked the Junta to stop the terrorism.
Junta honchos asserted, We decide who threatens the nation.
Victims cried, We are human beings, not categories to erase.
Mothers mourned, You took our children. We will carry their faces where everyone can see them.
Activists asserted, Power that can make a person disappear threatens everyone.
1982–2003: THE MALVINAS/FALKLANDS WAR BROKE THE JUNTA; DEMOCRACY RETURNED
By 1982, Argentina’s dictatorship faced economic deterioration and increasing opposition. General LEOPOLDO GALTIERI led the junta.
Argentina claimed the British-controlled islands known in Argentina as the ISLAS MALVINAS and in Britain as the FALKLAND ISLANDS.
On APRIL 2, 1982, Argentine forces seized the Falklands.
The action initially produced an enormous wave of patriotic enthusiasm in the U.K.
Britain’s Prime Minister sent a naval task force across the Atlantic.
Aboard the aircraft carrier HMS INVINCIBLE, PRINCE ANDREW, a son of Queen Elizabeth II, joined the invasion against the Argentines who occupied the islands.
Andrew was then a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter co-pilot.
During the war, he flew anti-submarine and anti-surface patrols, transport, search-and-rescue, casualty evacuation, and placed decoys to confuse Argentine missiles.
U.S. President Reagan supported Britain and provided military assistance.
Argentine conscripts and professional soldiers fought British forces on the islands and in the surrounding seas.
After a 10-week fight, Argentina surrendered on JUNE 14, 1982. General Galtieri resigned three days later, ending junta rule.
1983: ARGENTINES ELECT THEIR PRESIDENTS
Argentines voted RAÚL ALFONSÍN, President; he appointed a National Commission to investigate the thousands whom the junta killed. He produced the NUNCA MÁS—NEVER AGAIN report, put the junta commanders on trial, and sentenced senior officers; ex-dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and hundreds of ex-military and security personnel were jailed, and victims’ families were awarded reparations from the government.
Under CARLOS MENEM, privatization and peso-dollar convertibility initially suppressed inflation but generated new vulnerabilities.
By 2001–02, Argentina entered a catastrophic economic and political crisis: default, unemployment, bank restrictions, and enormous street protests.
2003–Now: TRUMP BOUGHT ARGENTINA’S FUTURE
NÉSTOR KIRCHNER became president in 2003. His government restored a larger role for the state, supported renewed prosecution of dictatorship-era crimes and presided over rapid post-crisis economic recovery. His wife, CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ DE KIRCHNER, succeeded him and governed from 2007 to 2015. The Kirchners combined Peronist traditions, social programs, nationalism, and state intervention with increasingly polarized politics.
Conservative businessman MAURICIO MACRI won the presidency in 2015. His government pursued more market-oriented policies and turned again to the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND.
Peronist ALBERTO FERNÁNDEZ defeated Macri in 2019, but then inflation became devastating.
MILEI
Into this crisis strode JAVIER MILEI, an economist and television personality carrying an actual chainsaw as his symbol.
Milei won the presidency in 2023.
He promised to take the chainsaw to the Argentine state.
His government cut public spending, subsidies, and government employment; deregulated parts of the economy; and aggressively pursued a fiscal surplus.
Inflation subsequently fell dramatically from crisis levels, and important portions of the economy recovered.
Energy and mining attracted investment.
But the costs were distributed unevenly.
Pensioners, university students, public employees, doctors and scientists protested.
Argentina therefore confronted the ancient political question in a new economic language:
WHEN GOVERNMENT CUTS, WHO ABSORBS THE CUT?
TRUMP’S POLITICAL ROMANCE WITH MILEI
Trump and Milei shared hostility toward socialism, enthusiasm for deregulation, reductions in government spending and a combative style of politics.
Trump repeatedly praised Milei.
Milei aligned himself closely with Trump’s political movement.
Then the relationship became financial.
During 2025, with Argentina’s peso under pressure and Milei approaching crucial midterm elections, the Trump administration established a:
$20 BILLION U.S.–ARGENTINA CURRENCY-SWAP FRAMEWORK
The Trump Administration drew $2.5 BILLION from the U.S. Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund and gave it to Milei to help Argentina stabilize its currency and meet financial obligations during a politically sensitive period before the October elections.
Milei’s party subsequently performed strongly.
Argentina repaid the $2.5 billion draw in full by January 2026.
Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT said the United States made money on the transaction and incurred no taxpayer loss.
The Milei-Trump relationship combined ideology, economics and geopolitics.
Milei was one of Trump’s closest ideological allies in Latin America.
Milei’s political survival mattered to Trumpers seeking friendly governments in the region.
The Trump Administration sought stronger Argentine alignment with the United States, not China.
Trump saw strategic importance in Argentina’s energy and mineral resources.
The financial support Trump sent Milei arrived in time to give Argentina’s currency stability before an election critical to Milei’s future.
The episode demonstrates that a domination-oriented government like Trump’s can demand smaller government in his own country, the U.S., and yet deploy enormous state financial power in another, Argentina (and Israel, for another).
Trump’s administration simultaneously pursued major reductions and restrictions in domestic federal spending and assistance programs.
American critics asked why Washington could mobilize billions in financial backing for a favored foreign government while telling Americans that domestic government expenditures needed to shrink.
American farmers found the contradiction especially tangible.
Argentina temporarily reduced soybean export taxes.
Chinese buyers bought large quantities of Argentine soybeans while American farmers lost Chinese business amid the U.S.–China trade conflict.
Critics therefore accused Washington of helping stabilize a foreign agricultural competitor while American producers struggled.
Supporters of the policy answered that the swap was an investment rather than a grant, that Argentina repaid what it borrowed, and that stabilizing a major Latin American economy friendly to Washington served American strategic interests.
Both facts belong in the historical record: TRUMP PUT U.S. FINANCIAL POWER BEHIND HIS IDEOLOGICAL ALLY.
The larger political question remains:
WHEN GOVERNMENTS HAVE THE POWER TO HELP, WHOM DO THEY CHOOSE TO HELP?
Milei’s response was: Cut the state. Deregulate. Let markets generate prosperity.
Trump’s strategy: Back allies whose policies and geopolitical direction serve my interests.
American entrepreneurs in Trump’s camp intoned, Capital flows where power and returns favor it.
Argentine pensioners, workers, students and scientists protested, Economic reform reaches our pensions, salaries, universities, laboratories and families.
American farmers and workers worried that if government can mobilize billions abroad, what obligations does it retain toward people at home?
Argentines who cultivated a consciousness of cooperation concluded that an economy is a human institution. Its success must ultimately be measured in the lives people can build within it.
REFERENCES
Brown, Jonathan C. A Brief History of Argentina. 2nd ed. Facts On File, 2010.
Mr History. “A Super Quick History of Argentina.” YouTube, April 29, 2019. The video provided the initial chronological outline expanded and checked for this article.
CONICET / CADIC. Research on Yagán/Yámana history, archaeology, material culture and continuing Indigenous communities in Tierra del Fuego. CADIC’s research is particularly valuable for examining cooperation as a strategy in Yaghán society.
CONADEP. Nunca Más: Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared. Essential documentation of the dictatorship and disappeared.
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Declassified diplomatic documentation concerning Argentina’s dictatorship, human-rights abuses and U.S.-Argentine relations.
U.S. Treasury Department. Documentation of the 2025 U.S.–Argentina Exchange Stabilization Fund currency-swap arrangement.
Reuters. Continuing coverage of Milei’s economic program and the Trump administration’s financial support. Reuters reported in January 2026 that Argentina had repaid the $2.5 billion it drew from the $20 billion swap framework.
#Argentina #ArgentinaHistory #Yagan #Yahgan #Yamana #TierraDelFuego #IndigenousPeoples #BuenosAires #SanMartin #Peron #Evita #Peronism #Videla #DirtyWar #NuncaMas #Desaparecidos #MadresDePlazaDeMayo #MothersOfPlazaDeMayo #OperationCondor #Malvinas #FalklandsWar #Galtieri #MargaretThatcher #JavierMilei #DonaldTrump #USArgentina #HumanRights #Workers #Democracy #CatholicChurch #Cooperation #Domination #Ninmah #GreatGoddess #EnkiSpeaks
THE CANOE AND THE PLAZA
At opposite ends of Argentina’s long history stand two remarkably simple images.
One is a YAGÁN CANOE: A small group of human beings crosses dangerous southern waters because each person carries knowledge and because survival depends upon cooperation.
The other is a MOTHER IN A WHITE HEADSCARF walking through the Plaza de Mayo. She possesses no army, commands no secret police, has no aircraft,. carries a photograph. Between those two images came empires, presidents, caudillos, landlords, workers, immigrants, generals, priests, guerrillas, dictators, financiers and politicians.
Again and again dominators in Argentina promised security, greatness, prosperity or order. And, repeatedly also, the people of Argentina rediscovered another source of power: COOPERATION.
The Yagán survived by sharing knowledge. Workers organized. Families searched for the disappeared. Mothers walked together. Scientists identified stolen children and citizens returned generals to the barracks.
To this very day, Argentines continue arguing about how the wealth and burdens of their society should be distributed. From Anunnaki Great Goddess NINMAH’S cooperative principle to the modern struggle between her celebration of shared human power and welfare and the domination-driven awareness of Trump and the murderous Argenine militarists, the underlying choice remains recognizable, How can we balance competition and cooperation in our current situation so we have CHOICE as we navigate the dimension of GIVING (Cooperation) and TAKING (Competition).
