WE DIDN’T KNOW
This is an incomplete compilation of some of the news published in the 1976 newspapers about the early phases of the repression unleashed by Videla’s junta.
These are the news stories that were able to slip through the censor, or were allowed to pass the censor, as a means of spreading fear. Whilst they are far from covering all of the crimes committed by our armed forces, they give some idea of the atmosphere that hung over the population, as well as the extent of knowledge possessed by those who dismissed such crimes with the phrase ‘there must be a reason for it’: this was the new ‘Criminal Code’ of the repressors and their followers, an expression that, after the trials, would be replaced with ‘we didn’t know’.
Missing here – though they will be added – are the reports documenting the complicity of a large part of the Church; a complicity that continued when the Church sought a pardon for those convicted, and which came to the fore once again in October 1991, when Nuncio Calabresi invited them (then pardoned but not acquitted) to join Cardinal Quarracino in celebrating the thirteenth anniversary of John Paul II’s papacy.
Four copies of this material, compiled in 1976, were published at that time in Brazil; another three were published in 1984, also in São Paulo, Brazil; and another four were published as part of the 500 años de represión [500 Years of Repression] exhibit at the Centro Recoleta in August 1992.
León Ferrari
Buenos Aires, 1992
Newspapers
BHA Buenos Aires Herald
C Clarín
Crónica
N La Nación
Le Monde
O La Opinión
P La Prensa
R La Razón
La Voz del Interior.
Note: From 1992 onwards, around 20 copies were photocopied each year as and when requested.