sö had begun an all-out attack on one another, ôresulting in a widespread demand for accountability and public orderö (Ocampo, 1999, pp. 670).
Sadly, this demand would not be met; toward the end of the 1970s, guerrilla groups were regularly claiming responsibility for ôpoliticalö assassinations. The so-called ôDirty Warö was only just hitting its stride, as the military began to see that absolute power was necessary if it was to succeed. Subversive communist movements were targeted by the military establishment; an offensive strategy against the guerrillas required extra-judicial methods of torture or kidnapping if the notorious sworn silence of the captured was to be broken. Power was set to change hands once again, and its transfer would result in an increasingly absolutist brand of militarism.
In 1976 a coup dÆetat ended the Peronist regime in Argentina and elevated General Jorge Rafael Videla to the seat of power; this military junta would assume constitutional, legislative and executive power. Military courts would be used to tr
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