On December 27, 2024 and January 2, 2025, hundreds of public employees belonging to the Government Workers Association union (Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado, ATE), were joined by the mothers of victims disappeared under state terror of 1972-1981 (Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) and other human rights and left organizations in marches and rallies at various memorial museums in Argentina, demanding that they not be shut down, in the name of “Memory, Truth, and Justice.”
ESMA, the former Navy School of Mechanics, a notorious detention, torture and execution center turned into a memorial museum [Photo by Camilo del Cerro / CC BY-SA 4.0]
When the government of President Javier Milei and Vice President Victoria Villarruel took power in December 2023, it began the process of dismantling the Human Rights Secretariat and shutting down dozens of museum sites in former clandestine torture centers across Argentina, with the intention of erasing the record of the torture, disappearances and murder of tens of thousands of militant workers and youth in the 1970s and 80s. They also began ending ongoing trials against those involved in the reign of state terror.
In a warning to workers internationally, since the fascist Milei’s government has been glorified as a model by the ruling elites internationally, the dismantling of memory sites is now accelerating in a transparent effort to lay the groundwork for repeating the crimes of the dictatorship against mounting opposition from below to his far-right policies.
The last wave of state terror began with the return of Juan Domingo Perón for his second presidency in 1972, and became more serious under his widow Isabel Perón following his death in 1974 and her overthrow by the military in 1976. Between 1974 and the end of the military dictatorship, precipitated by the debacle of the Malvinas War in 1982, leftists and working class opponents of the regime were “disappeared” in military centers across the country, first at the hands of the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance)—an alliance of fascist Peronists, the trade union apparatus and the military. It was modeled on the fascist corporatist Somatén Armado created in 1945 by Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco to supplement his Guardia Civil (Civil Guard).
Following the 1976 military coup, the armed forces and police, backed by the CIA and US imperialism, launched an all-out “dirty-war” of torture and mass murder against leftists, in the the so-called Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (Process of National Reorganization). Two hundred detention and torture centers were established across the nation, mostly in military installations and police stations.
The realistic wildlife fine art paintings and prints of Jacquie Vaux begin with a deep appreciation of wildlife and the environment.
Jacquie Vaux grew up in the Pacific Northwest, soon developed an appreciation for nature by observing the native wildlife of the area. Encouraged by her grandmother, she began painting the creatures she loves and has continued for the past four decades.
Now a resident of Ft. Collins, CO she is an avid hiker, but always carries her camera, and is ready to capture a nature or wildlife image, to use as a reference for her fine art paintings.
