Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

152 • DIRTY WAR(S)and was particularly directed at those not already in official custody,for whom there would be no arrest record once they entered the ranksof the “disappeared.” After careful review of forensic evidence and thetestimony both of surviving leftists and military officials, the ComisiónNacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP), theArgentine National Commission on Disappearances, determined thefigure of the disappeared to be around 9,000, an estimate that was laterraised to about 10,000, which accords surprisingly well with the totalsof lost comrades given by surviving members of the Montoneros andthe People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP).On 20 August 2002 the U.S. State Department released over 4,000documents produced at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires on the Argentineandirty war in response to requests from officials in Argentina,Spain, and Italy wishing to investigate disappearances of theircitizens and to prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses.On 10 July 2002 an Argentinean judge ordered former military dictatorGeneral Leopoldo Galtieri and 30 others arrested for their rolesin the dirty war.In August 2003 the national legislature of Argentina overturnedthe amnesty laws of 1986 and 1987 passed after the downfall ofthe military junta in the wake of the failed Falklands war as wellas overturning the pardons issued by President Carlos Saúl Menemafter 1989. These amnesties and pardons had been meant to dissuademilitary leaders from launching another coup d’état in order to avoidprosecution for their roles in the dirty war. Among those arrestedfollowing the repeal of the amnesty was General Antonio DomingoBassi, a former junta member also wanted in Spain on charges ofcrimes against humanity filed by judge Baltazar Garzón. In June2003 the Supreme Court of Mexico allowed the extradition of formerArgentinean junta member Ricardo Miguel Cavallo to Spain ongenocide charges.Beginning in 1975 Argentina coordinated its efforts to crushleftist opponents abroad with five other Latin American regimesalso confronting leftist insurgencies, namely, Bolivia, Brazil,Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, in Operation Condor. Each regimeassisted the police of other regimes in hunting down wanted leftistsin each other’s jurisdictions, as well as targeted assassinationof dissidents outside their joint jurisdictions, in effect aiding eachother in each regime’s own version of a dirty war. Earlier, in 1974,