The Night of the Pencils: 48 years since the murder of Argentine students by the Videla dictatorship

After celebrating 48 years of the denigrating Night of the Pencils, the Argentine people sadly remember the ten high school students kidnapped, tortured and six gunned down by soldiers under Jorge Videla's dictatorship.

After the coup d'etat against María Estela Martínez de Perón, on March 24, 1976, the military dictatorship was established as a “Government” between 1976 and 1983. The military junta was composed of Jorge Rafael Videla for the Army, Emilio Massera in the Navy and Orlando Agosti for the Argentine Air Force.

The bloody period was classified as “The Process”, where thousands of social activists were kidnapped, tortured and clandestinely massacred under suspicion of guerrilla fighters or Marxist militants; the victims during the dictatorship are known as “The Disappeared”, Telesur highlights in a special work published on its website about that date.

On September 16, 1976, young supporters and activists of the Student Union of La Plata (UES de La Plata) and Guevarista Youth participated in peaceful marches to demand the Secondary Student Ticket, which consisted of a transportation subsidy for students.

The demand for their right was answered by the kidnapping of teenagers by soldiers. The four survivors recounted the torture and harassment in clandestine centers they suffered in the Arana Well, the Banfield Well, the Quilmes Investigations Brigade and the Avellaneda Brigade, the Police Headquarters of the Province of Buenos Aires, among others.

The memory of the martyrs is vindicated in every student organization that is currently fighting for their rights.

Mazo News Team