Ithaca College

Jonathan Ablard, History, presented "'Sin pensar en las consecuencias': Desertion from the Army during the Argentine Dictatorship (1976-1983)" at the New York Latin American History Workshop at the University of Rochester on March 15, 2019. 

Cases of desertion of conscripted soldiers during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) reveal a long standing tension within the Argentine armed forces. On one hand, the armed forces repressed wide sectors of the civilian population from 1974-1983. That repression first required the brutal internal repression of conscripts and junior officers whose political or social affiliations rendered them suspect. But the armed forces at times also operated as a social welfare institution for its own personnel. The Armed Forces ran schools, clinics, hospitals, and engaged in public health surveys in the communities around their bases. This paper is based on a large cache of recently declassified documents from the Archivo Historico de Justicia Militar that Dr. Ablard examined during a Center for Faculty Excellence sponsored Summer Research Grant in the summer of 2018.