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events for 1977
| Jan 1, 1977 | Government declares that all applicants for ID cards must be clean-shaven. The measure attracts international attention. |
| Jan 6, 1977 | Dardo Cabo — arrested on 4/17/75 — killed while being transported between Sierra Chica and Olmos prisons. It is officially stated that he was killed during an escape attempt, although he is presumably executed summarily. |
| Jan 21, 1977 | Military reports killing Montonero Jorge Luis Piotti, believed to have killed US citizen John Patrick Egan in 1975. |
| Jan 26, 1977 | Swedish schoolgirl Dagmar Hagelin shot and wounded by security forces then abducted. Never seen again. |
| Jan 28, 1977 | Bomb in Ciudadela demolishes police station and kills a reported three people. |
| Jan 29, 1977 | La Opinión banned for two days after publishing an article which, according to the government, “tended to impugn…the image of the nation’s armed forces, accusing them indirectly and surreptitiously of attitudes violating human rights.” |
| Feb 3, 1977 | Military reports slaying 9 extremists in Ciudadela on this day. |
| Feb 11, 1977 | Ex-power union chief Oscar Smith “disappears.” |
| Feb 11, 1977 | The World Council of Churches issues list of 340 Argentines who have “disappeared” in the last 12 months. |
| Feb 14, 1977 | Sweden requests the release of schoolgirl Dagmar Hagelin. |
| Feb 18, 1977 | Former Peronist Deputy Diego Muñiz Barreto and secretary Juan José Fernandez, both under arrest, “disappear” after reportedly being transferred to a police station in Tigre. |
| Feb 18, 1977 | Videla escapes the third attempt on his life — this time a bomb planted 15 meters from an aircraft runway that was intended to destroy his plane on takeoff. The explosion failed to bring down the plane due to the plane’s rapid takeoff. |
| Feb 22, 1977 | Amnesty Internations gives the Argentine government report on human rights abuses alleging that 2-5,000 “disappearances” have taken place since the coup less than a year earlier. The report also says that the government’s prisoners are often tortured using techniques such as electric shock, sexual abuse, and the “submarine” — a technique of prolonged submersion in water. The Argentine government rejects the report on March 23rd. |
| Feb 23, 1977 | Military reports killing Ana María González in a shootout during the first week of January. |
| Feb 24, 1977 | The United States announces that it will cut military aid to Argentina because of human rights violations. Taking offense, Argentina refuses to accept any US military aid. |
| Mar 3, 1977 | Noticias Argentinas reports that 28 writs of habeas corpus for missing people were presented on this day, and 41 the previous day. |
| Mar 15, 1977 | In its third protest against the US’s reduction in military aid, Argentina emphasizes the damage inflicted by leftwing terror. The number of US executives in Argentina is said to have fallen from 1,270 in 1972 to under 100 currently due to leftwing threats. |
| Mar 25, 1977 | Rodolfo Walsh “disappears” after publishing an open letter to the junta that was printed in La Dictadura. It later turns out that he was gunned down in the street. |
| Mar 31, 1977 | Journalist Héctor Ferreiros “disappears.” files complaint of “illegal deprivation of liberty.” Ferreiros is found dead on April 5. |
| Apr 1, 1977 | Journalist Edgardo Sajón, printing director for La Opinión and former press secretary for president Lanusse, “disappears.” |
| Apr 4, 1977 | Arts professor Adolfo Pérez Esquivel arrested. |
| Apr 15, 1977 | Jacobo Timerman, editor of La Opinión, abducted at night. Deputy editor Enrique Jara taken at about the same time, reportedly by the same group. Timerman’s imprisonment — supposedly for connection to the mysterious financier David Graiver — is announced shortly thereafter, but Jara remains “disappeared” until the 18. |
| Apr 16, 1977 | Journalist Enrique Raab — a writer for La Opinión, Clarín and several other papers — and friend abducted. |
| Apr 19, 1977 | Supreme Court says it has been unable to obtain information about the fates of 425 missing people for whom writs of habeas corpus have been presented, and will ask the government to probe the matter. No probe occurs. |
| Apr 22, 1977 | Herald editor Robert Cox arrested and held overnight for violating regulation prohibiting publication of foreign cables about Argentina. The Herald had printed a foreign cable announcing a press conference held by Montonero leader Mario Firmenich in Rome. |
| Apr 23, 1977 | La Opinión deputy editor Enrique Jara released. |
| Apr 28, 1977 | First official Thursday demonstration by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Casa Rosada. |
| Apr 28, 1977 | Fernando Branca “disappears” after leaving to go on a sailing trip with Navy commander Massera. The details of the case do not come out until several years later. |
| Apr 29, 1977 | Ministry of Interior allows former Radical Senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen, then under arrest, to leave the country. |
| Apr 30, 1977 | In law 21568, government again extends suspension of the right by executive branch detainees to choose exile over imprisonment, this time for 150 days. |
| May 7, 1977 | Foreign Minister Vice Admiral Cesar Guzzetti attacked and wounded by Montoneros. |
| May 25, 1977 | New York Times editorial, one year after the first such editorial, harshly criticizes human rights abuses in Argentina. |
| May 25, 1977 | La Opinión put under the control of interventor José Teófilo Goyret, and Jacobo Timerman allowed to speak to his family. Timerman’s arrest location is disclosed. |
| May 29, 1977 | President Videla announces that the government will open a “dialogue” with some civilian political figures to avoid the “solitude of power.” |
| May 29, 1977 | Montonero commander Julio Roque, said to be the most important leader of the group still in Argentina, reportedly killed by security forces. |
| Jun 9, 1977 | Government announces that it will register reports of “disappearances,” of which it has received 2,000 reports. Despite this, the military government never produces a list of missing people. |
| Jul 1, 1977 | Government announces that several individuals connected with the financier David Graiver have been arrested since June 12. |
| Jul 2, 1977 | Former “Cronista Comercial” owner Rafael Perrota kidnapped at 2 a.m. along with his son by the same name. |
| Jul 6, 1977 | Prominent lawyer Norberto Oscar Centeno, who drew up the labor contract law under the Peronist government, kidnapped. Later found dead. Buried in Mar del Plata on July 12. |
| Jul 7, 1977 | “La noche de las corbatas” — the night of the ties. Four labor lawyers — Norberto Oscar Centeno, Raúl Hugo Alais, Salvador Manuel Arestín and Tomás Fresneda — “disappear” in Mar del Plata. |
| Jul 13, 1977 | Héctor Hidalgo Solá, Argentine ambassador to Venezuela, “disappears” after being seized by a large group of armed men outside the downtown Buenos Aires art museum. In Venezuela a few days earlier, Solá had suggested that the military government might soon cede power to civilian forces, and some had speculated he might be contemplating running for president. |
| Aug 6, 1977 | Ultima Clave adjuct director Rodolfo Fernández Pondal kidnapped, never to return. |
| Aug 9, 1977 | US Undersecretary for Human Rights Patricia Derian meets with president Videla in Argentina. |
| Aug 15, 1977 | Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo surround and protect a US newswoman whose passport had been seized by a plainclothesman claiming to be a police officer. Reported the next day on the front page of the Herald. |
| Aug 15, 1977 | Government takes control of Argentina’s new newsprint factory, Papel Prensa. |
| Aug 24, 1977 | Argentine ambassdor to the UN clashes in a UN meeting with members of the Argentine Commission for the Rights of Man, who assert that there are 15,000 “disappeared” in Argentina. The ambassador says that these claims are absurd and calls representatives of the human rights group “terrorists.” |
| Aug 25, 1977 | Police break up meeting by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, arresting 15. |
| Sep 1, 1977 | General Menéndez says that Argentina is waging the “third world war” against terrorism. |
| Sep 1, 1977 | In an institutional act bearing this date, the government restores the right of executive branch detainees to choose exile over imprisonment, although allowing the president the right to veto this “priviledge.” This right had been suspended after the military coup on March 24, 1976. |
| Sep 6, 1977 | President Videla flies to the US to meet with president Carter. |
| Sep 8, 1977 | Alfredo Bravo, secretary general of the teachers’ union (CTERA) and co-president of ADPH taken from a class he is teaching by men claiming to be members of the armed services. The armed services, however, say they have no information on Bravo’s arrest. |
| Sep 9, 1977 | The Buenos Aires Herald is the only newspaper to print the news of the “disappearance” of Alfredo Bravo, reporting the news on the front page. |
| Sep 9, 1977 | President Videla meets with US President Carter, and says that the battle against subversion will be over by Christmas. |
| Sep 20, 1977 | Interior Ministry reveals that Alfredo Bravo, who “disappeared” 13 days earlier, is being held under arrest in La Plata. |
| Sep 22, 1977 | The government bans the biweekly publication Convicción. |
| Sep 22, 1977 | Herald editor Robert Cox cleared of charges stemming from his April 22 arrest. |
| Oct 5, 1977 | La Prensa publishes the first ad asking about the wherabouts of “disappeared” citizens, with around 230 signatures. |
| Oct 9, 1977 | David Graiver, financial backer of La Opinión and associate of Jacobo Timerman, reported killed in a plane crash in Mexico. |
| Oct 13, 1977 | Council of War declares there are no charges against Jacobo Timerman. |
| Oct 14, 1977 | Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo deliver petition for information on the “disappeared” to the Casa Rosada. About 200 are briefly detained. |
| Nov 10, 1977 | Associated Press editor Oscar Serrat abducted and held for 18 hours during which he is questioned about his links with the late Rodolfo Walsh “by men he presumes to be members of one of the security forces.” The Herald features the news on the front page — perhaps the first outright suggestion by a newspaper of security forces involvement in a kidnapping since the coup. |
| Nov 24, 1977 | Reporters from the BBC and the Voice of America detained as they attempt to interview the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Two Mothers also detained. |
| Nov 30, 1977 | US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance delivers list of 7,500 names of people thought to be “disappeared” in Argentina to Argentina’s Foreign Minister Vice-Admiral Oscar A. Montes. |
| Dec 9, 1977 | A reported 8 people are abducted, never to return, from outside the Church of the Holy Cross where they had been collecting money to place an ad about the missing in La Nación. A French nun known as Sister Alicia (née Domón) and Esther Carriaga, a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, are among those taken. Another 5 people, including second French nun Sister Leonie (née Renée Duquet) and second Mother of the Plaza de Mayo Azucena de Devincenti, “disappear” over the next few days. The abductions are later found to have been engineered by Navy capain Alfredo Astíz who had infiltrated the Mothers, posing as a relative of a missing person. |
| Dec 10, 1977 | Ad asking to know whether the missing are alive or dead comes out in La Nación. |
| Dec 13, 1977 | France requests information about the 2 “disappeared” French nuns. |
| Dec 16, 1977 | Acclaimed Argentine pianist Miguel Angel Estrella seized in Uruguay on suspicion of Montonero membership. |
| Dec 17, 1977 | The Army reports that the Montoneros have claimed responsibility for taking the French nuns, the “disappearance” of which was finally acknowledged by the government the previous day. No mention is made of the others abducted at the same time. |
| Dec 22, 1977 | Dr. Carlos Alberto Sacheri, a UBA Law School and former director of the Philosophy of Law Institute, killed. |