The Night of the Pencils (in Spanish: Noche de los Lápices), was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of 10 high-school students that began on the evening of 16 September 1976 and continued into the next day, during Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship. The event is one of the most infamous acts of repression committed by the last Argentine military dictatorship, as most of the victims were under 18 years of age. Four of the victims survived; the remains of the others have never been found.
Context
The Argentine military seized power following a March 1976 coup d'état. The military junta then implemented what was they called a "National Reorganization Process" which was a set of policies used by the regime to destroy left-wing guerrilla forces and oppress resistance to its rule. The process included kidnappings, torture and murder. Meanwhile, the leftist guerilla group Montoneros responded violently to the junta and its actions as they enlisted other Argentines to join their campaign against the regime.
The Night of the Pencils victims were largely from the Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (UES, Spanish for Union of High School Students) of La Plata. UES was committed to achieving school reforms and other political objectives, including the 1975 protests in which more than 3,000 students marched to protest recent price hikes in the bus fare and demanding the restoration of a subsidised bus ticket for secondary school students. As with many left-wing activists in Argentina, they were persecuted and targeted by the Police.
The UES was a front organisation for the Montoneros, although the extent to which the UES was actively connected to the ERP and the Montoneros is disputed. One of the survivors, Pablo Diaz, had left the UES for the Guevarist Youth in 1975.
Jorge Falcone, the brother of one of the kidnapped students, María Claudia Falcone, has maintained that her activities against the military dictatorship went beyond student protests, and that on the day she was kidnapped she was hiding weapons in her aunt's residence and was prepared to use them. He wrote his sister was not a victim, or a martyr, but a hero of the organization Montoneros.
He also defended his sister's commitment to the Montoneros guerrilla movement in Argentina:
My sister wasn't Little Red Riding Hood whom the wolf gulped down. She was a revolutionary militant... The militant was the type [of person] who, in a moment, could send a molotov flying in a lightning act... They could also carry out support action in a major military operation.
On the whole, the victims were like thousands of other teens at the time who had become politically active after the fall of the Lanusse dictatorship.
At a 2006 event to mark the 30th anniversary, Emilce Molder, who was held and tortured for 2 years said that:
"The problem was that we were militant and that's what I associate our detention with. [...] The [student bus] ticket had been a clear motive to organize ourselves around, but it happened in '75. It was quite before our arrests. [...] I was 17 years old and I couldn't defend myself against those charges [criminal conspiracy, possession of weapons and explosives]. They closed the door on me and then yes, I imagined the worst.
Regardless, as a group of young, left-wing, politically active students, the UES were suspected of having supplied fighters to the ERP. Colonel Ramón Camps, head of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police, and Director of Investigations Miguel Etchecolatz were tasked with eliminating the UES.
Kidnappings
On 16 and 17 September 1976, masked men raided homes under cover of darkness, taking students away to clandestine detention centres in what became known as the "Night of the Pencils". It concluded five days later when Camps' henchmen kidnapped student Pablo Díaz. He was taken to a detention center in Arana, joining his fellow high school activists, where they were brutally tortured.
At some point in late September, a large group of detainees which included the students was herded into two police vans. The convoy stopped at the Investigations Brigade of Banfield headquarters (AKA Pozo de Banfield or Banfield's Pit), where a number of people were forced to get out. Díaz was among them.
Details of the Night of the Pencils were provided by the two survivors from that 16–21 September period. Emilce Moler said: "They tortured us with profound sadism. I remember being naked. I was just a fragile small girl of about 1.5 m and weighed about 47 kg, and I was beaten senseless by what I judged was a huge man" and "after about a week at our first detention centre, we were all taken to another place in a truck. At some point we stopped and some of my friends were taken out. Those are the ones that disappeared." Moler said that she did not know why some UES members were allowed to live and others killed. Like most of the others, Emilce belonged to the students' union. The military regarded them as subversives.
Pablo Díaz testified: "In Arana, they gave me electric shocks in my mouth, my gums, and my genitals. They tore out one of my toenails. It was very usual to spend several days without food."
On 28 December 1976, an Army Major told Díaz he would become a legal prisoner and was transferred to the Pozo de Quilmes, where he joined Moler, Calotti and Miranda. Those who were still being held at Banfield are presumed to have been taken out and executed by firing squad on the first week of January 1977.
The kidnapped students were:
Aftermath
In September 2011 nearly two dozen junta officials were charged with crimes against humanity for their roles in the Night of the Pencils. Among them was Miguel Etchecolatz, already serving a life sentence for other crimes committed as an officer in the regime.
Today the victims of the Night of the Pencils are remembered, along with thousands of other victims of the dictatorship, on March 24, the Argentine Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice. Night of the Pencils is also now seen as the opening salvo in Argentina's Dirty War. In Bahía Blanca, the Plaza de los Lápices honors the victims of the event.
In popular culture
- The saga of the students' ordeal was depicted in Hector Olivera's 1986 film Night of the Pencils.
- The testimony of Pablo Díaz, the last survivor to be released, served as the basis for the song "Noche de los lápices" by Canarian singer Rogelio Botanz.