Victoria Villarruel, the candidate for the vice-presidency of Argentina on the ticket headed by the ultra-conservative Javier Milei, has once again taken a swipe at the country’s historical memory.
On Tuesday, she complained that the largest detention and extermination center under the military dictatorship—The Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy (ESMA)—has been operating as a memorial museum since 2015 and occupies “17 hectares that could be enjoyed by all the Argentine people, especially because at the time they were intended to be for schools, and what we need most are schools,” Villarruel said in a television interview.
The vision of Villarruel—the granddaughter, daughter, and niece of military men, whose uncle was investigated for crimes against humanity—clashes with UNESCO’s decision last September to declare the museum a World Heritage Site.
The last military dictatorship, which ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983, operated 700 illegal detention centers throughout the country. ESMA was the largest of them. Located in the north of Buenos Aires, facing the La Plata River and surrounded by luxurious buildings, 5,000 people passed through its basements: some 4,500 died as a result of torture, or were thrown alive into the sea.
Denialism of the dictatorship is the main banner under which Milei’s running mate is marching. Today in Argentina, 1,200 agents of the dictatorship have been convicted and 17 trials remain open, according to the latest statistics of the Human Rights Secretariat. Villarruel considers those convicted to be victims of a “dictatorship of a single way of thinking” promoted by the left.
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