Although Perón did not live to see its peak, his speech declaring war against leftist terrorism was interpreted as a green light for López Rega and his people.
After Perón's death, María Estela Martínez de Perón, known as Isabel, assumed the presidency. Her government, weak and under the shadow of López Rega, went further by legalizing crimes against humanity.
The annihilation decrees
On February 6, 1975, Isabel signed the so-called "annihilation decrees" (Decrees 261/75 and 2772/75), which ordered the Armed Forces to "neutralize and/or annihilate" the actions of "subversive elements" in Tucumán and, later, throughout the country.
These decrees, which formalized the fight against the ERP and Montoneros, marked the beginning of military actions such as the "Operation Independence" in Tucumán, which introduced illegal detentions, tortures, and systematic disappearances, practices that the 1976 dictatorship would perfect.
The Triple A, created and supported logistically and financially by the Peronist government, killed more than 1,500 people between 1974 and 1976, according to estimates by human rights organizations.
Isabel's decrees, meanwhile, legitimized a repression that left thousands of victims before the military coup. With the aim of stopping the leftist guerrillas, the "forced disappearances" began, which, despite Kirchnerism's attempts to conceal it, started under the Peronist government.
