President Isabel Perón signed Decree 261/75, ordering the military to 'annihilate' leftist guerrillas in Tucumán, a key step in escalating state repression.
On 5 February 1975, President Isabel Perón signed Decree 261/75, the first of what became known as the 'decrees of annihilation'. The decree authorized the Argentine Army to carry out the 'Operativo Independencia' in Tucumán Province, declaring a military emergency zone to combat the leftist guerrilla group ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, People's Revolutionary Army) operating in the rural, mountainous region.
The decree's language explicitly instructed the military to 'annihilate' (aniquilar) the subversive elements in the area, marking a decisive and consequential escalation from covert paramilitary repression, largely carried out by the Triple A death squads under José López Rega, to formal, open-ended military counterinsurgency operations sanctioned directly by presidential authority.
This decree is regarded by historians and human rights scholars as a critical legal and political precedent for the systematic state terrorism that would be dramatically intensified after the March 1976 military coup, when the junta cited such measures to justify the establishment of clandestine detention centers, forced disappearances, and mass killings during the so-called 'Dirty War.'
The Tucumán operation under Decree 261/75 is often cited as a proving ground for tactics later deployed nationwide during the military dictatorship, making Isabel Perón's presidency a pivotal, and deeply controversial, hinge point in the descent of Argentina into one of Latin America's most brutal periods of state violence.