It is estimated that between 22,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, many of whom were impossible to formally document due to the nature of state terrorism;[21][12][10] however, Argentine military intelligence at the time estimated that 22,000 people had been murdered or disappeared by 1978.[22] The primary target were communist guerrillas and sympathisers, but also included students, militants, trade unionists, writers, journalists, artists and any citizens suspected of being left-wingactivists.[23] The disappeared included those thought to be a political or ideological threat to the junta.[17][18][19] According to human rights organisations in Argentina, between 1,900 and 3,000 Jews were among the 30,000 who were targeted by the Argentine military junta. It is a disproportionate number, as Jews comprised between 5–12% of those targeted but only 1% of the population.[24] All were killed in an attempt by the junta to silence social and political opposition.[25]
By the 1980s, economic collapse, public discontent, and the disastrous handling of the Falklands War resulted in the end of the junta and the restoration of democracy in Argentina, effectively ending the Dirty War. Many members of the junta are currently in prison for crimes against humanity and genocide.[26][27] The Dirty War left a profound impact on Argentine culture, which is still felt to this day.
^Right-wing violence was also on the rise, and an array of death squads was formed from armed sections of the large labor unions, parapolice organizations within the federal and provincial police; and the AAA (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina), founded by Perón's secretary of social welfare, López Rega, with the participation of the federal police. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, p. 22, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002