Football,dictatorship,and human rights: The 1978 World Cup and solidarity activism in the Netherlands for Argentina

Abstract

This research shows that the 1978 World Cup was a key moment in the evolution of Dutch solidarity with Argentina. Based on both oral and written sources, it reconstructs the development of this solidarity. Argentine exiles played a leading role in the process by using the attention generated by the Dutch campaign for a boycott of the tournament to denounce the human rights violations by the Argentinian dictatorship. These efforts led to the emergence of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo on the international stage, which prompted the formation of the first support group of its kind in the Netherlands. Therefore, this research casts doubt on the dictatorship's alleged success to instrumentalise the tournament and proposes to see it as a Pyrrhic victory for the regime. Finally, the findings contribute to the understanding of the emergence of a human rights discourse during the 1970s, authoritarian regime's endeavours to instrumentalise sporting events, and the importance of football in modern society.

1. INTRODUCTION

With the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar on the horizon, society is once again confronted with the question of whether or not to boycott a mega sporting event in a country where human rights are being violated. The same issue surrounded the 1978 Football World Cup in Argentina, where Jorge Videla's ruthless dictatorship attempted to gain political benefit from the tournament. The actual relevance of this debate makes it even more important to understand the consequences of such attempts, which have recently been dubbed ‘sportswashing’. Looking back at the mobilisation around the 1978 World Cup provides us with valuable insights.

In Europe, the instrumentalisation of that tournament provoked the emergence of campaigns for a boycott in various countries. In the Netherlands, the boycott debate gained particular traction, because its national teams were among the favourites for the Football World Cup as well as the Field Hockey World Cup, both of which were held in Argentina in 1978. The discussion started on 15 January 1978, when Freek de Jonge and Bram Vermeulen, members of the activist musical duo Neerlands Hoop [The hope of the Netherlands], launched a campaign denouncing the Bloed aan de Paal [Blood on the post]. Ultimately, no boycott took place, and the Netherlands lost the finals of both of these tournaments.

Nonetheless, the boycott discussion had tangible consequences, as it forced various actors to position themselves in relation to the debate. After the hockey final against Pakistan had been lost, Hans Jorritsma – a key player in the Dutch team – refused to receive the silver medal from Jorge Videla's hands and the football team did not attend the closing ceremony after the final. Scholars have argued that these mobilisations prompted a public debate about the dictatorship in Argentina, human rights in international relations, and the use of sports for political purposes. ¹ Besides, they should be seen as an important expression of transnational solidarity. Most importantly, the World Cup generated an unprecedented interest for the situation in Argentina. In the words of an Argentine who was exiled to the Netherlands: ‘the World Cup put Argentina on the front page of the newspapers’. ²

To this day, the World Cup has received rather little attention in academic literature compared to other events related to the Argentine dictatorship. The scholarly authors that have studied the instrumentalisation of the tournament have largely focused on the national level or have made a comparison with Brazil. ³ Other academics have focused on the mobilisation around the World Cup in Europe; ⁴ the connection between the instrumentalisation of the tournament and the mobilisation against it has, however, barely been studied. This article proposes to see the Argentine exile as the actor that connects the two processes.

Argentine exiles in Europe have been the subject of a number of investigations. ⁵ In addition, various works have taken into account the role of the Argentinian human rights association Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (the Mothers) and other human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International. ⁶ Nevertheless, the multiple boycott campaigns, the efforts by human rights organisations, and the exiles’ role in this process have been treated in an isolated manner. In the same way, the exiles’ leading role in forming and shaping the mobilisation for the Argentinian cause has often been ignored in European studies, which have considered the exiles merely as objects for political considerations. As a result, the tournament's impact at an international level remains mostly unknown.

This article analyses this process of global impact in the case of the Netherlands. To this end, it will be examined how solidarity in the Netherlands has evolved between the foundation of the Solidarity Committee Argentina-Netherlands (Solidariteits Komitee Argentinië-Nederland, SKAN) in 1975 and the end of its existence in 1985. This article hypothesises that the 1978 Football World Cup was a watershed moment for the Dutch public's awareness of human rights violations in Argentina, that it functioned as an escape valve for the denouncements against the dictatorship, and that it later opened the door for new actors to emerge on the international stage. In contrast to earlier works, this article considers not the boycott movement, but the support for the Mothers and similar organisations as the ultimate expression of solidarity. By doing so, it makes visible the interactions between various actors who played pivotal roles at key moments in the process that led to an increasingly strong wave of denunciations of the Argentine dictatorship in Europe around the 1978 World Cup.

The research for this article has followed the historical method of trying to recapture the intricacies of the mobilisation around the 1978 World Cup. On the one hand, it is based on oral history, as ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with Argentine exiles, boycott activists, journalists, and diplomats. On the other hand, informant testimonies have also been complemented with documentary evidence. The documentation on solidarity movements regarding Argentina and the archives of the PvdA (The Dutch Labour Party) in the collection of the International Institute of Social History, as well as the archives of the Committee for Support for Argentine Mothers (Steun Aan Argentijnse Moeders, SAAM) at the Atria institute in Amsterdam, were consulted. In addition, thanks to one of the interviewed journalists, this study was able to examine confidential documents from Argentina's Embassy in The Hague. They concerned communications between the Embassy and the Foreign Office in Buenos Aires, as well as local documents from the diplomatic mission and a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands. Some of these files have been previously described by Jan van der Putten and have permitted considering the Argentine diplomacy's efforts to neutralise protests abroad against the regime. ⁷ This paper connects this information with the solidarity movement.

The present analysis studies the links between various actors during the clash in the public debate between the dictatorship and the exiled Argentines in an examination of the solidarity movement with Argentina in the Netherlands. To support this study, it is useful to review the theories on mobilisation in Europe in solidarity with Chile. According to the ‘evolutionary pattern of solidarity action’, solidarity develops in four phases: from initial indifference; through increased awareness and the representation of the forces of good and evil; together with a construction of imagined solidarities; to concrete solidarity action at last. ⁸ This theory serves to explain how the Manichean divide between good and evil facilitated a direct strong solidarity with Chile but provided an obstacle for the solidarity with Argentina since a clear representation of good forces – and initially also evil forces – proved to be more difficult in the latter case. Besides, it allows us to see the World Cup as the event that triggered the transition from initial indifference to increased awareness. In what follows, after a short historical background section, the analysis of this article is presented in four parts that follow mentioned phases. With regards to the fourth phase, Christiaens and others mention a division between solidarity with a humanitarian focus and a political focus. For the Argentinian case, this study proposes that solidarity with a political focus is further distinguished between solidarity limited to denouncing the enemy, on the one hand, and solidarity that includes active support for an ally in its resistance against the identified enemy, on the other. In this division, the ally and enemy correspond to the identified ‘forces of good and evil’.

The confirmation of our hypothesis can lead to the consideration of several new hypotheses about the Argentinian dictatorship. Until now, the World Cup has largely been evaluated as a success for the dictatorship, since the successful organisation and the Argentinian victory unified the country and initially raised popular support for the dictatorship. This article does not pretend to question these positive effects. Instead, it analyses the consequences of the tournament from a new perspective that has not yet been considered. Evaluating the World Cup from an international perspective, in this case focusing on the Netherlands, allows to consider the effects of the efforts of Argentine actors like the exiles to foster solidarity with their country from abroad. The Netherlands makes for an interesting case study, as the first support group of its kind for the Mothers was established here. In addition, it has been argued that three different groups were responsible for linking local and transnational activism: the Mothers through their actions to reclaim information about their disappeared children, Amnesty International through their depoliticised stance, and the exiles and solidarity activists with their more radical stance, as compared to the one purely based on human rights. ⁹ In this sense, Kelly has argued that solidarity activists took a political stance, while human rights organisations pretended neutrality. However, a closer look at the mobilisation in the Netherlands around the World Cup shows that even pro-boycott solidarity activists took a depoliticised stance. Besides, the exiles as a group were primarily responsible for connecting the Mothers, Amnesty International and the Dutch solidarity activists. The World Cup proved to be the perfect window of opportunity to reach out to local activists and other Dutch actors such as politicians, journalists, and athletes.

If it is affirmed that the denunciations around the World Cup led to an intensification of allegations of human rights violations, it is possible to see the tournament as a new turning point for the military regime. To date, scholars have argued that the 1979 visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to Argentina following the allegations from the exiles abroad was such a turning point. ¹⁰ Furthermore, Mira points out that it is difficult to classify the transition to democracy in Argentina into the different categories developed in political sciences. ¹¹ According to this author, the Falklands-Malvinas War did not directly cause the fall of the dictatorship, but rather opened up a political vacuum that could no longer be filled by the military. These assertions lead us to consider the importance of the World Cup in the process that caused this political vacuum and ultimately the transition to democracy.

2. FOOTBALL, DICTATORSHIP, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Sports and football events have long been instrumentalised for political reasons. The 1934 World Cup in Mussolini's Fascist Italy and the 1936 Summer Olympics in Hitler's Nazi Germany can be seen as the first examples of this. ¹² Since that moment, multiple sports events have been used to affirm national ideologies using mass media. We must consider that instrumentalisation for political reasons is inherent in the organisation of global sports events and see the 1978 World Cup as confirmation of the rule, rather than an exception.

At the same time, it is necessary to bear in mind that in Argentina and in various other South American countries, football has played an important role in the construction of a narrative about the national identity. ¹³ Football was initially introduced as a form of Anglo-Saxon cosmopolitanism. However, during the creolisation of the sport at the beginning of the twentieth century when it was picked up by the local working class, journalists constructed a narrative of differentiation about Argentinian football that was complementary with the ideas of arielismo about Latin-American nationalism. Besides, various Argentine scholars have pointed to the importance of football as a ‘cultural machine’ for the creation of an Argentinian national identity and a way for Argentine males to distinguish themselves at an international stage by playing football ‘the Argentinian way’ just as in art and cinema. ¹⁴

Argentina had been awarded the organisation of the World Cup in 1966. With the coup of 1976, the organisation of the World Cup for the nation's most popular sport fell into the hands of the dictatorship. By this point, the responsibility for organising the tournament had already passed through seven presidencies, from Arturo Illia to Isabel Perón. When the Navy of Junta member Emilio Massera took control of the organisation, the decision was made to spare no expenses in exploiting the tournament for political gains. This was despite the fact the dictatorship's civilian wing, composed of orthodox liberal economists, criticised the plans to dedicate large amounts of money to the organisation. ¹⁵ Finally, the tournament would end up costing more than four times the amount of the next World Cup in Spain (700 million USD in comparison to 150 million USD).

Initially Jorge Videla's regime was hesitant to use the tournament for political purposes, as the instrumentalisation of sports had traditionally been associated with its enemy, Peronism. ¹⁶ This populist workers’ movement, led by the charismatic Juan Domingo Perón who was first elected in 1946, advocated for a third way, alternative to capitalism and communism. With Argentina in the midst of an industrialisation period that facilitated the emergence of a new urban working class, Perón's social justice policies gained him widespread support.

Nine years after his election, Perón's government was ousted by the military in 1955 and Peronism would become illegal until 1973 in a period marked by several military coups. After the Cordobazo public uprising of 1969, a radicalised part of the youth reinterpreted Peronism as a liberation movement and the armed struggle became an option. The left-wing Peronist group Montoneros, as well as the non-Peronist People's Revolutionary Army (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP) that formed the military branch of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, PRT) became active. Violence and State terrorism rose during the 1970s when anyone presumably linked to the left became a target for right-wing death squad Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, AAA, also known as Triple A) and, eventually, the dictatorship of Jorge Videla.

This dictatorship proved to be of an unprecedented repressive and transformative nature, as it not only sought to exterminate the left-wing ‘subversion’, but also strived to produce irreversible changes to the economy, the institutional system, and social and cultural structures. ¹⁷ To this end, a ruthless repression was implemented which, according to common estimates, resulted in the disappearance of 30,000 people. Faced with the loss of their children, the Mothers confronted the military to reclaim their disappeared loved ones. Together with the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo [Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo], they became the most emblematic actor in remembering the disappeared, and they managed to evoke great international attention for their struggle. ¹⁸

Regarding the Latin-American dictatorships that took power during this period, it has been argued that their real significance can be found in their political nature as they profoundly identified themselves with the nation's destiny and central values. ¹⁹ Considering this, it is important to also see the instrumentalisation of the World Cup as an appeal to the cultural importance of football in the nation. During the first months of 1978, the support for the military began to dissolve while at the same time their task of bringing order to the country had been gruesomely completed with the violent repression of their opponents. In this sense, the instrumentalisation of the tournament corresponded with the new turn that the National Security Doctrine (NSD) had taken. ²⁰ Previously, the regime had focused their attention on what they perceived to be a terrorist and subversive threat coming from inside the country. Later, they identified the exiles’ denunciations abroad as the main threat. This meant that, for the dictatorship, the battlefield was relocated onto the international scene. Consequently, the World Cup was used to portray the country as a disciplined, orderly, and clean society without disruptions – as Alabarces concluded from the design of the opening ceremony. ²¹

Although human rights have often been regarded as both an evident and ever-present concept, recently, historians have pointed at the short history of their uprise. According to Moyn, it was only in the 1970s that human rights transcended governmental institutions and gained momentum through the European quest for an identity outside Cold War terms; the reception of Soviet and Eastern European dissidents; and the end of formal colonialism. ²² Human rights came to be seen as a new utopia following the collapse of previous ones. In the Netherlands, the strong social democrat and Christian traditions were important for the emergence of a human rights discourse while at the same time, these traditions allowed for adhesion to two dominant Latin-American ideologies: liberation theology and dependency theory. ²³ Regarding Latin America, Moyn and Baud agree that the emergence of military dictatorships in this region has been of particular importance for the rise of human rights.

Since the 1990s, numerous studies have been dedicated to human rights movements. Keck and Sikkink coined the term ‘transnational advocacy networks’ to describe the international networks of actors tied by common values, discourses, and information exchanges working on a particular issue. ²⁴ Christiaens and others have pointed to the fact that studies based on this theory have focused on moral principles, such as justice and peace, while overlooking the impact of political organisations. While many works see Chilean exiles in Europe as mere passive recipients of solidarity, they emphasised the importance of their political advocacy. ²⁵ This tendency could be linked to persistent eurocentrism in western epistemology. ²⁶ In the same way, Brown has signalled the broader tendency of overlooking Latin American agency in historical studies. ²⁷ Making room for such agency, Christiaens and others adopt a transnational perspective in what they call the ‘evolutionary pattern of solidarity action’ ²⁸ . The present analysis takes account of this theory to analyse the leading role of Argentine exiles in the activism in the Netherlands around the World Cup.

3. INITIAL INDIFFERENCE

During the 1970s, in the context of the Cold War, various events led Dutch activists to mobilise for a wide range of causes. Although the social climate of this decade is important, the earlier origins of these developments should also be underlined. As from the 1950s, Dutch academics first started to consider the possibility of providing aid to developing countries. ²⁹ Again, the two pillars below the interest in development aid were the religious and social-democratic currents. ³⁰ While the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches fostered solidarity with the underprivileged peoples, the social-democratic current inspired by economist Jan Tinbergen addressed the necessity of solving global economic inequality.

Initially, Africa had been the focal point of development aid, but during the intense Cold War debates surrounding the US-initiated coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Latin America started to receive attention. ³¹ At the same time, the protests in Paris, Mexico, New York, and Athens at the end of the 1960s penetrated the Dutch public debate. ³² In this context, a great number of solidarity committees for countries all over the world was founded during what can be described as the ‘years of solidarity’. The struggles in these countries became symbols of radical change for the New Left that was taking shape as the Algerian independence struggle, the Cuban Revolution, and Vietnamese communists defied and overcame Western involvement. ³³ Particularly the Chilean Way to Socialism that was eventually ended by a US-backed coup d’état gave rise to an iconic solidarity campaign based on the campaigns for Algeria and Vietnam. Subsequently, the foundations of these campaigns would also be used for the campaign for solidarity with Argentina.

Although the Argentinian campaign is frequently considered in relation to the movement for a boycott of the 1978 World Cup, the foundations for this campaign were laid a few years earlier when the SKAN was founded. A leaflet of this Committee shows that it was founded in 1975 in response to the terror of extreme right-wing groups, particularly the AAA. ³⁴ Nevertheless, at this point, the Argentinian cause barely received any attention, as the Chilean situation dominated the public debate. Revealingly so, one of the founders of the SKAN mentioned that he was on his way to become a member of the Chile Committee when he met Fernando Peña, an Argentine sociologist in The Hague, who convinced him to establish the SKAN together. ³⁵

Two years earlier, the military coup of 11 September 1973 led by General Augusto Pinochet against the socialist government of Salvador Allende had produced mass indignation in the Netherlands. Prime Minister Joop den Uyl and his Minister for Development Cooperation Jan Pronk had visited the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) of 1972 in Santiago de Chile and both politicians of the PvdA were fascinated by ‘The Chilean way to Socialism’. After the coup, progressive politicians, syndicalists, and members of the government participated in demonstrations, which attracted up to 20,000 people. ³⁶ According to the observations of a SKAN member, this political and social engagement with the Chilean situation explains why the Chile Committee – founded by Jan Pronk – received subsidies while the SKAN did not. ³⁷

At the same time, it is important to note that at least three similar committees called SKAN were founded in the Netherlands at that moment. Different leaflets point to the existence of a SKAN in The Hague, Amsterdam, and Tilburg. ³⁸ With regard to the differences between both Committees, the aforementioned activist of the SKAN The Hague indicates that the integration of Argentine political exiles in the SKAN Amsterdam caused problems:

Later, [Argentine] refugees with connections to political parties joined [SKAN] Amsterdam. In The Hague, we wanted to remain independent and form a national committee centred around human rights. And we did not want to be used for the benefit of any political party. ³⁹

In this sense, the intention of the SKAN The Hague to focus on human rights coincides with the rise of this discourse and allowed them to apply to a broader public, but also contradicts an earlier assumption that solidarity activists took a politicised stance.

In 1975, the SKAN The Hague began by spreading information about the illegal repression in Argentina, but became more active in organising demonstrations and actions following the 1976 coup. The earliest document related to the SKAN shows that, in the context of the International Workers’ Day, the Committee urged ‘everyone who defends justice to raise their voices in the name of their fellow workers, the companions in Argentina’. ⁴⁰ A letter with an unknown recipient mentions the three major activities until 12 December 1977: an Argentine week in The Hague in November 1976; The Argentina Tribunal in Amsterdam in May 1977 that was attended by the Argentine Human Rights Commission of which Roberto Guevara – a brother of the Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara – was a member; and a commemoration in August 1977 in Amsterdam of the executed political prisoners in Trelew by the military government of Alejandro Agustín Lanusse in 1972. ⁴¹ The same letter mentions the ‘suffering of the people under the oppression by imperialism and their henchmen of the grand bourgeoisie’, and invites everyone to actively express their solidarity, starting by attending a meeting of the SKAN. In addition, at the end of 1977, SKAN published a testimony by Matilde Herrera – one of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo – and the translation of the ‘Open Letter from a writer to the Military Junta’ by Rodolfo Walsh. ⁴²

As we have seen before, the military takeover in Chile generated an immediate global impact. Televised images that showed the burning of books on the streets and even the bombarding of the La Moneda palace of the President caused direct outrage. ⁴³ In stark contrast, even after the coup in Argentina, concern for the terror in that country remained low in the Netherlands. As a result of this situation, Argentine exiles in the Netherlands referred to their Chilean counterparts as the ‘spoiled ones of Europe’. ⁴⁴ At that moment, reports by Amnesty International that made mention of the kidnappings had already reached the Netherlands and had been translated and diffused among politicians and legislators by the Dutch branch of the organisation. ⁴⁵

To understand the close relationship between Dutch and Chilean politicians, it is important to mention the pillarisation of Dutch society, even if the rise of the New Left and a social-liberal political party (D66) had begun to weaken it. This phenomenon refers to the division of society into three pillars that shared the same political parties, syndicates, radio, television, and newspapers: the Christian pillar, the social-democrat pillar, and the liberal pillar. Chilean politics, as a unique case in Latin America, were broadly divided in the same way. In 1970, in the last elections before the dictatorship, the three great forces in Chilean politics were the left represented by Salvador Allende, the Christian centre by Radomiro Tomic, and the liberals by Jorge Alessandri. The similarity in political divisions made it easier for Dutch politicians to identify themselves with Chilean political refugees.

For Argentina, the political divisions were radically different. Peronism, which had played a crucial role in Argentina's politics since the mid-1940s, was – and continues to be – a poorly understood phenomenon in European countries. In the Netherlands, Peronism was often linked to fascism. A document about the situation in Argentina from PvdA circles links the movement to fascism for its anti-British nature, Perón's fascination with Mussolini, and its strong anti-communist and anti-Marxist rhetoric. ⁴⁶ In addition, it is necessary to consider the strong economic ties between Argentina and the Netherlands. While the Dutch government imposed strong economic sanctions on the dictatorial government of Pinochet in Chile after the coup, exports to Argentina quadrupled between 1976 and 1978, and the Netherlands became the most important destination for Argentinian exports. ⁴⁷ Even more so, at this moment Argentina was the most important importer of Dutch arms in Latin America and already in 1978, Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published that Fokker planes produced in the Netherlands were used for the infamous ‘vuelos de la muerte’ [death flights] during which prisoners were thrown into the ocean. ⁴⁸ All this went hand-in-hand with the fact that the new Dutch centre-right government elected in 1977 considered the dictatorship's justification for its coup acceptable and believed that it would restore order and solve the country's economic crisis. ⁴⁹

4. RAISING AWARENESS AND CONDITIONED SOLIDARITY: THE BOYCOTT

Whereas awareness of repression in Chile spread as quickly as the execution of the coup, ⁵⁰ it took a campaign by two activist musicians for a boycott of the 1978 World Cup Football to raise awareness in the Netherlands about what was happening in Argentina. In the announcement of their campaign in January 1978, the duo called Neerlands Hoop [The hope of the Netherlands] stated that not enough people are aware of what is happening in Argentina and that ‘Argentina is brushed aside in the midst of declarations on South Africa, Chile, Czechoslovakia, and Russia’. ⁵¹ The goal of their campaign called Aktie Argentinië [Action Argentina] was to incite a World Cup boycott through op-ed pieces, petition campaigns, press conferences, interviews, and performances of the theatre play Bloed aan de Paal [Blood on the Post], with revenues going to Amnesty International and the SKAN. In doing so, they sparked a heated debate about the relationship between sports and politics.

Approximately one year earlier, the SKAN The Hague had already considered the idea of using the World Cup to denounce the Argentinian dictatorship. A SKAN activist recalls that before 1978, the Committee had already spoken to the press and had had a little op-ed piece in a newspaper, but that after the start of Aktie Argentinië, large stories about their actions were published which put them at the centre of attention. ⁵² Even the Argentine Embassy in The Hague reported in a circular that the ‘World Cup has raised awareness in local press and other mass media’. ⁵³ This positive conjuncture for the defence of human rights, in combination with an increased interest for the situation in Argentina, allowed exiled Argentines to more effectively make their voices heard.

Nevertheless, the call by Dutch activists for a boycott of the World Cup also caused problems for the Argentine exiles. The complicated relations between Argentine and Dutch activists as a result of the boycott campaigns gives the impression that Dutch activists underestimated the importance of the tournament for the Argentine people. Although a Dutch activist from the SKAN The Hague recalls that most Argentines were in favour of a boycott, ⁵⁴ testimonies from other Argentines in the Netherlands generally point the other way. In line with the position of the left-wing Peronist guerrilla organisation Montoneros, ⁵⁵ one exiled Argentine states that it was a positive thing to play football for the people and that journalists with information from the exiles should go and investigate the situation. ⁵⁶ Another Argentine exile affirms that opposing such a popular event generated some hostility with their family and friends in Argentina. ⁵⁷ In addition, a third exile recalls that, while watching the final in the Netherlands with fellow Argentines, people were chanting the Montoneros slogan ‘Argentina campeón, Videla al paredón’ [Argentina champion, Videla to the firing squad]. ⁵⁸ Finally, none of the SKAN documents promoting the boycott were signed by the SKAN department in Amsterdam, suggesting a difference in opinion that various activists later confirmed. ⁵⁹ In the same vein, Franco argues that because of their love of football, many of the large Argentinian organisations in Europe supported a strategy of denunciation without a boycott. ⁶⁰ However, while Franco claims that the Argentine exile community underestimated the military's ability to control the World Cup and benefit politically from it, it will be shown that the military did not have total control over the situation.

As a result of the dilemma of the Argentine exile in the face of the boycott movement and the frictions that came with it, the Dutch activists were also hesitant to affiliate themselves with the Argentine exiles. The Aktie Argentinië that promoted the boycott saw itself primarily as a form of nonviolent resistance, and – especially after the commotion in the Netherlands in 1977 about a kidnapping by the left-wing Rote Armee Fraktion – wanted to avoid all associations with armed struggle or terrorism. ⁶¹ One Dutch SKAN activist even suggested that Aktie Argentinië did not join the SKAN movement in order to avoid members of the Montoneros or the PRT. ⁶²

When evaluating the mobilisation of Argentines in the Netherlands, it is crucial to consider the efforts of the dictatorship to infiltrate and sabotage this mobilisation. There was a lot of fear among exiled Argentines after rumours about military infiltrations in exile organisations in Paris, ⁶³ and even SKAN activists suspected that staff of the Argentinian Embassy were infiltrating the Committee. ⁶⁴ Confidential documents from the Embassy show that these fears were justified. In a letter to the Argentine Ambassador to the Netherlands, Roberto Pérez Froio mentioned the necessity of gathering information on everyone involved in the campaign to discredit the image of the Argentinian dictatorship. ⁶⁵ This navy captain played a key role in setting up the dictatorship's Paris Pilot Centre that was initially a propagandistic instrument, but later also came to host undercover operations of agents of the School of Mechanical Engineering of the Navy (Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada, usually referred to by its acronym ESMA). ⁶⁶ This clandestine detention, torture, and extermination centre was the operational core behind the illegal repression.

Despite the aforementioned discrepancies, the emphasis on denouncing human rights violations allowed for some cohesion among those raising awareness about the situation in Argentina. The boycott movement, like in other countries, served to amplify the voices of those attempting to condemn the situation in Argentina. A SKAN leaflet signed by both the SKAN The Hague and the SKAN Amsterdam specifies the movement's goals: on the one hand, to inform the public about the situation and, on the other, to organise solidarity actions. ⁶⁷ The activities planned for this purpose were aimed at four different groups: politicians, the football association, journalists, and civil society. Argentine exiles visited political parties and even spoke with football players to explain what was going on in Argentina, activists took part in debates at schools and universities, and the SKAN The Hague published a newsletter about Argentina. ⁶⁸ Exiles also informed journalists who were planning to travel to Argentina during the World Cup, as mentioned by an Argentine in Amsterdam:

We spoke with many journalists. […] I remember having contact with them before the World Cup and telling them about what was happening. And having given them addresses of locations where they could go and ask such as institutions, churches and unions. We told them to ask with discretion so they could obtain a real idea of what was going on. That was of much help. I remember Jan van der Putten of De Volkskrant, for example. ⁶⁹

Jan van der Putten, who had been correspondent in both Chile and Argentina, had been actively writing about the terror in Argentina and his articles were frequently cited in the report by Michiel Baud on the position of Jorge Zorreguieta. ⁷⁰ In an interview, he mentioned that he had had contact with Argentine exiles both in the Netherlands and the rest of Latin-America and that these contacts were very helpful. ⁷¹ The importance of these contacts becomes even clearer with the testimony of Hebe de Bonafini – the emblematic co-founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – regarding their contact with exiles: ‘one of the Mothers told us that her son abroad had said that a Dutch journalist might be coming to the Plaza de Mayo.’ ⁷² Although at that point the Mothers were cautious and unconvinced of this possibility, it demonstrates the value of their contact with Europe via the exiles.

Strikingly, the increasingly strong economic ties between the Netherlands and Argentina were hardly mentioned in this period. ⁷³ While the Netherlands was selling weapons to the Argentine dictatorship, the question of whether to play football in Argentina completely dominated the public debate. Only after the World Cup, specific demonstrations were organised against the arms trade.

This intense connection between the football boycott and the Argentine cause not only increased awareness about the situation, but also obstructed a closer integration of politicians within the movement. This became a big issue for the PvdA, whose members voted in favour of a boycott. Although some politicians appreciated the idea of a boycott, the fact that a majority of the Dutch population was against it, made them reconsider their position. ⁷⁴ A news article from 13 February 1978 suggests that PvdA party leader Den Uyl based his stance against the boycott partially on a conversation with Argentine politician Simon Lázara of the Partido Socialista Unificado [Unified Socialist Party], who opposed the boycott and whose trustworthiness was questioned by SKAN. ⁷⁵ Although a delegate of the Chilean socialist party had confirmed Lázara's credibility to Wim Bogaard, the international secretary of the PvdA, this proves that SKAN was wary of possible attempts by the dictatorship to infiltrate.

One of the first important moments during the process of increasing awareness about the situation in Argentina was the 1978 Field Hockey World Cup organised in February in Buenos Aires. At that point, the movement for a boycott of the Football World Cup had already gathered attention and Aktie Argentinië pointed its arrows at a boycott of the hockey tournament. Confronted with this pressure for a boycott, the national hockey association (KNHB) refused to take a stance. This inertia was notably criticised by Dutch hockey player Paul Litjens, who would become the top scorer of the tournament. ⁷⁶ In addition, the beforementioned Hans Jorritsma – who refused to receive the silver medal – kept a diary about his time in Buenos Aires, which was published daily in the magazine Vrij Nederland. Jorritsma wrote that the Dutch ambassador attended Junta events and disapprovingly described how the Dutch Embassy justified the dictatorship, how backroom staff members of the hockey team were doing business in Buenos Aires, and mentioned that an edition of the Buenos Aires Herald – the only newspaper that published about the disappearances – was shoved under his hotel door. ⁷⁷ Jorritsma even wrote about his meetings with two Argentine citizens who told him about the repression and his visit to the weekly march of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, about whom he had heard in the Netherlands. His testimony about the meeting with the Mothers shows it deeply affected him:

The women take turns telling how many children they are missing, how long they have been missing, how many times they have tried to get the executive branch to acknowledge that their child is being held captive. So far without result. There are tears. The women support each other. Some of them grab my forearm during their story. I feel powerless. Sadness takes over. ⁷⁸

Hence, the Hockey World Cup experience demonstrates that, despite its efforts to control the tournament, the dictatorship was unable to prevent Argentine civilians from breaking the silence and giving a foreign athlete an impression of the terror that was taking place in Argentina. For the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the opportunity to speak with a Dutch athlete reinforced their belief that they could use the competition in June to inform the world about what was going on. ⁷⁹

The most significant effect of the agitation that occurred during the first half of 1978 was that football reporters who would travel to Argentina became more aware of what was going on in the country. In the words of one activist, SKAN made sure that journalists went to the World Cup ‘with open eyes’. ⁸⁰ Furthermore, the tournament provided an opportunity for a Dutch correspondent to return to Argentina after previously having left for personal security reasons. The World Cup and the fear of the military dictatorship to attract negative attention guaranteed the safety of critical foreign journalists. The fact that the military welcomed European journalists with all honours demonstrates their confidence in their ability to conceal the true situation from foreign eyes.

Nonetheless, the first major operation to achieve this goal of concealing the truth was a failure. Aware of the fact that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo had been meeting every Thursday afternoon at the square for over a year, the regime made sure that the opening ceremony took place at the same time as the Mothers’ manifestation. This timing is especially remarkable given that a World Cup typically begins on the weekend at an internationally convenient hour to allow as many people as possible to watch the ceremony live. Despite this distraction manoeuvre, one Dutch journalist reported on the Mothers’ struggle and another managed to film an interview that caused widespread outrage in Europe. The dictatorship's efforts to prevent information from leaving the country failed as a Lufthansa pilot took the tape of the interview with the Mothers with him on a flight to Europe. ⁸¹ To this day, images of the Mothers speaking with the foreign journalist continue to appear in the press, movies, and documentaries. ⁸² The power of the foreign cameras protected the Mothers during their denunciations.

5. PROBLEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF ‘GOOD’ AND ‘EVIL’

For the Argentinian case, the construction of solidary identities was a much more complicated process than for the Chilean case. Usually, solidarity is based on two dimensions: first, the recognition of closeness and common ground; and second, the recognition of differences with – and distance to – the ‘other’. ⁸³ Additionally, Christiaens and others mention how an identification of the ‘forces of good and evil’ accompanied the process. ⁸⁴ With regard to Argentina, imagining this Manichean divide was much more difficult. On the one hand, initially, the justification of the Junta that it was fighting a Dirty War against subversive elements – which in reality was State terrorism – seemed acceptable to many. In 1976, in the European Parliament, the Dutch State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the social liberal party D66 stated that the situation in Argentina had not worsened with the arrival of the regime of General Videla and that committed excesses did not stem from explicit intentions by the regime. ⁸⁵ In same vein, the Dutch Ambassador to Argentina, Van den Brandeler, repeatedly expressed himself very positively about General Videla in Dutch media. ⁸⁶ One of the common arguments in the Netherlands in defence of the military junta concerned the need to repress the left-wing terror.

Still, predominantly when the boycott campaign grew in popularity, Videla was quickly portrayed as the enemy, not only by activists but also by national media, leading the Ambassador to be reprimanded by the Dutch government for his positive comments on the Junta. Often, Videla was portrayed as a fascist enemy in SKAN leaflets and in the context of the boycott. ⁸⁷ In some cases, the military regime was even compared to the Nazis and the link with the instrumentalisation of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin by Hitler was made. In many cartoons, symbols of the military, the instrumentalisation of sports, and images of blood were used to portray Videla's regime as the enemy. Approaching the tournament, these denunciations were increasingly repeated by national newspapers.

On the other side, Peronism, the primary source of opposition against the dictatorship, was also associated with fascism. In addition, the revolutionary ideals of the Montoneros and the PRT impeded the identification with these groups as these were incompatible with the wishes of Dutch activists to defend human rights from a neutral perspective. This meant that it was difficult to point out the oppressed ‘forces of good’. Various attempts were made to call for solidarity with ‘Argentine workers’ or to achieve ‘justice for the Argentine people’, but after the appearance of the Mothers, they became the central focus of solidarity. ⁸⁸

This proved to be a key moment in the evolution of Dutch solidarity with Argentina. The image of a mother demanding information about the disappearance of a child was powerful. Although Argentine exiles and the SKAN had already spread information about them before the World Cup, the televised interview during the championship gave them even more visibility and solidary identities with them were easily constructed. One activist even considers the appearance of the Mothers as a solution to the problem of not knowing which Argentinian group to actively support. ⁸⁹ The identification with the pain of a mother who lost her child was much easier than with abstract groups such as the ‘Argentine workers’ or the ‘people of Argentina’. In this sense, the Mothers demonstrated the Manichean division of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ and after the World Cup, when a boycott was no longer the aim of solidarity campaigns, the Mothers took centre-stage.

6. CONCRETE SUPPORT: THE DENUNCIATION OF THE ENEMY AND SUPPORT FOR THE ALLY

Before analysing the concrete support for the Argentinian cause in the Netherlands, it is useful to present the different active groups of Argentines in the Netherlands that played a key role in shaping solidarity. In countries all over Europe, Argentines in exile organised and created networks that facilitated communication. Although the World Cup and the Falklands-Malvinas war created conflicts within the exile community, ⁹⁰ these organisations were crucial in shaping solidarity. Despite the relatively small number of Argentines in exile in the Netherlands, the Grupo Holanda was an active member in the network of Argentine Workers and Trade Unionists in Exile (Trabajadores y Sindicalistas Argentinos en el Exilio, TYSAE). In addition, pamphlets in Dutch from the PRT and the Montoneros indicate that these groups were also active in the country. ⁹¹ During the second half of 1979, the Grupo Holanda was responsible for the organisation of the third international TYSAE meeting which took place on 29-30 September 1979 in Amsterdam, and cooperated actively with the SKAN Amsterdam. ⁹²

Despite the presence of these groups, concrete support for resistance against the dictatorship developed in a problematic way. In Chile, solidary action had two focal points: first, solidarity with a political focus entailed resistance to the enemy and targeted support from an ideological point of view; second, solidarity with a humanitarian focus included protection and help for victims independent of their political association. ⁹³ With regards to the Argentinian case, it is important to distinguish between two forms of political solidarity. At first, this form of solidarity was limited to denouncing the enemy. Only after a clear identification of the ‘good ones’ in a divide between ‘forces of good and evil’, it included support for an ally in resistance against the enemy.

Many Argentines in the Netherlands appreciated the solidarity with a humanitarian focus. Solidarity from individuals, who made them feel at home, as well as collective solidarity, which became obvious through donations in many villages, were examples of this. Contrarily, solidarity with a political focus had various problems. Initially, solidarity with a political focus was directed almost exclusively at denouncing the dictatorship. During this period, the Argentine situation was transformed into a domestic political debate in the Netherlands. The debate was not about how to show solidarity with Argentina but revolved around the question of whether Dutch society should see sport and politics as being separated. Although the initiatives came from sincere ideas, doubts remain about the effectiveness and morality of a boycott. In the case of Chile, the domestication of the crisis led Europeans to see it through a local prism and allowed activists to identify more easily with the cause of the Chilean opposition. ⁹⁴ In the case of Argentina, the appropriation and domestication of the Argentinian crisis led activists to propose a boycott which Argentines – even many of those who had to leave their country – rejected. As Baud argues, the issue became a debate on the country's conscience. ⁹⁵ Moreover, Dutch activists avoided Argentinian associations that made them uncomfortable, such as the Montoneros or the PRT. In retrospect, one of the activists expressed mixed feelings: ‘one starts to enjoy it while others suffer enormously’. ⁹⁶ Still, the attention generated by the debate amplified the voices of Argentine exiles in the country and, because of their efforts to inform them, journalists went to Argentina with the intention to report about the repression. This all led to the Mothers becoming more known in Europe.

As the Mothers had been identified as ‘the force of good’, it was possible to direct support towards them. Solidarity in the Netherlands shifted from being limited to denouncing the enemy to including active support for the Mothers. The involvement of the SAAM committee, created in 1979, was crucial. A key person in this group was Liesbeth den Uyl, the wife of former Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, who formed the committee together with other well-known Dutch women. This group included members of various parties from across the political spectrum. Whereas during the boycott campaign the political parties had not been actively involved in solidarity with Argentina, the Mothers had now succeeded in activating Dutch politics for their cause. ⁹⁷ As a result of the efforts of Argentines in exile, and of Dutch activists and journalists who raised awareness and informed others about the situation in Argentina, a group was now entirely dedicated to supporting the Argentinian resistance of the Mothers. One of the founders of the Mothers stressed the importance of SAAM:

The solidarity of the Netherlands worked wonderfully well, because they [SAAM] were the first to raise the funds to buy us our first house, which we did not have. We did not have a place to meet and that is why they always arrested us. ⁹⁸

SAAM's objectives were significantly different from those of the Dutch SKAN. As we saw before, both the SKANs in Amsterdam and The Hague aimed at informing about the Argentinian situation and at organising solidarity actions. SAAM was entirely dedicated to helping the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in their resistance against the military regime in Argentina. In that sense, the aim was purely to respond to the demands of the Mothers, as described in the report of the Committee's first meeting:

Money is needed:

     (a) to raise the children of disappeared parents and enable them to go to school. The children are cared for by their grandparents who often live in poverty.

     (b) for the publication of advertisements with the names of disappeared relatives in some Argentine newspapers for huge sums of money (15,000 dollars or more for a modest ad!). Such advertisements can help to raise awareness at the national level. ⁹⁹

One of the first acts of support for the Mothers was the publication of an advertisement in an Argentinian newspaper. The Mothers informed SAAM that their advertisement about the disappeared in the newspaper Clarín had been initially accepted, but after a threat against the editor-in-chief, the advertisement was not published. In early May 1980, a SAAM advertisement wishing the Mothers strength was published in the newspaper La Prensa and the Mothers communicated their gratitude in an emotional letter to SAAM. ¹⁰⁰ Subsequently, another proposal for an advertisement in Argentina referring to the Dutch Embassy was blocked by this Embassy.

In addition, SAAM also supported the Mothers monetarily. Notes from a SAAM meeting on 28 May 1980 indicate that 20,000 Dutch guilders (approximately 10,000 USD) were donated to the Mothers. During 1980, at least five transactions were carried out. ¹⁰¹ On the one hand, according to one of the members, the SKAN The Hague sought to donate the benefits of their boycott campaign, Bloed aan de Paal, directly to the Mothers. On the other hand, SAAM had also collected money for the Mothers. According to Baud, Liesbeth den Uyl, and Mies Bouhuys of SAAM travelled to Buenos Aires for the first time in 1981 for the opening of the first headquarters of the Mothers. ¹⁰² During that trip, Liesbeth den Uyl delivered the 60,000 Dutch guilders (approximately 25,000 USD) generated by Bloed aan de Paal's theatre tour and with which the Mothers bought their first house. Furthermore, SAAM supported the Mother's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize, pressured the government in Argentina-related affairs and cooperated with the Commission of Solidarity with Relatives of the Disappeared in Argentina (Comisión de Solidaridad con Familiares de Desaparecidos en Argentina, Cosofam). ¹⁰³ In the same vein, SKAN also changed its focus after the World Cup had ended and a boycott was no longer relevant. For example, in 1979, the Committees pressured the government to take in more Argentine political refugees. ¹⁰⁴

Apart from the national level, the Mothers’ fame was also of importance at the UN. According to Theo van Boven, a retired Dutch diplomat who worked at the UN at the time, the Mothers’ declarations in presence were of special importance. ¹⁰⁵ Their statements verified the knowledge of the disappearances in a powerfully emotive way, all while confronting the dictatorship's efforts to sweep the matter under the carpet. ¹⁰⁶ Van Boven was one of the most prominent defenders of human rights at the diplomatic level and his activities have been extensively covered. However, his influence on Dutch public opinion was limited, as he often stressed his international role instead of representing the Netherlands, and ‘never tried to get into contact with the Netherlands too much’. ¹⁰⁷

At the same time the Dutch government's response to Argentinian pressure was questionable. In a letter from the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs to his Argentine counterpart – Minister Carlos W. Pastor of Foreign Affairs and Worship – Chris van der Klaauw responded to the Argentinian government's reaction to Max van der Stoel's intervention at the UN:

I have learned from your Ambassador in The Hague the feelings of your Government about the intervention of the delegate of the Netherlands at the Commission on Human Rights. I wish to assure you in this personal message that there was no intention to offend your country or members of your Government in the words he spoke. My government is following the evolution of the human rights situation in Argentina very closely and is pleased that the situation has improved in recent months. ¹⁰⁸

The Dutch minister suggests that ‘there was an extrapolation of the original text as delivered’ by Max van der Stoel, who was leader of the Dutch delegation to the commission of which Van Boven was director. ¹⁰⁹ Van der Stoel, then-member of the Social Democratic Party in the Netherlands, had been a Foreign Minister and had built a reputation as an advocate for human rights of minorities in totalitarian States. The letter to the Argentine Minister concluded: ‘It is my profound wish that the efforts of the government of the Argentine Republic to improve the situation regarding respect for human rights in your country will be crowned with success’. ¹¹⁰

7. CONCLUSION

Looking back at the mobilisation for the Argentinian cause in the Netherlands, we can observe that the 1978 Football World Cup was a key moment. While the voices of those who denounced the dictatorship were barely heard in an environment that was primarily preoccupied with the destiny of Allende's project in Chile, this situation completely changed when the World Cup appeared on the horizon. In Bauso's words: ‘everything football touches multiplies exponentially’. ¹¹¹ During the first half of 1978, a debate about the Dutch team's participation in the tournament put the situation in Argentina on the front pages of many newspapers. This attention amplified the voices of Argentine exiles and Dutch activists, and allowed journalists to travel to Argentina with their eyes open during the World Cup. At the same time, the Argentinian dictatorship actively sought to influence the debate and conceal the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. However, the interview that a Dutch journalist managed to record and take out of Argentina caused new outrage – not only in the Netherlands, but also in other European countries. As a result, these images prompted the establishment of new activist groups. The possibility to see the Mothers as a force of good was critical in this process, allowing the construction of solidary identities. From this representation, solidarity was able to evolve from being limited to the denunciation of the enemy to the active support of an ally in its resistance against the enemy. It is also important to mention that several Argentine exiles in the Netherlands highlighted the importance of solidarity from people without political objectives. Volunteers made them feel welcome in the country, cultural events were organised, and lasting friendships were forged. Between the Mothers and the support group in the Netherlands, a special relationship developed that led to the opening of a square named after the Mothers in Osdorp (The Netherlands).

Argentine actors played an important part in all these stages: first, by means of exiles, who created organisational structures in Europe and disseminated information about what was happening in Argentina; and later, through the demands of the Mothers and of relatives of the disappeared in Europe. This evolution of solidarity, which could not have occurred without Argentina organising the World Cup, leads us to conclude that in the Netherlands the dictatorship lost the public relations battle surrounding the tournament.

It should be noted that this process was not without complications. Although the boycott movement created circumstances that were crucial for the evolution of solidarity, we can observe several seemingly contradictory situations in that campaign. The importance of football in modern cultures is obvious from both Argentinian and Dutch perspectives. It is difficult to imagine that the Mothers’ denunciations would have gained such traction if the Football World Cup had not shone a spotlight on them. Furthermore, the first Mothers’ house was sponsored by funds raised by Dutch activists in a theatre tour during which they had called for a boycott. In that sense, the importance of football in raising awareness about the issue of repression in Argentina was critical. On the other hand, the importance of football also imposed constraints on mobilisation. It is striking that no political party, including the one whose members voted in favour, supported the boycott. Only after the dust had settled after the World Cup did the political parties dare to support the Argentinian cause more actively. Besides, the boycott distracted from the fact that economic relations between the Netherlands and the dictatorship were growing quickly. Football functioned as a reinforcing factor, but also as a constraint.

For the Argentine exiles, the boycott produced discomfort. While they appreciated the efforts of Dutch activists to assist them, their possible support for the boycott position annoyed their friends and relatives in Argentina. From testimonies of Dutch activists, the feeling emerges that they never realised the particularly immense importance of football in Argentina. Regarding the stigma that exiles received for fleeing the country, ¹¹² this stigma was likely worsened by a possible affiliation with the boycott. The Argentine exiles were faced with a potentially diabolical dilemma. Still, they managed to create links between various actors such as the Mothers, Dutch activists, and journalists, and hereby played a crucial role in getting the human rights violations in their country on the international agenda.

Finally, society is left with the following big question: was the boycott truly a good cause? Dutch activists ‘had a good time’ with the boycott campaign, while it provoked unease among Argentine exiles. This is a complicated question that this article does not pretend to answer. The article has, however, shown that viewing the World Cup from a Dutch point of view caused difficulties for Argentines in the Netherlands. In the end, Dutch political actors remained silent, and the status quo prevailed. As a result, it can be concluded that the boycott issue has not yet been resolved. With several major sporting events organised by authoritarian regimes behind us and more to come, society is torn between boycotting and participating with the aim of raising awareness. With regard to this question, while the World Cup was a success for the dictatorship at the national level, that success came at a high cost at the international level: a Pyrrhic victory.