home demolished
by the government

From 1976 to 1983, while under the rule of dictator General Jorge Rafael Videla, thousands of homes throughout Buenos Aires were demolished to make room for major development projects. Rubble from these homes was dumped on the banks of Rio de la Plata, resulting in a concrete coastline now known as Debris Beach. In 1978, as Argentina hosted and won the World Cup, hundreds of citizens were tortured and disappeared at the hands of the dictatorship. Some of their bodies were thrown from planes and washed up along the concrete coastline. The debris in Rio de la Plata has mixed with the river sand, resulting in a marsh used as the foundation of the development of a reserve which has since become a tourist attraction. But for those of us who know what happened here, the area is a ghost of a past we cannot forget and refuse to return to.

Manuel Embalse in Buenos Aires