Isabel Perón
Isabel Perón | |
---|---|
First Lady of Argentina | |
In role 12 October 1973 – 1 July 1974 | |
President | Juan Perón |
Preceded by | Norma Beatriz López Rega |
Succeeded by | Alicia Raquel Hartridge |
Personal details | |
Born | María Estela Martínez Cartas 4 February 1931 La Rioja, Argentina |
Political party | Justicialist Party |
Spouse | |
Other position(s) | Leader of the Justicialist Party (1974–1985) |
Signature | |
Isabel Martínez de Perón (Spanish pronunciation: [isaˈβel maɾˈtines ðe peˈɾon] ⓘ, born María Estela Martínez Cartas; 4 February 1931) is an Argentine former politician who served as the 46th President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was one of the first female republican heads of state in the world, and the first woman to serve as president of a country.
Isabel Perón was the third wife of President
Isabel Perón is one of the greatest expressions of the right-wing peronism and mainly of the orthodox peronism.[3] Ideologically, she was considered close to corporate neo-fascism.[n. 1][5][6][7] During her short tenure in office, she relied, at different points in time, on pro-neoliberal capitalism politicians, politicized military, and trade unions.[8]
In 2007, an Argentine judge ordered Perón's arrest over the
Since the death of Carlos Menem on 14 February 2021, Perón is the oldest living former Argentine president.[note 1]
Early life and career
This poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. )Find sources: "Isabel Perón" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2020) |
María Estela Martínez Cartas was born in
Juan Perón
She met her future husband during his exile in
Early political career
As Perón resumed an active role in Argentine politics from exile, Isabel acted as a go-between from Spain to Argentina. Having been deposed in a coup in 1955, Perón was forbidden from returning to Argentina, so his new wife was appointed to travel in his stead.
José López Rega
Isabel met José López Rega, who was a former policeman with an interest in occultism and fortune-telling, during a visit to Argentina in 1965.[17] She was interested in occult matters (and as president reportedly employed astrological divination to determine national policy),[18] so the two quickly became friends. Under pressure from Isabel, Perón appointed López as his personal secretary; López later founded the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), a death squad accused of perpetrating 1,500 crimes in the 1970s.[19]
Rise to power
Dr.
Perón's victory in a
Presidency
Juan Perón suffered a series of
Although she lacked Evita Perón's charisma, the grieving widow at first attracted support from the nation. She pledged to uphold the social market economy policies embodied in the 1973 "Social Pact" as well her husband's long-held orthodox Peronism and economic nationalism; her first significant economic policy decisions were the enactment of a new, pro-labor employment contract law and the granting to YPF a monopoly over filling stations.[22] Even leftist groups, having fallen out with Juan Perón in previous months, publicly offered support to her. However she cancelled meetings with various constituent and political groups, and the sympathy resulting from her husband's death soon dissipated. Her government purged most leftists from university posts and the administration, and (as her husband and other Argentine presidents had done) used Federal intervention powers to unseat leftist governors. Following a string of political murders and a break by the Montoneros with the government, on 30 September Perón signed the Anti-Terrorism Law. This was the first in a series of measures which eroded constitutional rights, ostensibly for the sake of combating leftist violence.[21][page needed]
Another source of contention between her and the voters was the increasing impression that
López Rega's greatest influence upon Isabel Perón's presidency came through his recently formed
Atrocities were also being committed by left-wing extremists. Organized in 1968, the anarchist
Following the murder of Buenos Aires Police Chief Alberto Villar (one of López Rega's closest collaborators in the Triple A) and his wife, as well as amid increasing activity by the ERP in the
The government turned on the labor movement, the mainstay of Peronism for the better part of a quarter-century, classifying it as "subversive" and subject to reprisals. The November 1974 election of a left-wing union shop steward at a Villa Constitución steel mill and its disapproval by steelworkers' leader Lorenzo Miguel (a leading figure in the paramount CGT), resulted in a brutal 20 March 1975 police assault on the facility. The raid, executed jointly with Triple A heavies, led to the "disappearances" of many of the 300 workers arrested.[27]
Stacking the
López Rega, meanwhile, arranged the dismissal of many of the most competent policy makers Perón had inherited from her husband's brief presidency; by May 1975, both Economy Minister José Ber Gelbard and Central Bank President Alfredo Gómez Morales had been replaced with right-wing López Rega loyalists.[28][page needed]
Isabel Perón initially maintained the Social Pact inherited from her husband, and succeeded in enhancing it with reforms such as the enactment in December 1974 of
The Social Pact also faced growing opposition by employers, particularly after conservative members of the General Economic Council (CGE) split from the conciliatory CGE in March 1975 to form the more combative APEGE; this group would later adopt the tactic of staging recurring lockouts against the administration.[30]
Faced with record trade and budget deficits, the new Economy Minister, Celestino Rodrigo, proceeded to apply
Fall from power
López Rega left the country on 19 July. Shortly afterward, Perón dismissed her protégés in the Economy Ministry, Celestino Rodrigo, and in the Armed Forces High Command, General Alberto Numa Laplane, whom she replaced in August with General
Limited largely to the murder of security forces and public figures during 1974, political violence escalated during 1975 to include soft targets in the population at large as Trotskyist ERP and fascist Triple A extremists began taking to midnight lightning strikes against each other and civilian targets such as banks, buses, yachts, parking lots, and restaurants.[23][page needed] Over 700 people died from political violence during Mrs. Perón's first 15 months in office, of which more than half were subversives and most of the remainder were security forces; by March 1976, civilians comprised fully half of the 1,358 deaths attributable to this conflict.[32][page needed]
The Montoneros, moreover, began a series of audacious attacks on military installations, including August dynamiting of the nearly finished destroyer
Her health remained fragile, however, and a gallbladder affliction forced her to take a second, shorter leave of absence in November.[31] Interior Minister Ángel Robledo's proposal that elections (scheduled for March 1977) should instead be held in November 1976 was approved by the president during this leave, bringing renewed hope that an increasingly rumored coup d'état could yet be averted.[23][page needed]
Anxiety over inflation, meanwhile, continued to dominate daily life. Monthly inflation did slow from the (then-record) 35% logged in July - but remained at 10–15% monthly between September and January 1976. A sudden fall in business investment had by then sent the economy into a sharp recession, however. GDP growth had already slowed from a 6.8% rate in the fourth quarter of 1974 to 1.4% in the second quarter; following the Rodrigazo crisis, the economy shrank 4.4% by the first quarter of 1976, with fixed investment falling by one sixth and auto production by a third.[28][page needed]
The mid-year recession had significantly curbed the growth in imports; but because exports continued to fall, the trade deficit reached a record billion dollars in 1975, nearly depleting
The appointment of Brigadier General
Allegations had surfaced in August that Perón had embezzled large sums from the Cruzada de Solidaridad ('Solidarity Crusade'), a government-run charity, into her personal accounts in Spain.
Isabel Perón granted ever more significant policy concessions to the largely conservative military in the early months of 1976, from security matters to economic.[35] Economy Minister Antonio Cafiero, supported by labor, was dismissed in February, and his replacement, Eugenio Mondelli, announced further shock therapy measures similar to the previous year's Rodrigazo – the Mondelazo. These measures included steep hikes in utility rates and a new devaluation of the already shredded peso, causing prices to more than double over the next three months (inflation reached a new record of over 700% by April) and leading a new wave of strikes and business lockouts.[28][page needed]
The UCR initiated impeachment proceedings against the President in February with the support of the "Rebel" Peronist faction in Congress. Near defeat though still active, the Montoneros detonated a bomb at Army headquarters on 15 March, killing one and injuring 29 people.[24] The head of the CGE, Julio Broner, left Argentina with his family, altogether; CGT Secretary General Casildo Herreras followed suit, announcing from exile that he had "erased" himself. The leader of the opposition UCR Ricardo Balbín, while making efforts to form a multi-party congressional crisis committee, held a private meeting in February with Army Chief of Staff Videla and told him, "If you're planning to stage a coup, do so as soon as possible – expect no applause from us, but no obstacles either."[35]
The media were by then openly counting down the days to the expected coup d'état, and several newspapers published editorials calling for Perón's overthrow.[36] Even as the joint chiefs professed loyalty to La Presidente, the Armed Forces High Command had already given final approval to a coup, code-named 'Operation Aries', when the president returned from her leave of absence in October 1975.[37]
After working late into the evening of 23 March 1976, in the hope of averting a renewed business lockout, Perón celebrated her executive assistant's birthday with staff. Alerted to suspicious military exercises, she boarded the presidential helicopter shortly after midnight. It did not fly her to the Quinta de Olivos presidential residence but to an Air Force base in nearby Jorge Newbery International Airport, where she was formally deposed and arrested.[24]
Detention and exile
The majority of Peronist officials in the national, provincial, and municipal governments were promptly arrested, brutally beaten, starved, tortured, and interrogated by military police. Many "
Following the restoration of democracy in Argentina, Perón was pardoned from charges of corruption during her presidency and returned in December 1983 as a guest of honor at President Raúl Alfonsín's inauguration, and in May 1984 to participate in policy talks arranged by Alfonsín and opposition leaders. Still nominally head of Juan Perón's Justicialist Party, she played a constructive role in the talks, supporting cooperation between the restive CGT labor union (her party's political base) and Alfonsín. The talks concluded with a weak agreement, and she resigned from her post as titular head of the party.[41] She returned to Argentina in 1988 to resolve probate disputes concerning the Perón estate,[42] then resumed residence in Spain under a very low profile.[citation needed]
Arrest in Spain
A judge in Mendoza, Argentina in November 2006 demanded testimony from Isabel Perón, along with other Peronist ministers of her government, in a case involving forced disappearances during her presidency; on 12 January 2007, she was arrested by police in Madrid. She was charged by the Argentine authorities with the disappearance of Héctor Aldo Fagetti Gallego on 25 February 1976, and for crimes related to her issuance of 6 October 1975 decree calling the Armed Forces to "annihilate subversive elements."[10] The Nunca Más ("Never Again") report released in 1984 by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons recorded 600 disappearances and 500 assassinations under the Peronist governments from 1973 to 1976, and it is acknowledged that the Triple A alone murdered some 600 people.[43]
The 2006 capture in Spain of Triple A death-squad overseer Rodolfo Almirón, who had also been in charge of López Rega's and Isabel Perón's personal security, shed further light on the extent of Triple A involvement in the early stages of the Dirty War.[38] Isabel Perón's extradition to Argentina was refused by Spain on 28 March 2008. Spain's National Court ruled twice that the charges against her did not constitute crimes against humanity, adding that the statute of limitations on the charges expired after 20 years.[11]
The
See also
Notes
- ^ The rest of the former living presidents of Argentina are Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Eduardo Duhalde, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernández. The incumbent is Javier Milei.
References
- ^ "Argentina orders arrest of ex-President Peron". NBC News. 12 January 2007. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
- ISBN 978-950-07-5350-0.
- ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
- ISBN 978-950-9889-17-0.
- ^ Finchelstein, Federico (2 July 2014). "When Neo-Fascism Was Power in Argentina". Public Seminar. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
- ^ M, Pedro N. Miranda (1989). Terrorismo de estado: testimonio del horror en Chile y Argentina (in Spanish). Editorial Sextante.
- ^ Warmkraut, Ezequiel (February 2021). "Warmkraut- Evita, entre la izquierda y la derecha peronista". Research Gate.
- ^ Warrant for ex-Argentine leader, BBC, 12 January 2007.
- ^ a b c "Isabel Peron's arrest signals shift in Argentina". Los Angeles Times. 13 January 2007.
- ^ a b "Extradition of Isabel Perón To Argentina Is Rejected By Court". The New York Times. 29 April 2008.
- ^ Binayán Carmona, Narciso. Maria Estela Martinez Cartas said one day: Zanga Cutiricutanga, that words were a tipic words in that years. Historia genealógica Argentina. EMECE, 1999, p.578.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-887985-84-0.
- ISBN 978-1-61530-059-4), p. 249
- ISBN 978-0-7876-2552-8
- ^ ISBN 0-679-78146-3.[page needed]
- ^ ISBN 0-394-52297-4.[page needed]
- ISBN 962-421-048-9.
- ^ "Argentinian death squad leader' arrested in Spain". The Guardian. 30 December 2006.
- ^ a b Reed, Robert (12 November 1999). "Juan Perón & Cocaine Politics". Consortium News.
- ^ ISBN 0-312-39254-0.
- ISBN 0-8047-0985-8.
- ^ ISBN 0-8133-8213-0.
- ^ ISBN 0-275-97360-3.
- ^ a b "Presidencia de Isabel Perón". Todo Argentina.
- ^ "Diario de Campaña de Acdel Vilas". Nunca Más. Archived from the original on 20 September 2003.
- ^ "Propuesta a Acindar". Río Negro. 2 October 2007. Archived from the original on 25 January 2009.
- ^ ISBN 0-8078-4356-3.
- ^ a b "Precios al consumidor – Serie histórica – Variaciones porcentuales". INDEC. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
- ^ "Historia en Debate: Los Días del Golpe". El Ruido de las Nueces. 5 August 2012. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Historia secreta de la caída de Isabel Perón". Somos. September 1983.
- ISBN 0-7735-2013-9.
- ^ "Los mitos del 24 de marzo". La Nueva Provincia. 24 March 2010. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013.
- ^ "Murió ayer el doctor Angel Federico Robledo". La Nación. 16 November 2004.
- ^ a b "El pedido de Isabel Perón a Videla el día antes del golpe militar de 1976". Red Biografo. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ "El papel de la prensa durante el proceso militar". Argentina a Diario. 24 March 2012. Archived from the original on 13 March 2014.
- ^ "El cruento éxito de la 'Operación Aries'". El País (in Spanish). 23 March 2001.
- ^ a b Detienen en Valencia al ex dirigente de la Triple A Argentina Almirón Sena, El Mundo, 28 December 2006 (Spanish).
- ^ "Valdano compró la casa de Perón en Madrid". La Nación. 21 January 2001.
- ^ "La reclusión de Isabelita Perón en Villafranca del Castillo". ABC Estilo. 7 April 2019.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. Book of the Year, 1985: Argentina.
- ^ "Isabel Peron Leaves Exile For Argentina". Sun-Sentinel. Archived from the original on 23 July 2013. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
- ^ "L'ancienne présidente Argentine Isabel Perón arrêtée à Madrid, à la demande de Buenos Aires", Le Monde, 13 January 2007 (French).
- ^ "La Corte rechazó citar a Isabel Perón para que declare por delitos de lesa humanidad" (in Spanish). El Litoral. 21 June 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
Further reading
- Guareschi, Roberto (5 November 2005). "Not quite the Evita of Argentine legend". New Straits Times. p. 21.
- Skard, Torild (2014) "Isabel Péron" in Women of Power – Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide. Bristol: Policy Press, ISBN 978-1-4473-1578-0.