National Reorganization Process
Argentine Republic República Argentina | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1976–1983 | |||||||||
Anthem: Roman Catholicism | |||||||||
Government | Federal presidential republic under a military dictatorship | ||||||||
President of Argentina | |||||||||
• 1976–81 | Jorge Rafael Videla | ||||||||
• 1981 | Roberto Eduardo Viola | ||||||||
• 1981–82 | Leopoldo Galtieri | ||||||||
• 1982–83 | Reynaldo Bignone | ||||||||
Historical era | Cold War | ||||||||
24 March 1976 | |||||||||
2 April – 14 June 1982 | |||||||||
30 October 1983 | |||||||||
Population | |||||||||
• 1975 | 25,865,776 | ||||||||
• 1980 | 27,949,480 | ||||||||
HDI (1980) | 0.665[1] medium | ||||||||
Currency | Argentine peso (1975–90) | ||||||||
ISO 3166 code | AR | ||||||||
|
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, often simply el Proceso, "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, which received support from the United States until 1982. In Argentina it is often known simply as the última junta militar ("last military junta"), última dictadura militar ("last military dictatorship") or última dictadura cívico-militar ("last civil–military dictatorship"), because there have been several in the country's history[2] and no others since it ended.
The
Members of the National Reorganization Process were prosecuted in the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, receiving sentences ranging from life imprisonment to court-martials for mishandling the Falklands War. They were pardoned by President Carlos Menem in 1989 but were re-arrested on new charges in the early 2000s. Almost all of the surviving junta members are currently serving sentences for crimes against humanity and genocide. Scholars generally characterize the regime as characteristic of neo-fascism.[3][4][5][6]
Background
The
After a series of weak governments and a seven-year military government, Perón returned to Argentina in 1973 after 18 years in exile in
Perón was democratically elected president in 1973, but died in July 1974. His vice president and third wife,
Dirty War
Official investigations undertaken after the end of the
The film
The regime shut down the legislature and restricted both freedom of the press and freedom of speech, adopting severe media censorship. The 1978 World Cup, which Argentina hosted and won, was used as propaganda to rally its people under a nationalist pretense.
Corruption, a failing economy, growing public awareness of the harsh repressive measures taken by the regime, and the military defeat in the Falklands War eroded the regime's image. The last de facto president, Reynaldo Bignone, was forced to call for elections by the lack of support within the Army and the steadily growing pressure of public opinion. On 30 October 1983, elections were held, and democracy was formally restored on 10 December, when President Raúl Alfonsín was sworn in.
Economic policies
As Argentina's new de facto president,
Martínez de Hoz took measures to restore
He enjoyed the personal friendship of
He eliminated all
He freed
During his tenure, the
He appointed
The
Bignone chose Domingo Cavallo to head the Argentine Central Bank. Cavallo inherited a foreign debt installment guarantee program that shielded billions of private debt from the collapse of the peso, costing the treasury billions. He instituted controls over the facility, such as the indexation of payments, but this move and the rescission of Circular 1050 threw the banking sector against him; Cavallo and Dagnino Pastore were replaced in August.[22]
The President of the Central Bank,
Six years of intermittent wage freezes had left real wages close to 40% lower than during Perón's tenure, leading to growing labor unrest. Bignone's decision to restore limited
Foreign policy
U.S. support
The United States provided military assistance to the
The
In 1978, president Jimmy Carter secured a congressional cutoff of all U.S. arms transfers for the human rights violations.[28]
The re-establishment of diplomatic ties allowed for CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence service in arming and training the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government. Argentina also provided security advisors, intelligence training and some material support to forces in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to suppress local rebel groups as part of a U.S.-sponsored program called Operation Charly.[30]
Military intervention in Central America
After attaining power in 1976, the National Reorganization Process formed close ties with the regime of
Pursuant with these military agreements, Somoza's Guardsmen were sent to police and military academies in Argentina to undergo training and Argentina began to send arms and advisors to Nicaragua to bolster the National Guard, in addition to similar services being provided by the United States. According to an Argentine advisor with the Nicaraguan National Guard, the intelligence techniques used by the Somoza regime consisted of essentially the same "unconventional" methods which had been used in Argentina's Dirty War (torture, forced disappearance, extrajudicial killings).[33] Argentina's aid programs increased proportionate to the growth of the popular movement against the Somoza regime and the degree of isolation of the Somoza regime. Following the suspension of U.S. military aid and training in 1979, Argentina became one of the Somoza regime's principal sources of arms alongside Israel, Brazil and South Africa.[34][35]
In addition to providing arms and training to Somoza's National Guard, the Argentine junta also executed a number of
Following the overthrow of
In August 1981, a CIA official met with Honduran military staff, Argentine military and intelligence advisors, and the Contra leadership and expressed his support for the contra operations. On November 1, 1981, the Director of the CIA William Casey met with the Chief of Staff of the Argentine military; the two purportedly agreed that Argentina would oversee the contras and the United States would provide money and weapons. In late-1981, President Reagan authorized the U.S. to support the contras by giving them money, arms, and equipment. This aid was transported and distributed to the Contras by way of Argentina. With new weapons and logistical support, the scale of Contra attacks increased and the ranks of the Contras swelled as recruitment became more feasible. By the end of 1982, the Contras were conducting attacks deeper inside Nicaragua than before.[40]
In the immediate aftermath of the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979, the National Reorganization Process dispatched a large Argentine military mission to Honduras. At the time, General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, a former student of Argentina's Colegio Militar de la Nación (class of 1961) and graduate of the School of the Americas, was commander of a branch of the Honduran security forces known as the Fuerza de Seguridad Publica (FUSEP). Álvarez Martínez was a proponent of the "Argentine Method", viewing it as an effective tool against subversion in the hemisphere, and sought increased Argentine military influence in Honduras.[41] Argentina's military program in Honduras expanded after 1981 when General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, offered his country to the CIA and the Argentine military as a base for conducting operations opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. By the end of 1981, 150 Argentine military advisors were active in Honduras training members of the Honduran security forces and providing training to the Nicaraguan Contras based in Honduras.[42] According to the NGO Equipo Nizkor, though the Argentine mission in Honduras was downgraded after the Falklands War, Argentine officers remained active in Honduras until 1984, some of them until 1986, well after the 1983 election of Raúl Alfonsín.[42]
Battalion 316's name indicated the unit's service to three military units and sixteen battalions of the Honduran army. This unit was charged with the task of carrying out political assassinations and torture of suspected political opponents of the government, effectively implementing the "Argentine Method" in Honduras. At least 184 suspected government opponents including teachers, politicians, and union bosses were assassinated by Battalion 316 during the 1980s.[43]
Argentina played a role in supporting the Salvadoran government during the
In fall of 1981, the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan requested that the high command of the Argentine military increase its assistance to El Salvador.
The military junta in Argentina was a prominent source of both material aid and inspiration to the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War, especially during the final two years of the Lucas government. Argentina's involvement had initially began in 1980, when the Videla regime dispatched army and naval officers to Guatemala, under contract from President Fernando Romeo Lucas García, to assist the security forces in counterinsurgency operations. Argentine involvement in Guatemala expanded when, in October 1981, the Guatemalan government and the Argentine military junta formalized secret accords which augmented Argentine participation in government counterinsurgency operations. As part of the agreement, two-hundred Guatemalan officers were dispatched to Buenos Aires to undergo advanced military intelligence training, which included instruction in interrogation.[48]
Alleged French support
In 2003, French journalist Marie-Monique Robin documented that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's government secretly collaborated with Videla's junta in Argentina and with Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile.[49]
Green deputies
In December 2003, his staff published a 12-page document that said no agreement had been signed between France and Argentina about military forces. But, Marie-Monique Robin had sent them a copy of the document she found showing such an agreement.[51][52]
When Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin traveled to Chile in February 2004, he claimed that no cooperation between France and the military regimes had occurred.[53]
Relations with the Soviet Union
Despite the officially anti-Communist leanings of Videla's junta in the context of the Cold War, the regime maintained extensive trade and diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union.[54]
Legal moves by Baltasar Garzón and Peter Tatchell
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón unsuccessfully attempted to question former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as a witness in his investigations into the Argentine disappearances during one of Kissinger's visits to Britain, and Peter Tatchell was unable to have Kissinger arrested during the same visit for alleged war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act.[55][56]
Aftermath
Following a decree of President
Adolfo Scilingo, an Argentine naval officer during the junta, was tried for his role in jettisoning drugged and naked political dissidents from military aircraft to their deaths in the Atlantic Ocean during the junta years. He was convicted in Spain in 2005 of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 640 years in prison. The sentence was later raised to 1084 years.
On March 25, 2013, Federal Criminal Oral Court No. 1 of La Plata rendered decision on a public trial for crimes committed during the civilian-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983) in the network of clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers ("clandestine centers") known as the "Camps Circuit".[58] By conventional view, genocide requires intention to destroy a group in whole or in part. Where the intention is to destroy a group in part, that part must be "substantial", either in the numerical sense, or in the sense of being important to the physical survival of the group.[58] The facts being prosecuted involves attacks against "subversive elements", which does not appear, on first sight, to be a "substantial" part of the group defined by nationality, by sheer numerical representation. This decision is significant in adopting the theory, originating from genocide scholar Daniel Feierstein, that the targeted victims are significant to the national group, as their destruction fundamentally altered the social fabric of the nation.[58]
A major trial, nicknamed "the
In December 2018, two former executives of a local Ford Motor Company plant near Buenos Aires, Pedro Muller and Hector Sibilla, were convicted for their involvement in the abduction and torture of 24 workers during the reign of the military junta. Lawyers involved in the case say this is the first time former executives of a multinational corporation operating in Argentina under the military junta have been convicted of crimes against humanity.[60]
Commemoration
In 2002, the Argentine Congress declared the date of 24 March as the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, in commemoration for the victims of the dictatorship. In 2006, thirty years after the coup d'état that started the Proceso, the Day of Memory was declared a national public holiday. The anniversary of the coup was remembered by massive official events and demonstrations throughout the country.
Presidents of Argentina, 1976–1983
29 March 1976 – 29 March 1981.
29 March – 11 December 1981.
- Carlos Lacoste (Interim)
11–22 December 1981.
22 December 1981 – 18 June 1982.
- Alfredo Oscar Saint Jean (Interim)
18 June – 1 July 1982.
1 July 1982 – 10 December 1983.
Military juntas
During the Process, there were four successive military juntas, each consisting of the heads of the three branches of the Argentine Armed Forces:
Commander-in-Chief of the Army | Commander-in-Chief of the Navy | Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force |
---|---|---|
First Junta (1976–1978) | ||
Lieutenant General Jorge Videla |
Admiral Emilio Massera |
|
Second Junta (1978–1981) | ||
Lieutenant General Roberto Viola |
Admiral Armando Lambruschini |
Brigadier General Omar Graffigna |
Third Junta (1981–1982) | ||
Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri |
Admiral Jorge Anaya |
|
Fourth Junta (1982–1983) | ||
Lieutenant General Cristino Nicolaides |
Admiral Rubén Franco |
See also
- HIJOS – Hijos e Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio
- History of Argentina
- Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
- Theory of the two demons
References
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On March 24, 1976, the Argentine military staged a coup d'état and established a fascist dictatorship that perpetrated genocide for seven years.
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It was a sacrifice of some questionable lives to preserve the Proceso, the National Process of Reorganization to make Argentina conform to a right-wing fascist version of Catholicism.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - OCLC 863194632. Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2022.)
The Last Military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983) was many things. Outside its concentration camps it presented the facade of a typical authoritarian state. Within them, however, it was fascist.
{{cite book}}
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- brigadier-general in the Argentine Air Forceis equivalent to 3-star or 4-star rank.
Books
- ISBN 978-9505634781.
External links
- HIJOS Association. Sons and daughters of the victims from the dictatorship trying to find their roots and history
- Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on Argentina
- OpenDemocracy.net, 28 July 2005, "Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the 'dirty war'"
- The Dirty War in Argentina – George Washington University's National Security Archive page on the Dirty War, featuring numerous recently declassified documents which clearly demonstrate Kissinger's knowledge and complacency in the junta's human rights abuses