THE END OF THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP IN ARGENTINA

National Reorganization Process, Argentina

December 5, 1983, the Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina is a reality after thousands of people killed, missing and a terrible dictatorship controlled their lives. Argentina starts another path to be a Democratic country.

The Argentinian Military Junta is one of the events of the last century that The Grandma remembers more clearly and she wants to talk about these terrible years for Argentina, in particular but for the Humanity in general. The direct consequences of the Dictatorship were thousands of killings, thousands of disappeared and thousands of stolen babies.

There are some films and lots of books which talk about this dictatorship but The Grandma has decided to watch La Historia Oficial directed by Luis Puenzo.

Before watching this great film, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 33).

More information: Conditionals 1 & 2

The National Reorganization Process, in Spanish Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, was the name used by its leaders for the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar, the last military junta, or la última dictadura cívico-militar, the last civil-military dictatorship, because there have been several.

The Argentine military seized political power during the March 1976 coup, as part of the Operation Condor over the presidency of Isabel Perón, widow of former President Juan Domingo Perón; a time of state terrorism against civilians, as well as neoliberal economic policies, started, with the dictatorship labeling its own use of torture, extrajudicial murder and systematic forced disappearances as a Dirty War.

Repression under the Argentinian dictatorship

After losing the Falklands War to the United Kingdom in 1982, the military junta faced mounting public opposition and finally relinquished power in 1983. Almost all of the Junta members are currently serving sentences for crimes against humanity and genocide.

The military has always been highly influential in Argentine politics, and Argentine history is laced with frequent and prolonged intervals of military rule. The popular Argentine leader, Juan Perón, three-time President of Argentina, was a colonel in the army who first came to political power in the aftermath of a 1943 military coup. He advocated a new policy dubbed Justicialism, a nationalist policy which he claimed was a Third Position, an alternative to both capitalism and communism. After being re-elected to the office of president by popular vote, Perón was deposed and exiled by the Revolución Libertadora in 1955.

After a series of weak governments, and a seven-year military government, Perón returned to Argentina in 1973, following 18 years exile in Francoist Spain, amidst escalating political unrest, divisions in the Peronist movement, and frequent outbreaks of political violence. His return was marked by the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre, after which the right-wing Peronist movement became dominant.

More information: The Guardian

Peron was democratically elected President in 1973, but died in July 1974. His vice president and third wife, Isabel Martínez de Perón, succeeded him, but she proved to be a weak, ineffectual ruler. A number of revolutionary organizations, chief among them Montoneros, a group of far-left Peronists, escalated their wave of political violence, including kidnappings and bombings, against the campaign of harsh repressive and retaliatory measures enforced by the military and the police.

In addition, right-wing paramilitary groups entered the cycle of violence, such as the Triple A death squad, founded by José López Rega, Perón's Minister of Social Welfare and a member of the P2 masonic lodge. The situation escalated until Mrs. Perón was overthrown. She was replaced on 24 March 1976 by a military junta led by Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla.

Official investigations undertaken after the end of the Dirty War by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons documented 8,961 desaparecidos, victims of forced disappearance, and other human rights violations, noting that the correct number is bound to be higher. 

Many cases were never reported, when whole families were disappeared, and the military destroyed many of its records months before the return of democracy. 

Stolen babies reclaimed by their families

Among the disappeared were pregnant women, who were kept alive until giving birth under often primitive circumstances in the secret prisons. The infants were generally illegally adopted by military or political families affiliated with the administration, and the mothers were generally killed.  

Thousands of detainees were drugged, loaded into aircraft, stripped naked and then thrown into the Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown in what became known as death flights.

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 a means of propaganda and to rally its people under a nationalist pretense.

More information: The Guardian

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 public image of the regime. 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 October 30, 1983, elections were held, and democracy was formally restored on December 10 with President Raúl Alfonsín being sworn into office.

Following a decree of President Alfonsín mandating prosecution of the leaders of the Proceso for acts committed during their tenure, they were tried and convicted in 1985.

In 1989, President Carlos Menem pardoned them during his first year in office, which was highly controversial. He said the pardons were part of healing the country.

The Argentine Supreme Court declared amnesty laws unconstitutional in 2005. As a result, the government resumed trials against military officers who had been indicted for actions during the Dirty War.

More information: The Guardian

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, 

but the best weapon of a democracy should be 

the weapon of openness. 

Niels Bohr