Jorge Rafael Videla

A terrorist is not just someone with a gun or a bomb, but also someone who spreads ideas that are contrary to Western and Christian civilization.

— Jorge Rafael Videla[17]

Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla at a military parade in Buenos Aires, 1978.

The military junta is remembered for the forced disappearances of large numbers of students. The military junta took power during a period of terrorist attacks from the Marxist groups ERP, the Montoneros, FAL, FAR and FAP, who had gone underground after Juan Perón's death in July 1974, and violent right-wing kidnappings, tortures and assassinations from the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, led by José López Rega, Perón's Minister of Social Welfare, and other death squads. The Baltimore Sun reported at the beginning of 1976 that,

In the jungle-covered mountains of Tucuman, long known as 'Argentina's garden', Argentines are fighting Argentines in a Vietnam-style civil war. So far, the outcome is in doubt. But there is no doubt about the seriousness of the combat, which involves 2,000 or so leftist guerrillas and perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers.[18]

In late 1974 the ERP set up a rural front in Tucumán province and the Argentine Army deployed the 5th Mountain Brigade of the 2nd Army Division in counterinsurgency operations in the province. In early 1976 the mountain brigade was reinforced in the form of the 4th Airborne Brigade that had until then been withheld guarding strategic points in the city of Córdoba against ERP guerrillas and militants.[19]

The members of the junta took advantage of the guerrilla threat to authorize the coup and naming the period in government as the "National Reorganization Process". In all, 293 servicemen and policemen were killed in left-wing terrorist incidents in 1975 and 1976.[20] Videla narrowly escaped three assassination attempts by the Montoneros and ERP between February 1976 and April 1977.[21]

Justice Minister Ricardo Gil Lavedra, who formed part of the 1985 tribunal judging the military crimes committed during the Dirty War, later declared, "I sincerely believe that the majority of the victims of the illegal repression were guerrilla militants".[22] Some 10,000 of the disappeared were guerrillas of the Montoneros, and the People's Revolutionary Army.[23][24][25] However, the campaign of repression actually intensified after the guerrillas were defeated and it was during this time, when they targeted the church, labor unions, artists, intellectuals and university students and professors, that the junta accumulated the greatest number of victims.[26]

According to human right groups, an estimated 15,000 to 30,000[27] Argentines "disappeared" while in the custody of the police or the military.[27] Among the victims were two French nuns (Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet) who had taught and cared for Videla's disabled son, Alejandro.[28] Some 1,500 to 4,000 were drugged into a stupor, loaded into military aircraft, stripped naked and then thrown into the Rio de la Plata and Atlantic Ocean to drown in what became known as "death flights."[29][30][31][32] Between 10,000 and 12,000[33] of the "disappeared," PEN (Poder Ejecutivo Nacional) detainees held in clandestine detention camps throughout the dictatorship, were eventually released under diplomatic pressure.[34] Terence Roehrig estimates that of the disappeared "at least 10,000 were involved in various ways with the guerrillas".[35]

In the book Disposición Final by Argentine journalist Ceferino Reato, Videla confirms for the first time that between 1976 and 1983, 8.000 Argentines have been murdered by his regime. The bodies were hidden or destroyed to prevent protests at home and abroad.[36] Videla also maintained that female guerrilla detainees allowed themselves to become pregnant in the belief they would not be tortured or executed, but they were. The children whom they bore in prison were taken from them, illegally adopted by military families of the regime, and their identities were hidden for decades.[3]

According to Human rights organisations in Argentina, between 1,900 and 3,000 Jews were among the 30,000 who were targeted by the Argentine military junta.[37] It is a disproportionate number, as Jews comprised between 5–12% of those targeted but only 1% of the population. Historian Daniel Muchnik attributed this to many Jews gravitating to political activism and armed resistance groups such as the ERP and FAP during the period. However, testimonies from Jewish Argentines suggest that they were targeted for being Jewish. Many torture victims were said to have seen pictures of Adolf Hitler and swastikas on walls of torture chambers and interrogators uttering anti-Semitic epithets. Jews were also known to have suffered anti-Semitic harassment while in the Argentine military. Between 200 and 300 Jews were subject to attacks, often by their superiors.[38][39]

Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US$200,000 as monetary compensation from the state for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship.[40] The Asamblea por los Derechos Humanos (APDH or Assembly for Human Rights) believes that 12,261 people were killed or disappeared during the "National Reorganization Process".[41] Politically, all legislative power was concentrated in the hands of Videla's nine-man junta, and every important position in the national government was filled with loyal military officers.

Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla at the opening of 1976's "Exposición Rural" in Palermo, Buenos Aires.

As Argentina’s new president, Videla faced a collapsing economy racked by soaring inflation. He largely left economic policies in the hands of Minister José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, who adopted a free trade and deregulatory economic policy.[42]

Martínez de Hoz took measures to restore economic growth, reversing Peronism in favour of a free market economy. Inflation rate decreased somewhat, but remained still high.[43]

He enjoyed the personal friendship of David Rockefeller, who facilitated Chase Manhattan Bank and International Monetary Fund loans of nearly US$1 billion after of his arrival.[44]

He eliminated all price controls and the exchange controls regime. The black market and shortages disappeared.[45]

He freed exports (removed existing prohibitions and quotas and export taxes were repealed) and imports (removed existing prohibitions, quotas, and licenses and gradually reduced import tariffs).[46]

During his tenure, the foreign debt increased fourfold, and disparities between the upper and lower classes became much more pronounced.[47] The period ended in a tenfold devaluation and one of the worst financial crises in Argentine history.[48]

Videla met with US President Jimmy Carter at the White House in 9 September 1977.

The coup d'état had been planned since October 1975, and the United States Department of State learned of the preparations two months before its execution. Henry Kissinger would meet several times with Argentine Armed Forces leaders after the coup, urging them to destroy their opponents quickly before outcry over human rights abuses grew in the United States.[49][50][51]

The US State Department saw Argentina as a bulwark of anti-communism in South America and in early April 1976, the US Congress approved a request by the Ford Administration, written by Henry Kissinger, to grant $50,000,000 in security assistance to the junta. In 1977, the US Department of Defense authorized $700,000 to train 217 argentine military officers and in 1977 and 1978 the United States sold more than $120,000,000 in spare military parts to Argentina.[52]

At the same time, though, the new US President Jimmy Carter highlighted issues of human rights and, in 1978, convinced Congress to cut off all US arms transfers to Argentina.[53]

During Videla's regime, Argentina rejected the binding Report and decision of the Court of Arbitration over the Beagle conflict (about possession of the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands) at the southern tip of South America and started Operation Soberanía in order to invade the islands. In 1978, however, Pope John Paul II opened a mediation process. His representative, Antonio Samorè, successfully prevented full-scale war.

The conflict was not completely resolved until after Videla's time as president. Once the democratic rule was restored in 1983, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina (Tratado de Paz y Amistad), which acknowledged Chilean sovereignty over the islands, was signed and ratified by popular referendum.

Although Videla was anti-Communist, his regime maintained good relations with the Soviet Union and China; trade ties with both were expanded under his rule.[54]

One of Videla's greatest challenges was his image abroad. He attributed criticism over human rights to an anti-Argentine campaign. On 19 May 1976, he attended a luncheon with a group of Argentine intellectuals, including Ernesto Sábato, Jorge Luis Borges, Horacio Esteban Ratti (president of the Argentine Writers Society) and Father Leonardo Castellani. The latter expressed to Videla his concern regarding the disappearance of another writer, Haroldo Conti.[55]

On 30 April 1977, Azucena Villaflor, along with 13 other women, started demonstrations on the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, demanding to be told the whereabouts of their disappeared children. They became known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo).

Bumper sticker commissioned by the junta in 1979. The text is a pun on derechos humanos, "human rights". "We Argentines are righteous and humans"

During a human rights investigation in September 1979, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denounced Videla's government, citing many disappearances and instances of abuse. In response, the junta hired the Burson-Marsteller ad agency to formulate a pithy comeback: Los argentinos somos derechos y humanos (Literally, "We the Argentines are righteous and humane"). The slogan was printed on 250,000 bumper stickers and distributed to motorists throughout Buenos Aires to create the appearance of a spontaneous support of pro-junta sentiment, at a cost of approximately $16,117.[56]

Videla used the 1978 FIFA World Cup for political purposes. He cited the enthusiasm of the Argentine fans for their victorious football team as evidence of his personal and the junta's popularity.[57]

In 1980, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, leader of the Peace and Justice Service, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for reporting many of Argentina's human rights violations to the world at large.