National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, until the transfer of power on December 10, 1983 to a government elected on the 1983 general election. In Argentina it is often known simply as the última junta militar, última dictadura militar, última dictadura cívico-militar, or última dictadura cívico-eclesial-militar — because there have been several in the country's history and no others like it since it ended. It took the form of a bureaucratic-authoritarian state and was characterized by establishing a systematic plan of state terrorism, which included murders, kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances, and the kidnapping of babies. It is considered "the bloodiest dictatorship in Argentine history".
The Argentine Armed Forces seized political power during the March 1976 coup against the presidency of Isabel Perón, the successor and widow of former President Juan Perón, at a time of growing economic and political instability. Congress was suspended, political parties were banned, civil rights were limited, and free market and deregulation policies were introduced. The President of Argentina and his ministers were appointed from military personnel while leftists and Peronists were persecuted. The junta launched the Dirty War, a campaign of state terrorism against opponents involving torture, extrajudicial murder and systematic forced disappearances. Public opposition due to civil rights abuses and inability to solve the worsening economic crisis in Argentina caused the junta to invade the Falkland Islands in April 1982. After starting and then losing the Falklands War against the United Kingdom in June, the junta began to collapse and finally relinquished power in 1983 with the election of President Raúl Alfonsín.
Members of the National Reorganization Process were prosecuted in the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, receiving sentences ranging from life imprisonment to courts-martial 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. Some scholars describe the regime as being characteristic of neo-fascism.
Background
The military of Argentina 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 that he claimed was a "Third Position", an alternative to both capitalism and communism. After being reelected 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 after 18 years in exile in Francoist Spain, amid 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 of the Peronist movement became dominant.
Perón was democratically elected president in 1973, but died in July 1974. His vice president and third wife, Isabel 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 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.
Dirty War
Official investigations undertaken after the end of the Dirty War by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons documented 8,961 desaparecidos and other human rights violations, noting that the correct number must be higher. Many cases were never reported, when whole families disappeared, and the military destroyed many of its records months before the return of democracy. 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 film The Official Story, which won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film category in 1985, addresses this situation. The Argentine secret service SIDE also cooperated with the DINA in Pinochet's Chile and other South American intelligence agencies. Eight South American nations supported endeavours to eradicate left-leaning groups on the continent, known as Operation Condor, a United States-backed campaign of anti-democratic and political repression and state terror. It is estimated to have caused the deaths of more than 60,000 people. SIDE also trained—for example in the Honduran Lepaterique base—the Nicaraguan Contras who were fighting the Sandinista government there.
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, Videla faced a collapsing economy wracked 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.Martínez de Hoz took measures to restore economic growth, reversing Peronism in favour of a free market economy. His economic measures were moderately successful.
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.
He eliminated all price controls and the exchange controls regime. The black market and shortages disappeared.
He freed exports and imports.
During his tenure, the foreign debt increased fourfold, and disparities between the upper and lower classes became much more pronounced. The period ended in a tenfold devaluation and one of the worst financial crises in Argentine history.
Viola appointed Lorenzo Sigaut as Finance Minister, and it became clear that Sigaut was looking for ways to reverse some of Martínez de Hoz's policies. Notably, Sigaut abandoned the sliding exchange rate mechanism and devalued the peso, after boasting that "they who gamble on the dollar will lose". Argentines braced for a recession after the excesses of the "sweet money" years, which destabilized Viola's position.
He appointed conservative economist and publisher Roberto Alemann as Economy Minister. Alemann inherited an economy in deep recession in the aftermath of Martínez de Hoz's policies. Alemann slashed spending, began selling off government-owned industries, enacted a tight monetary policy, and ordered salaries frozen.
The Central Bank Circular 1050, which tied mortgage rates to the value of the U.S. dollar locally, was maintained, leading to further deepening of the crisis; GDP fell by 5%, and business investment by 20% over the weakened levels of 1981.
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.
The President of the Central Bank, Julio González del Solar, undid many of these controls, transferring billions more in private foreign debt to the Central Bank, although he stopped short of reinstating the hated "1050."
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 rights of speech and right to assembly, including the right to strike, led to increased strike activity. Saúl Ubaldini, leader of the General Confederation of Labour, Argentina's largest labor union, was particularly active. The new Economy Minister, Jorge Wehbe, a banking executive with previous experience in the post, reluctantly granted two large, mandatory wage increases in late 1982.
Foreign policy
U.S. support
The United States provided military assistance to the junta and, at the start of the Dirty War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave them a "green light" to engage in political repression of real or perceived opponents.The U.S. Congress approved a request by the Ford Administration, to grant $50,000,000 in security assistance to the junta. In 1977 and 1978 the United States sold more than $120,000,000 in spare military parts to Argentina, and in 1977 the U.S. Department of Defense granted $700,000 to train 217 Argentine military officers.
In 1978, president Jimmy Carter secured a congressional cutoff of all U.S. arms transfers for the human rights violations.
American-Argentine relations improved dramatically with Ronald Reagan, which asserted that the previous Carter Administration had weakened U.S. diplomatic relationships with Cold War allies in Argentina, and reversed the previous administration's official condemnation of the junta's human rights practices. However, relations soured after the U.S. supported the United Kingdom in the Falklands War.
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 program called Operation Charly.