Two days after the
coup, Videla formally assumed the post of
President of Argentina.
Human rights violations 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 , 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. 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. 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. Videla narrowly escaped three assassination attempts by the Montoneros and ERP between February 1976 and April 1977. 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". Some 10,000 of the
disappeared were guerrillas of the Montoneros, and the People's Revolutionary Army. 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. According to human right groups, an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 Argentines "
disappeared" while in the custody of the police or the military. 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." Between 10,000 and 12,000 of the "
disappeared," PEN (Poder Ejecutivo Nacional)
detainees held in clandestine detention camps throughout the dictatorship, were eventually released under diplomatic pressure. Terence Roehrig estimates that of the disappeared "at least 10,000 were involved in various ways with the guerrillas". , 1978. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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". 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.
Economic policy " 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. 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. He enjoyed the personal friendship of
David Rockefeller, who facilitated
Chase Manhattan Bank and
International Monetary Fund loans of nearly US$1 billion after his arrival. He eliminated all
price controls and the
exchange controls regime. The
black market and
shortages disappeared. 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). 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.
Foreign relations at the
White House on 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. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger met 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. The State Department saw Argentina as a bulwark of
anti-communism in
South America and in early April 1976,
Congress approved a request by the
Gerald Ford Administration, written by Henry Kissinger, to grant $50 million in security assistance to the junta. In 1977, the
U.S. Department of Defense authorized $700,000 to train 217 Argentine military officers and in 1977 and 1978, the U.S. sold more than $120 million in spare military parts to Argentina. However, President
Jimmy Carter, who took office in January 1977, highlighted issues of human rights in Latin America, including in Argentina. In August 1977, he signed the Kennedy-Humphrey Amendment to the International Security Assistance Act (H.R. 6884), which prohibited all U.S. military aid, training, and arms sales to Argentina and went into effect in October 1978. 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 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.
Public relations 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. ". "We Argentines are righteous and humane" 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). During a human rights investigation in , 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. 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. 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. ==Later life and death==