Jorge Rafael Videla

Jorge Rafael Videla (Mercedes, August 2, 1925-Marcos Paz, May 17, 2013) was an Argentine soldier, dictator of Argentina from 1976 to 1981, member of the Military Junta of 1976 to 1978 and de facto president from 1976 to 1981, during the self-styled "National Reorganization Process."

In the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, during the government of Raúl Alfonsín, he was sentenced to "life imprisonment, absolute perpetual disqualification and legal accessories (art. 12 of the Penal Code), accessory to dismissal (art. 538 of the Code of Military Justice) and payment of the costs", as the author of 469 crimes against humanity (66 homicides, 306 kidnappings, 97 torture and 26 robberies). In 1990 he received a pardon from the president Carlos Saúl Menem, declared null and void in 2006.

In June 1998, he was arrested again after Judge Roberto Marquevich's decision for abducting minors during the last civil-military dictatorship. However, after spending 38 days in prison, the Federal Chamber of San Martín, with the signature of judges Hugo Rodolfo Fossati and Francisco Juan Lugones, granted him the benefit of house arrest due to his age, during the government of Carlos Menem. In October 2008, Judge Norberto Oyarbide, during the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, ordered his transfer to prison, taking into account the seriousness of the events for which he was convicted. He was imprisoned at the Campo de Kirchner military base. May from October of that year until June 2012, when he was transferred to the Marcos Paz prison. Martin, known as UP1. On July 5, 2012, he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for the crimes of abduction, retention, concealment and making the marital status of 20 children under 10 years of age uncertain (arts. 138, 139 subsection 2 and 146 of the CP). On May 17, 2013, in the wee hours of the morning, he was found dead in his cell at the Marcos Paz prison due to a cardiovascular accident.

Biography

Jorge Rafael Videla was born on August 2, 1925 in the city of Mercedes, Buenos Aires province. He was the third of the five children of Colonel Rafael Eugenio Videla Bengolea (1886-1952) and María Olga Redondo Ojea (1897 -1987). He was baptized in memory of two older twin brothers, who died of measles in 1923. Descendant of a traditional family from the province of San Luis, with important ramifications in Mendoza, San Juan and Chile, many of his ancestors had prominent political performances, such as his great-great-grandfather Blas Videla, leader of the Unitary Party, and his grandfather Jacinto Videla, governor of San Luis between 1891 and 1893.

On April 7, 1948, he married Alicia Raquel Hartridge Lacoste, daughter of ambassador Samuel Alejandro Hartridge Parkes and María Isabel Lacoste Álvarez, whom he met in El Trapiche, a town in the Province of San Luis. With her he had seven children, two of whom followed a military career in the Argentine Army and another, who died young, remained hospitalized in the Colonia Montes de Oca psychiatric facility, information that his parents kept absolutely secret.

Military career

From left to right: General Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, Jorge Rafael Videla and Antonio Domingo Bussi.

Jorge Rafael Videla entered the National Military College on March 3, 1942 and graduated on December 21, 1944, receiving the rank of Second Lieutenant in Infantry. He was 6th of the 73rd promotion out of a total of 196 cadets.

He studied at the Escuela Superior de Guerra between 1952 and 1954 and obtained the title of officer of the General Staff. He was part of the Secretary of Defense between 1958 and 1960, and directed the Military Academy until 1962. In 1962 and 1963 he joined the Colorado side during the armed confrontations between the Azules and Colorados, being one of the three Colorado officers who managed to avoid being fired. during the trials that punished the uprising.

In 1968, as a colonel, he served as 2nd Commander and Chief of Staff of the V Infantry Brigade of Tucumán.

Between August 4 and September 7, 1970 and during the Argentine Revolution dictatorship, Videla was military governor of the province of Tucumán.

In 1971 he was promoted to brigadier general and the dictator Alejandro Agustín Lanusse appointed him director of the National Military College. At the end of 1973, Army Commander General Leandro Anaya appointed him as Chief of the General Staff of the Army.

Between July 4 and August 27, 1975, he was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces. He left office to assume command of the Army. Videla's arrival as head of the force was released by Antonio Cafiero:

Army Commander Nuna Laplane is questioned by other generals and lost such authority that it had to be replaced. The logical thing would have been the one who was below the antiquity order, but this had produced the uprising in Campo de Mayo. Then I told the lady—Isabelite—that that person could not take office [...] The one who followed in the order of the list was Jorge Rafael Videla, of whom I receive information that he was apolitical, an absolutely professional man and that in no way could lead a blow.

Dictatorship

Videla with the other members of the Military Board on 29 March 1976.

On March 24, 1976, together with Emilio Eduardo Massera and Orlando Ramón Agosti, he led the coup d'état that overthrew the constitutional president María Estela Martínez de Perón, disintegrated the political parties, persecuted opponents and closed the sessions of the National Congress, beginning the so-called National Reorganization Process. During his administration, a border dispute with Chile nearly sparked an armed conflict. The dictatorship canceled Operation Sovereignty due to the timely intervention of Pope John Paul II.

On March 29, he assumed the Presidency of the Nation, which he would occupy until he was replaced by Roberto Eduardo Viola in 1981, upon completing the five-year presidential term established by the Military Junta. This was the longest period that a military man held the position of de facto president in Argentina. Despite the change of board after the retirement of Massera and Agosti, Videla, despite also going into retirement, was ratified as president in 1978. Along with Viola, Videla was a supporter of the "soft line"; he favors a prompt democratic opening and a call for elections.

Economic policy

Jorge Rafael Videla at the inauguration of an edition of the Rural Exhibition in Buenos Aires.

José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz led the economy throughout Videla's presidency. In 1978 his neoliberal monetarist plan but with some developmental aspects (linked to the most concentrated sectors) gave signs of exhaustion: annual inflation reached 160%, and GDP fell during that year by nearly a 3.2% In 1979 the inflation rate reached 139.7%, with a stagnant economy. In addition, a leak of 25% of bank deposits was generated, the four most important banks in the system were liquidated. During his administration, the external debt grew from 7,000 million dollars to more than 40,000 million dollars, that is, in seven years it multiplied almost six times. During 1980, exports fell 20% compared to the previous year, imports they went up 30%. In this context, the "banking crack" of 1980 took place, which put an end to the stage of the so-called "sweet money". The bankruptcy of the Banco de Intercambio Regional together with the closure of another 37 financial entities, which in turn had repercussions on industrial sectors, causing a strong bank run and currency flight. The debt of different companies such as Alpargatas S.A., Grupo Macri, Banco de Galicia, FATE -ASTRA, Bunge y Born S.A., Grafa S.A., Molinos Río de la Plata, Loma Negra S.A, Ingenio Ledesma, Pérez Companc S.A., ACINDAR S.A., Bridas - Papel Prensa, was transferred to the State.

His economic measures, based on the opening of markets and the liberalization of current labor legislation, contributed to the dismantling of unions and the polarization of class differences. Due to the elimination of tariff barriers, the drop in industrial production and the negative balance of Argentina's external situation during the Process, the nominal value of the external debt multiplied. All this for the benefit of the large multinational and local economic groups, which saw their profits greatly increased thanks to said debt, which instead of being destined by the government for productive investments, was destined for financial speculation, promoting an overvalued currency (through a mechanism known as “la tablita”) that allowed the most concentrated capital in the country to make large deals in the “financial ring”, to the detriment of the industry, which on the other hand led to a growth in the gap between rich and poor. This debt is further increased in 1982, when Julio González del Solar, as president of the Central Bank, decides to liquefy (nationalizing) the debt of these large groups, harming the State and society. In addition, the CIAE company was nationalized. Poverty, which since the 1940s has always been below 10%, and which was 5.8% in 1974, rose to 37.4% in 1980, unprecedented figures for the country In addition, the economic plan was characterized by high inflation rates throughout the dictatorship. Likewise, the gap in income distribution increased, the Gini coefficient went from 0.365 in 1975 to 0.423 in 1982, observing a marked deterioration.

Documents kept in the National Court of Spain found in 2015 describe the existence of a network that handled funds stolen from victims of State terrorism. The Videla regime set up several companies in this country and registered accounts in different banks in Europe, where he kept large amounts of money. One of the cases investigated was that of Conrado Gómez, a lawyer from Mendoza; disappeared, his assets were stolen by a military command and laundered through companies and bank accounts abroad.

Martínez de Hoz's plan consisted of a tariff reduction that reached its maximum level in 1978, to make the economy more competitive and promote its "natural advantages." Large industrial companies closed their plants: General Motors, Peugeot, Citroën, Chrysler, Siam, Decca (Deutz-La Cantábrica), the utility vehicle plant of Fabricaciones Militares, Aceros Ohler, Tamet, Cura, Olivetti, and thousands of small and medium-sized industrial business. By 1980 industrial production had reduced its contribution to GDP by 10%, and in some branches such as textiles, the fall exceeded 15%.

In this context, the «banking crack» of 1980 took place, which put an end to the stage of the so-called «sweet money». The bankruptcy of the Banco de Intercambio Regional together with the closure of another 37 financial entities, which in turn had repercussions on industrial sectors, causing a strong bank run and flight of foreign currency. The debt of different companies such as Alpargatas S.A., Grupo Macri, Banco de Galicia, FATE -ASTRA, Bunge y Born S.A., Grafa S.A., Molinos Río de la Plata, Loma Negra S.A, Ingenio Ledesma, Pérez Companc S.A., ACINDAR S.A., Bridas - Papel Prensa., was transferred to the State.

The IACHR visit

Videla at the White House next to United States President Jimmy Carter in 1977. On that occasion, Carter raised his concern about the human rights situation in Argentina.

On September 6, 1979, a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) arrived in Argentina, which for two weeks interviewed political and cultural personalities and members of the government; At the same time, they received complaints from relatives of detainees who had disappeared for human rights violations, for which they made long lines waiting in front of the place where the entity operated. Patricia Derian, Secretary of Human Rights in the Jimmy Carter administration, was a great promoter of the commission. While the Commission is interviewing relatives of the disappeared, some of the media published letters and editorials reaffirming that Argentina was a country at peace.

Pressed by the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Military Junta hastened to present a new legal regime for the disappeared.

In addition to many other considerations, the IACHR report affirmed "that by action or omission of the public authorities and their agents, numerous and serious violations of fundamental human rights were committed in Argentina during the period 1975-1979" that affected

The right to life, because persons belonging to or linked to government security agencies killed many men and women after their arrest. The right to personal liberty, having been arrested and made available to the National Executive, to numerous persons indiscriminately. The right to security and personal integrity through the systematic use of torture and other inhuman treatment. The right to justice, in view of the limitations that the Judiciary finds for the exercise of its functions, the lack of guarantees in proceedings before the military courts and the ineffectiveness of Habeas Corpus ' s appeal.

Videla in 1977 had stated that:

In every war there are people who survive, others who are disabled, others who die and others who disappear. Argentina is ending this war and must therefore be prepared to face its consequences. The disappearance of some people is an undesired consequence of this war.

After the Commission left, on December 14, 1979, the journalist José Ignacio López, then a columnist for the Clarín newspaper, asked Videla at a press conference if the government had any measure under study regarding the denunciations that had been carried out on the disappeared and replied:

I'll tell you that in front of the missing person as such, he's an unknown, while he's missing, he can't have special treatment, because he doesn't have an entity. He's not dead or alive... He's missing.

Beagle Crisis

During the military government, the border conflict between Argentina and Chile over sovereignty over three islands in the Beagle Channel was pending resolution and subject to the 1977 Arbitration Award that both parties had agreed to obey.

In 1977 a judgment was handed over the three islands to Chile. The Military Junta declared the sentence "insanely null", placing both countries on the brink of war. On December 22, 1978, Videla launched Operation Sovereignty, intended to occupy the islands militarily. Only papal intervention at the last minute made the military junta desist from starting the war. Pope John Paul II initiated a mediation, but his proposal was rejected by Videla, Viola, Galtieri and Bignone. The tensions continued until the return of democracy to Argentina, after the Malvinas War.

The conflict would not be resolved until the signing of the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1984, which would resolve Chilean sovereignty over the islands.

The battle of the image

The “Anti-Argentine Campaign”

Jorge Rafael Videla approaches a girl at the door of the House of Government.

The dictatorship faced a major challenge in trying to rebuild its public image abroad. Various exiled opposition groups and some governments repeatedly denounced the human rights situation in Argentina. The government countered with the slogan Argentines are rights and human beings and attributed the criticism to an “anti-Argentine campaign”. For it, it used the almost absolute control it had over the mass media —the magazine Para tí, for example, distributed among its readers postcards destined to be sent abroad, under the slogan "Argentina the whole truth"—, in addition to a significant investment of public money that was used to pay for publicity material such as stickers with the motto "Argentines are rights and humans", intended for their owners to display, for example, in the windows of their vehicles, and which in 1979 cost a little more than 16,000 dollars, which were pocketed by the company Libson S.A. In his book, Exile. Argentines in France during the dictatorship, Marina Franco investigated the role of the mass press and in particular the newspapers La Nación, La Prensa and the magazines of the Editorial Atlántida (People, Para Ti) who supported the Videla regime and who spread the idea that the questioning of human rights violations constituted an anti-Argentine campaign. For You, he published a series of postal photos of the country that readers had to send to a list of people and institutions that were the 'agents' of the anti-Argentine campaign". The government paid $16,117 for 250,000 stickers in 1979 with the motto "Argentines are rights and human". The slogan had been devised at the request of the dictatorship by the Burson Marsteller company, already hired in 1978 to improve Videla's image.

Videla greets writer Jorge Luis Borges at a conference.

On May 19, 1976, Videla starred in a lunch with a group of Argentine intellectuals, including Ernesto Sabato, Jorge Luis Borges, Horacio Esteban Ratti (president of the Argentine Society of Writers) and Father Leonardo Castellani. The latter expressed his concern for another missing writer, Haroldo Conti. Borges and Sabato praised the military government after that meal.

The 1978 world soccer championship was transformed by the military government into a political event, trying to demonstrate that freedom existed in the country. The enthusiasm of society for the sports performance of the national team was used by Videla to try to show that the people supported the dictatorship. In fact, the ecstatic crowd gathered at the River Plate stadium cheered the dictator when he handed over the cup to the Argentine team, El Ente Autárquico, first commanded by General Omar Actis. After his assassination in murky circumstances on August 19, 1976, in an act suspected of involving the Argentine Navy, Lacoste replaced him in the executive, if not formal leadership position, headed by General Antonio Merlo. Preparations had begun just after the 7th coup. EAM 78 contracted the services of the Juncadella security company and those of the North American company Burson-Marsteller y Asociados, specialized in improving the image of governments. On June 21, 1978, a bomb exploded in the house of Juan Alemann's Secretary of the Treasury, who days before had charged hard against Carlos Lacoste and the waste in the World Cup organization. The World Cup cost Argentina some 517 million dollars, 400 more than those paid by Spain in the following 1982 edition and was considered a "monument to corruption".

In 1980, the leader of the Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) organization, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, received the Nobel Peace Prize, further exposing to the world the human rights violations in Argentina.

The Ente Autárquico Mundial 78 was an entity created in 1976 by decree of Jorge Rafael Videla in order to organize the 1978 Soccer World Cup. The organization of the championship cost ten times more than expected at the beginning. The first president of the committee was shot, it is suspected, by his successor.The management of the 78 World Cup was surrounded by secrecy, partly thanks to decree 1261/77, which allowed the EAM & # 39;78 to abide by the reserve in its management. Of the 517 million US dollars at the time that the World Cup cost — more than four times the cost declared by Spain for the organization of the 1982 edition — the administration is ignored, since an accounting balance was never available for it. The organization of the championship cost ten times higher than expected at the beginning. The inmates of the military had an impact on this. On June 21, 1978, a bomb exploded in the house of Juan Alemann's Secretary of Finance, who days before had charged hard against Carlos Alberto Lacoste and the waste in the World Cup organization. The World Cup cost Argentina some 517 million dollars, 400 more than those paid by Spain in the next edition of 1982 and was considered a "monument to corruption". lack of transparency in the management of funds. The organizer appointed by Videla to organize said World Cup would be, already in democracy, prosecuted for fraudulent administration as a public official.

Education and culture policy

During the presidency of Jorge Rafael Videla, books were banned and burned, and opposition intellectuals were persecuted and disappeared.

On April 29, 1976 in Córdoba, a pile of books burned in the La Calera Airborne Infantry Regiment.

This pernicious documentation that affects the intellect and our way of being a Christian, says the official communiqué, is incinerated so that it cannot continue to deceive the youth about our most traditional spiritual acquis: God, Home and Home.

Among many works, the novels of Gabriel García Márquez, the poems of Pablo Neruda and the investigations of Osvaldo Bayer burned. From the Ministry of Education and Culture, "Operation Clarity" was conceived: a plan to hunt opponents throughout the cultural area. In addition to the disappearances of artists, intellectuals, teachers and students, the plan produced massive dismissals and disqualifications from teaching. The censorship of the book El cubismo for the supposed apology of Cuba; the banning of modern mathematics books for referring to set theory; the ban on the book Birth, Children and Love by A. Rosenstiehl because of the way in which it explained to children how babies came into the world.

In a vacant lot in the town of Sarandí, the dictatorship carried out its biggest burning of publications with a million and a half books and fascicles from the Latin American Publishing Center, the label founded by Boris Spivacow, who also had a trial for publication and sale of subversive material from which he was dismissed. Under the leadership of General Harguindeguy, the agency specialized in cultural control was the General Directorate of Publications under the Ministry of the Interior. Centralized national control over cultural activities. In addition to the behavior of the media, radio, television, and film programming was also monitored; and monitoring commissions for school textbooks

The government of the Military Junta ordered a series of procedures to neutralize the "subversive germ" that tried to create defenses in society. These were some of the actions undertaken:

In 1977, a graphic material addressed to parents with school-age children entitled: «How to recognize Marxist infiltration in schools» was distributed in schools:

Marxist lexicon for the use of students: (...) The first thing that can be detected is the use of a certain vocabulary that, although it does not seem very transcendent, is of great importance to realize this "ideological background" that concerns us. Thus, dialogue, bourgeoisie, proletariat, Latin America, exploitation, change of structures, capitalism will often appear.

• History, Civic Education, Economics, Geography and Catechesis in religious schools, are usually the subjects chosen for subversive indoctrination. Something similar happens with Castellano and Literature, disciplines of which the classic authors have been eradicated, to put in place 'Latin American novelists' or 'committed literature' in general.
• Another subtle system of indoctrination is to make students collide in class with political, social or religious cuts in journals and journals, which have nothing to do with school. It's easy to figure out how the conclusions can be handled.
• Likewise, the group work that has replaced personal responsibility can be easily used to depersonalize the boy, accustom him to laziness and thus facilitate his indoctrination by previously selected and trained students to pass ideas.

In the same year, Decree 3155 prohibited the distribution, sale and circulation of children's stories An elephant occupies a lot of space, by Elsa Bornemann, and The birth, children and the amor, by Agnes Rosenstichl —both from Ediciones Librerías Fausto—, because they are "stories intended for children with the aim of indoctrination, which is preparatory to the task of ideological capture of subversive actions."

Decree 538, of May 1978, established for teachers the mandatory reading and commenting on the brochure Let's Know Our Enemies, the content of which was summarized by the newspaper La Prensa in that same month:

The text tends to facilitate teachers ' understanding of the subversive process in the country, especially in the educational environment, and provides evidence of how Marxism works. It also exposes the particular strategy of subversion in the educational field, its modes of action at all levels of education and in the union activity of the educational field (sic). In the conclusions of the work, whose reading and acceptance by the teaching and administrative staff is mandatory, it is expressed that "it is in education where we must act with clarity and energy to start the root of the subversion, demonstrating to the students the falsehoods of the doctrines and conceptions that for so many years were inculcating them to a greater or lesser degree".

In October 1978, a resolution of the Ministry of the Interior prohibited the works «Education as a practice of freedom» (Editorial Siglo XXI) and «Churches, education and the process of human liberation in history» (Editorial La Aurora), by the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire, since, according to the authorities, “they serve as a means for Marxist ideological penetration in educational spheres. On the other hand, his methodology to interpret reality, man and history is manifestly tendentious. The author's sources of thought, such as the models and examples that he exposes, are clearly inspired by Marxism and all his pedagogical doctrine goes against the fundamental values of our Western and Christian society ».

In October 1978, the distribution of the novel Aunt Julia and the Writer, by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, was also prohibited, arguing that it "reveals distortions and intentionality, as well as repeated offenses against family, religion, armed institutions and the moral and ethical principles that sustain the spiritual and institutional structure of Hispanic American societies and, within these, our Nation, contributing to maintaining and expanding the causes that determined the implementation of the state of siege ».

In July 1980, by Decree 2038, the use in schools of the work Universitas, Gran Enciclopedia del Saber, by Editorial Salvat, published in Barcelona, was prohibited for «incurring in falsification of historical truth (...) analyzing one of the most important periods of modern history, such as the industrialization process, under the methodology inspired by dialectical materialism».

The same decree prohibited the Salvat Dictionary:

The two works reveal a systematic editorial process, in which the Encyclopaedia and the Dictionary fulfill the express function of offering to the student (...) a definitive Marxist lexicon, through the use of words and meanings that, far from faithfully corresponding to the meanings of the language, tend to replace them with others that respond and are typical of that ideology.

In September 1980, a ministerial statement prohibited the use in schools of texts by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author, among others, of The Little Prince.

An engineering book entitled Electrolytic Cuba was even banned for wrongly associating its title with the Caribbean country. It also went to the extreme of prohibiting the teaching of some topics in modern mathematics and set theory as they were considered "subversive."

Publishers, journalists, writers, poets, singers, were banned:

• Aída Bortnik (written)
• Jorge Romero Brest (plastic artist)
• Roberto Cossa (dramaturgo and theatre director)
• Crist (caricaturist)
• Joaquín Salvador Lavado Quino (caricaturist)
• Julia Elena Dávalos (folk singing)
• Griselda Gambaro (written)
• Horacio Guaraní (folk singer)
• Nacha Guevara (actress and singer)
• César Isella (cantautor)
• Litto Nebbia (cantautor)
• Pacho O'Donnell (writer)
• Gian Franco Pagliaro (single)
• Piero (cantautor)
• Ariel Ramírez (pianist and folk composer)
• Sergio Renán (cineasta)
• Mercedes Sosa (folk sewer)
• María Elena Walsh (single and writer)

Others "disappeared" (they were kidnapped, tortured and killed):

• Hector Germán Oesterheld (writers and writer)
• Paco Urondo (journalist and writer)
• Rodolfo Walsh (journalist, writer and translator)
• Haroldo Conti (writers and teachers)
• Tilo Wenner (journalist and poet)

Public works and private sector

Different public works built during his regime would be clouded by overpricing in them One of the cases in which it was possible to know in detail the payments and bribes was the Loma de la Lata gas pipeline, between Neuquén and Buenos Aires, built by the three large economic groups in the country: Techint, SADE (of Pérez Companc) and Macrì, gathered in the Neuba Consortium. One of the main holding companies that benefited during his dictatorship was the Roggio Group, favored in the construction of the new headquarters of Argentina Televisora Color and the Chateaux Carreras stadium, in the preview of the 78 World Cup. All the works of that event were denounced for large overpricing and scams. But also, during those years they did business with the works of the Thermal Power Plant and the Tucumán airport, the Courts, the airport and the Córdoba Police Station Another of the Holdings that had a rapid growth during his regime was the Macri Group that they had a prominent role and growth during the self-styled "National Reorganization Process", in 1976 when the regime began they had seven companies; at the end of the dictatorship the number had increased to 47. Among them relevant are Sevel Argentina (automotive), Sideco Americana (constructions), Socma Corp (financial), Manliba (waste collection), Itron (electronics), Solvencia de Seguros (insurance company), Prourban (real estate), Iecsa (mechanical installations), Perfomar (oil drilling) During his regime, millions of economic benefits obtained by few companies were granted. In the case of the Loma Negra cement company, Videla authorized through a 1977 decree the installation of a new plant in the province of Catamarca and tax benefits such as deduction for ten years from income tax and tax on the capital of companies, in addition to exemption from import duties. Acindar also received substantial state resources through industrial promotion regimes; preferential contracts in public works, which made it possible to acquire other companies and found multiple subsidiaries. He also participated in the nationalization of private debt and transferred to the State obligations for 652 million dollars.

Cabinet of Ministers

Ministries of the Government of Jorge Rafael Videla
Portfolio	Owner	Period
Ministry of the Interior	Albano Harguindeguy	29 March 1976-29 March 1981
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship	César Augusto Guzzetti Oscar Antonio Montes Carlos Washington Pastor	29 March 1976-23 May 1977 23 May 1977-27 October 1978 5 November 1978 - 29 March 1981
Ministry of Economy	José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz	29 March 1976-29 March 1981
Ministry of Education	Ricardo P. Bruera Juan José Catalán Juan Rafael Llerena Amadeo	29 March 1976-28 May 1977 25 June 1977-26 August 1978 5 November 1978 - 29 March 1981
Ministry of Social Welfare	Julio Juan Bardi Jorge A. Fraga	29 March 1976-30 October 1978 5 November 1978 - 29 March 1981
Ministry of National Defence	José María Klix David de la Riva	29 March 1976-30 October 1978 5 November 1978 - 29 March 1981
Ministry of Justice	Julio Arnaldo Gómez Alberto Rodríguez Varela	29 March 1976-30 October 1978 5 November 1978 - 29 March 1981
Ministry of Labour	Horacio Tomás Liendo Llamil Reston	29 March 1976-18 January 1979 18 January 1979-29 March 1981
Ministry of Planning	Ramón Genaro Díaz Bessone Carlos E. Laidlaw	25 October 1976 - 30 December 1977 23 January 1978 - 30 October 1978
State Secretaries of the Government of Jorge Rafael Videla
General Secretariat	José Rogelio Villarreal Eduardo Crespi	23 April 1976-12 December 1978 12 December 1978-1 April 1981
Public Information Secretariat	Carlos Pablo Carpintero Ruben Oscar Franco Antonio Llamas	27 April 1976-1 February 1978 1 February-12 December 1978 12 December 1978-1 April 1981
State Intelligence Secretariat	Otto Carlos Paladino Carlos Enrique Laidlaw Carlos Alberto Martínez	20 February-15 December 1976 15 December 1976-26 January 1978 26 January 1978-10 December 1983
Planning Secretariat	José Miret	15 December 1978-10 December 1983

Prosecution and conviction

Videla voting in the 1983 elections, which marked the restoration of democracy after the end of the Process.

As a result of tensions between the three Argentine Armed Forces over the sharing of power and the failed economic policies of Martínez de Hoz, Videla was removed from his post. He was replaced in the presidency by the commander-in-chief of the Army, Roberto Eduardo Viola.

Two years after the democratic regime was reestablished in Argentina in 1983, he was tried and found guilty for the murder and disappearance of thousands of citizens during his presidential term. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, perpetual absolute disqualification and dismissal from military rank in 1985. The Federal Criminal and Correctional Appeals Chamber of the Federal Capital found him criminally responsible for numerous qualified homicides, 504 illegal deprivations of qualified liberty, applications torture, aggravated robbery, ideological falsehoods of public documents, usurpations, reductions to servitude, extortion, kidnapping for extortion, suppression of documents, child abductions, and torture followed by death. The ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in 1986.

Videla served only five years in effective prison. In 1990, then-President Carlos Saúl Menem used the presidential power of pardon to order his release, along with other members of the military juntas and police chiefs of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Montonero leader Mario Eduardo Firmenich, by decrees 2741/90 and 2742/90. Menem argued the need to "overcome past conflicts" to justify the second batch of pardons for military leaders and guerrillas.

In 1998 he returned to prison, albeit briefly, after a judge ruled that the cases of child abduction during State terrorism constituted a crime against humanity, and therefore imprescriptible. He spent thirty-eight days in the Caseros jail until he was granted the right to house arrest due to his age. The case is currently being tried.

His extradition to Germany has been requested since 2003 by the territorial court of Nuremberg, for his responsibility in the murder of the German citizen Elisabeth Kaesemann, murdered in Argentina in May 1977. In 2005 the case was dismissed for not finding evidence of a possible crime.

On October 10, 2008, he lost the benefit of house arrest in his apartment in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Belgrano, and was transferred to the prison that works in Campo de Mayo, the country's main military base. The judge in charge of the case argued in making this decision that the seriousness of the facts attributed to Videla are an insurmountable obstacle for granting such a benefit.

The Nuremberg prosecutor's office reopened the case against Videla in December 2009 after the body of the German citizen Thomas Stawowiok appeared in Argentina.

On April 27, 2010, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (CSJN) declared unconstitutional decrees no. 1002/89 and no. Subsequently, on August 31 of the same year, the Court ratified the nullity of Decree No. 2741/90.

He was charged in the "UP1" case, which investigated the executions carried out against detainees in Penal Unit 1 of Córdoba between April and October 1976. In the same case, Major General Luciano Benjamín Menéndez was charged and Colonel Vicente Meli (Major General Juan Bautista Sasiaiñ had died before the trial), among other senior officers. In said trial, he again denied that the court could try him, stating that "this court, in my opinion, lacks jurisdiction and jurisdiction to judge me for the events carried out by the army while I was its commander in the framework of the internal war waged against subversive terrorism." He also claimed responsibility for his dictatorship and acknowledged responsibility for all the crimes committed, saying that he fully assumed my military responsibilities in everything the Argentine Army did in that internal war to which I have referred. And I assume that responsibility with total "regardless" of those who were my subordinates and limited themselves to carrying out my orders.

On December 22, 2010, the Federal Oral Court No. 1 of Córdoba sentenced him to life imprisonment (together with Menéndez and Meli) in the "UP1" case. There it was stipulated that he had to serve a sentence in common jail. In his last words before the sentence, the repressor Jorge Rafael Videla once again claimed State terrorism and justified the crimes against humanity that he was accused of: he said that he waged "not a dirty war, but a just war that has not yet is over". He also repeated what he had been affirming since the trial began on July 2: that "yesterday's defeated enemies fulfilled their purpose and today they govern the country and attempt a Marxist regime in the Gramsci manner", implicitly referring to the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

In the framework of the "Systematic Plan" case, on July 5, 2012, the Federal Oral Court No. 6 of Capital Federal sentenced him to 50 years in prison for "theft, retention and concealment of a under ten years of age in an ideal contest with that of making the marital status of a child under ten years uncertain" in 18 cases.

On July 27, 2012, he was prosecuted in the case for the death of Monsignor Enrique Ángel Angelelli (occurred on August 4, 1976 in the province of La Rioja).

He was also investigated by the Spanish justice: documents from the Spanish National Court found in 2015 describe the existence of a network that handled funds stolen from victims of state terrorism. Videla set up several companies in that country and registered accounts in different banks in Europe, where he kept large amounts of money that was stolen from the disappeared, which, as in many other cases, would have been laundered through companies and bank accounts abroad.

Last years

In 2012 Jorge Videla was imprisoned for crimes against humanity, which occurred during the dictatorship, at the Campo de Mayo military base. From there, he gave an interview in February to the Spanish magazine Cambio 16, where he vindicated the dictatorship and maintained that the worst moment for the military "came with the Kirchners", who, out of "a spirit of absolute revenge", promoted the reopening of trials for crimes against humanity. repudiation of the entire Argentine political arch and human rights organizations. In June of that same year he was transferred to a common prison, the Marcos Paz prison.

Death

According to the medical report of the Marcos Paz Prison, Jorge Rafael Videla died at 6:25 in the morning of May 17, 2013, at the age of 87 due to cardiorespiratory arrest, characterized in the medical report as death The former Argentine dictator was found sitting on a prison toilet without a pulse or breathing, dead where he was serving a life sentence.

Until the day he died, Videla justified the state terrorism he imposed in Argentina during his dictatorship and never publicly repented of his crimes.

His death caused significant journalistic coverage in the media of almost the entire world. In addition, many human rights activists also hung posters at the access to the cemetery with the names of the twenty-two disappeared that that city had during the military regime that he presided over. Videla was already persona non grata in Mercedes: in 1998, the Deliberative Council for Unanimously voted for that statement, deeming him undesirable. He was finally buried in secret in a cemetery in Pilar. A spokesman for the Army General Staff declared that he would not receive any military honor at his funeral for having been dismissed from the Argentine Army.