Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri

Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (Caseros, Buenos Aires, July 15, 1926-Buenos Aires, January 12, 2003) was an Argentine soldier and dictator, belonging to the Army. He was a member of the Military Junta between December 1979 and June 1982; and President of the Nation, with the sum of the executive and legislative powers, between December 1981 and June 1982, during the last military dictatorship. He led the landing and subsequent war in the Falkland Islands against the United Kingdom, which ended in Argentine defeat.

Previously, between 1976 and 1979, he was commander of the II Army Corps and Defense Zone 2, with jurisdiction over the provinces of Chaco, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Formosa, Misiones and Santa Fe.

In 1985, he was acquitted in the Trial of the Juntas, where he was prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity. In 1986 he received a 12-year prison sentence and demotion for his actions in the conflict. In 1989 the pardons carried out by Carlos Menem benefited him, restoring him the rank of lieutenant general.In 2002 he was arrested on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity during the last dictatorship; He died the following year, before going to trial while he was serving pretrial detention at his home.

Biography

Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri was born in Caseros, Buenos Aires province, the son of Francisco Rosario Galtieri and Nélida Victoria Castelli. At 17 years of age he entered the Army, graduating from the National Military College as an officer of the Engineers Arms. He also attended the School of the Americas. In 1949 he married Lucía Noemí Gentili, born in Buenos Aires on December 13, 1926, daughter of Eolo Gentili and Sara Cecchi, and mother of their three children: Adriana Sara (b. 1952), Diana (b. 1954), and Carlos Francisco Pío (b. 1957).

Lieutenant General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri died on January 12, 2003 from cardiorespiratory arrest. He had remained at his home despite his deteriorating health. He was admitted to the hospital due to complications from his pancreatic cancer.

Dictatorship 1976 - 1983

After 25 years of service, Galtieri was appointed commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in 1975, in the same promotion that led Jorge Rafael Videla to occupy the General Command of the Army. He was an active promoter of the 1976 Argentine coup.

On October 11, 1976, he was appointed commander of the II Army Corps.

His sympathies led to rapid promotions, being made a major general in 1977 and a lieutenant general on December 28, 1979.

General Galtieri was commander of the II Army Corps of Rosario between October 1976 and February 1979. As such, he was commander of the Defense Zone II, whose jurisdiction included the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Misiones, Chaco and Formosa.

Between December 20, 1978, and January 26, 1979, he was commander of the Northwest Strategic Security (SENE).

He later went on to serve as Commander of the I Army Corps of Buenos Aires between January and December 1979.

Period as a member of the Military Junta 1979-1982

Galtieri took office as Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Army in December 1979. The outgoing Commander-in-Chief Roberto Eduardo Viola chose the biography as his successor. Galtieri then joined the Military Government Junta together with Admirals Armando Lambruschini (1979 -1981) and Jorge Isaac Anaya (1981-1982) and Brigadier Generals Omar Graffigna (1979-1981) and Basilio Lami Dozo (1981-1982).

In August 1981, General Galtieri toured the West Coast of the United States and Washington D.C. He met with important officials of the United States federal government with the help and contacts of the military attache in USA Miguel Mallea Gil. Galtieri was preparing a coup against the president of the Nation of the National Reorganization Process Roberto Eduardo Viola. The Viola government suffered from the economic and financial crisis and the Argentine people showed signs of fatigue.

In November 1981, Galtieri traveled again to the North American country. He first attended the XIV Conference of American Armies held at Fort Lesley J. McNair. The Argentine general traveled accompanied by his secretary Norberto Ferrero, the chief of Intelligence Alberto Alfredo Valín Molina and the head of Operations Mario Benjamín Menéndez. He later attended a dinner at the residence of the Argentine ambassador to the United States Esteban Takacs. Galtieri met with important members of the Ronald Reagan government. for the friendship of Argentina and the United States. Some time later he would say that he felt like the "spoiled child" of the North American country. A comment by Richard Allen about Galtieri became known at the end of dinner: "He seems to me a man with a majestic personality ».

On November 5, 1981, Galtieri met with Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush.

The United States Department of State thanked Galtieri for his influence in Bolivia by convincing General Lucio Añez and Colonel Faustino Rico Toro not to carry out a coup against the de facto president Celso Torrelio Villa.

Coup against Viola in 1981

On November 10, 1981, Commander-in-Chief Galtieri met with his colleagues from the Navy and the Air Force, Jorge Isaac Anaya and Omar Domingo Graffigna. The military decided to advance the assumption of Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo as commander-in-chief of the Air Force, who was to take office in January.

Towards the end of the year the Army commanders were renewed. Then Galtieri got rid of three division generals who bothered him: José Rogelio Villarreal, Antonio Domingo Bussi and Reynaldo Benito Bignone.

On November 21, President Roberto Eduardo Viola handed over control to Interior Minister Horacio Liendo, presumably for health reasons.

On December 8, Galtieri met with Viola at the presidential election in Olivos, negotiating the removal process.

Galtieri agreed with Admiral Anaya the support of the Military Junta if Galtieri supported an invasion of the Malvinas Islands.{harvnp|Yofre|2011|p=55}}

On December 10, Admiral Anaya issued an ultimatum to Viola requesting his resignation as president by virtue of a decision of the Military Junta made up of him, Galtieri and Graffigna. The following day Viola met with the Junta, where it resolved remove him for reasons of State. That day General Héctor Norberto Iglesias announced that General Galtieri would assume the Presidency on December 22.

Vice Admiral Carlos Alberto Lacoste was interim president between December 11 and 22.

Presidency (1981-1982)

On December 22, 1981, Galtieri was sworn in as (de facto) president of the Argentine Nation appointed by the Military Junta of the National Reorganization Process. Basilio Lami Dozo initially rejected Galtieri assuming the Presidency while retaining the leadership of the Army. The Military Junta agreed that the general would leave office at the end of 1982.

The new dictator tried to differentiate himself from his predecessor in the Presidency by refraining from residing in the presidential villa in Olivos. In addition, he had himself photographed signing his declaration of assets before the notary public José María Allende and the General Auditor of the Armed Forces Carlos H. Cerdá.

Galtieri's ministers were Nicanor Costa Méndez in Foreign Relations and Worship; Roberto Alemann in Economics; Cayetano Licciardo in Education; Amadeo Frúgoli in Defense; Lucas Jaime Lennon in Justice; Alfredo Saint-Jean in Interior; and Héctor Iglesias in the General Secretariat of the Presidency.

The economic measures of the Minister of Economy appointed by Galtieri, the renowned civilian technician Roberto Alemann, were no less orthodox than those of his predecessors. The restriction of public spending, the compression of the working capital, the privatization of state assets and the freezing of salaries led to a very serious economic depression. The recession led to the closure of numerous industries (Citroën and La Cantábrica being the most prominent) and drastic staff reduction measures by others.

Galtieri ordered the military —active and retired— to leave their posts in state companies to be replaced by civilians.

Popular discontent, channeled through the multiparty junta and union organizations, reached extreme costs. A mobilization called at the end of March by political and trade union organizations under the slogan "Peace, Bread and Work" suffered a repression, leaving one dead and dozens injured.

Foreign Policy

The Argentine dictator was trying to consolidate an alliance with the United States. For this, he sought to "fill in the empty spaces" that President Jimmy Carter had left in the Cold War. This was to intervene in different parts of the world to contribute to the fight against communism. Starting with the Malvinas war, which began with Operation Rosario on April 2, 1982, dictatorial Argentina drew closer to Libya, Cuba and other countries. countries close to the Soviet Union.

Falklands War

Galtieri on his visit to the Falkland Islands on 22 April 1982, together with Brigade General Oscar Luis Jofre.

In 1981 the Military Government Junta, with special emphasis on Admiral Jorge Isaac Anaya, decided to solve the issue of the Malvinas Islands in 1982, to support the military regime that was facing strong social and economic discontent. Between March and April In 1982 there were five demonstrations against the military government, three of them organized by the relatives of the disappeared and all of them were harshly repressed. The popularity of the government was in clear decline, while inflation grew and the GDP fell by 11.45%; the military regime was crumbling and Galtieri understood that the Armed Forces did not have enough power to prevent the democratic transition that was already appearing on the political scene.

The recovery of the Malvinas Islands was perceived as an element that would unite the discontented Argentine society. After six years of dictatorship, the Military Junta needed a victory, after a dramatic but necessary operation to unite the country, with the recovery of the Malvinas Islands, a cherished dream of Argentine society seemed the ideal way to achieve it.

Following the model of the abortive Operation Sovereignty for the solution of the still pending Beagle conflict with Chile, on March 26 the Military Junta ordered Operation Rosario, a landing plan in the Malvinas Islands. In April 1982, a contingent under the command of Rear Admiral Carlos Büsser landed on Soledad Island, taking the British governor of the islands prisoner without causing enemy casualties to avoid a British reaction in the future. The disembarkation and capture of the insular capital, Port Stanley, which was renamed Puerto Argentino, with three casualties of its own, provoked a strong popular support, with public demonstrations of support, the feeling for the Falklands distracted Argentine society from the disappeared, the depression caused by the military and the economic disaster.

The military enterprise, undertaken under the assumption that the geographical situation of the islands would make British military actions impractical, soon had to face a far superior enemy force. The military regime of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, which the Argentine dictatorship considered enemy number one, provided all the necessary logistical support to the British troops. The British troops not only had the military and logistical help of the United Kingdom, they also had a secret operation with the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who chose to collaborate with the English offensive. The Argentine troops, in logistical and intelligence inferiority, without naval support and with inadequate air support, despite having obtained some partial successes, especially in air attacks launched from the continent against the British naval force, soon found themselves in an untenable position.

The regime maintained a powerful propaganda apparatus throughout the war to maintain popular support. Official communiqués, obligatorily broadcast by all radio and television stations, concentrated the attention of the entire political spectrum; staunch opponents of the military regime were led by the situation to express their support for military action. The 24 Hours of the Falklands was a marathon program that raised revenue to support Argentine forces on the islands, but the vast majority of those donations never reached their destination. The sinking of the British destroyer HMS Sheffield on May 4, which was hit by an MBDA Exocet missile and sank a week later, it was the occasion of popular celebrations. Actual information about the state of the fighting was carefully filtered to keep expectations high, such that the occupation of the islands by British forces after the cruelest of battles on 29 May at Goose Green was maintained. in secret until on June 14 Brigadier General Mario Benjamín Menéndez, military governor of Malvinas, surrendered Puerto Argentino to much superior troops.

The disappointment caused by the defeat stirred up the tensions repressed during the war. Galtieri resigned on June 17; the post was temporarily held by his Interior Minister, Major General Alfredo Oscar Saint-Jean. Leopoldo Galtieri retired on June 18 and Lieutenant General Cristino Nicolaides was appointed head of the Army. Subsequently, on August 17 of that year, Basilio Lami Dozo retired and appointed Brigadier General Augusto Jorge Hughes as the new head of aeronautics. Finally, the board would be renewed when Admiral Rubén Oscar Franco replaced Jorge Anaya at the head of the navy on October 1, 1982.

Cabinet of Ministers

Legal cases

During the Trial of the Juntas, he was accused of “illegitimate deprivation of liberty, repeated eleven times (…); torture, repeated three times (...); reduction to easement, reiterated eight times (...); child abduction (...); cover-up, repeated 242 times (...); ideological falsehood, reiterated fifteen times (...)" (Ruling, Article 21); he was acquitted of guilt and charge on December 9, 1985.

At the beginning of 1986, in the Malvinas case, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ruled that Galtieri was sentenced to "twelve years in prison with the accessory dismissal and discharge" Balza (2008, p. 272). A civil court rejected the appeal, before which an extraordinary appeal was filed before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. However, anticipating the Court, President Carlos Saúl Menem issued Decree No. 1005 (6 of October 1989), for which he pardoned Galtieri, Anaya and Lami Dozo, who recovered their rank and military status.

On March 25, 1997, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number Five of the National Court, Baltasar Garzón, ordered the "conditional provisional prison" of Galtieri, for the crimes of murder, forced disappearance and genocide; issuing an international arrest warrant and an extradition request. The resolution also states that he had not previously been tried for said crimes.

In July 2002, Judge Claudio Bonadío ordered his prosecution and house arrest as preventive detention, as part of the Counteroffensive Cause.