Argentina's former-military leader Jorge Rafael Videla has died of natural causes at the age of 87 while serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
The general was jailed in 2010 for the deaths of 31 dissidents during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, of which he was overall leader until 1981.
He was also sentenced to another 50 years in 2012 for the theft of children born to female prisoners.
Up to 30,000 people were tortured and "disappeared" by the military during the dictatorship, in a campaign known as the "Dirty War".
Suspected regime opponents were swept into secret prisons, tortured and murdered.
In his last public appearance on Tuesday, an unrepentant Videla told a court that his subordinates acted under his orders and assumed "full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism".
Videla died in the Marcos Paz prison south-west of Buenos Aires, where he spent his final days in a spartan cell with a wooden cross on the wall.
"Last night he didn't feel well. He didn't want to eat and this morning they found him dead in his cell," Cecilia Pando, the head of the Association of Family and Friends of Political Prisoners, told reporters.
A medical report said Videla was found "without a pulse or pupillary reflex, so an EKG was performed confirming his death at 8:25 (11:25 GMT) on this date."
"He dies condemned by justice and repudiated by society," Nora Cortinas, of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights organisation, said.
Videla showed little remorse for the systematic abuses that occurred during his presidency, a traumatic five-year upheaval still being felt today.
"Let's say there were 7,000 or 8,000 people who had to die to win the war against subversion," Videla said recently in a prison interview, according to journalist Ceferino Reato.
"We couldn't execute them by firing squad. Neither could we take them to court," Videla was quoted as saying.
Military leaders had agreed that secretly disposing of their prisoners "was a price to pay to win the war," Videla said, according to Mr Reato in his book Final Disposition.
"For that reason, so as not to provoke protests inside and outside the country, the decision was reached that these people should be disappeared."
After this interview was published, Videla said he had been misinterpreted.
The journalist insists that the general had reviewed his handwritten notes and approved them before publication.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner who drew international attention to the junta's abuses, said Videla "never repented of the crimes and he is taking a lot of information with him".
Videla was the head of the army when the military overthrew Isabel Peron, the widow of Juan Peron, at a period of mounting instability, punctuated by guerrilla attacks and a surge of killings by right-wing death squads.
The junta that assumed power suspended the constitution, outlawed political parties and imposed censorship on TV and radio in what was called a "Process of National Reorganisation".
A fierce campaign of repression unleashed on the leftist guerrilla groups active in Argentina soon spread far beyond their ranks.
Family members, suspected sympathisers, labor organisers, politicians, clergy, students, journalists, artists and intellectuals were killed or secretly imprisoned in clandestine concentration camps.
The regime's trademark became the unmarked Ford Falcon sedans that hooded agents used to drive their captives to some 500 detention centres.
Among the victims were French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, Catholic bishop Enrique Angelelli, Swedish student Dagmar Hagelin, the union leadership at Ford and Mercedes Benz, and even members of Argentina's diplomatic corps.
Argentina's military joined forces with like-minded dictatorships in Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay under "Operation Condor", sharing intelligence and helping capture each other's political enemies.
Rail-thin and with a rigid military posture, Videla in his heyday cut a sombre, unsmiling figure with large dark eyes, a brush moustache, and hair slicked back from a bony face.
He delivered speeches in a strident manner and often appeared uncomfortable in public, wringing his hands as a nervous tick played across his cheeks.
Although aligned with the United States, Videla was at loggerheads with US president Jimmy Carter over the regime's human rights abuses and for refusing to join a US-backed grain embargo against the Soviet Union.
In 1981, Videla handed over power to General Roberto Viola to begin the slow transition to democracy.
But General Leopoldo Galtieri ousted Viola in a palace coup and took Argentina to war and ultimately to a humiliating defeat against British forces in the Falkland Islands the following year.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-18/argentine-dirty-war-leader-jorge-rafael-videla-dies/4697798
The general was jailed in 2010 for the deaths of 31 dissidents during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, of which he was overall leader until 1981.
He was also sentenced to another 50 years in 2012 for the theft of children born to female prisoners.
Up to 30,000 people were tortured and "disappeared" by the military during the dictatorship, in a campaign known as the "Dirty War".
Suspected regime opponents were swept into secret prisons, tortured and murdered.
In his last public appearance on Tuesday, an unrepentant Videla told a court that his subordinates acted under his orders and assumed "full military responsibility for the actions of the army in the war against terrorism".
Videla died in the Marcos Paz prison south-west of Buenos Aires, where he spent his final days in a spartan cell with a wooden cross on the wall.
"Last night he didn't feel well. He didn't want to eat and this morning they found him dead in his cell," Cecilia Pando, the head of the Association of Family and Friends of Political Prisoners, told reporters.
A medical report said Videla was found "without a pulse or pupillary reflex, so an EKG was performed confirming his death at 8:25 (11:25 GMT) on this date."
"He dies condemned by justice and repudiated by society," Nora Cortinas, of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights organisation, said.
Videla showed little remorse for the systematic abuses that occurred during his presidency, a traumatic five-year upheaval still being felt today.
"Let's say there were 7,000 or 8,000 people who had to die to win the war against subversion," Videla said recently in a prison interview, according to journalist Ceferino Reato.
"We couldn't execute them by firing squad. Neither could we take them to court," Videla was quoted as saying.
Military leaders had agreed that secretly disposing of their prisoners "was a price to pay to win the war," Videla said, according to Mr Reato in his book Final Disposition.
"For that reason, so as not to provoke protests inside and outside the country, the decision was reached that these people should be disappeared."
After this interview was published, Videla said he had been misinterpreted.
The journalist insists that the general had reviewed his handwritten notes and approved them before publication.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner who drew international attention to the junta's abuses, said Videla "never repented of the crimes and he is taking a lot of information with him".
Videla was the head of the army when the military overthrew Isabel Peron, the widow of Juan Peron, at a period of mounting instability, punctuated by guerrilla attacks and a surge of killings by right-wing death squads.
The junta that assumed power suspended the constitution, outlawed political parties and imposed censorship on TV and radio in what was called a "Process of National Reorganisation".
A fierce campaign of repression unleashed on the leftist guerrilla groups active in Argentina soon spread far beyond their ranks.
Family members, suspected sympathisers, labor organisers, politicians, clergy, students, journalists, artists and intellectuals were killed or secretly imprisoned in clandestine concentration camps.
The regime's trademark became the unmarked Ford Falcon sedans that hooded agents used to drive their captives to some 500 detention centres.
Among the victims were French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, Catholic bishop Enrique Angelelli, Swedish student Dagmar Hagelin, the union leadership at Ford and Mercedes Benz, and even members of Argentina's diplomatic corps.
Argentina's military joined forces with like-minded dictatorships in Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay under "Operation Condor", sharing intelligence and helping capture each other's political enemies.
Rail-thin and with a rigid military posture, Videla in his heyday cut a sombre, unsmiling figure with large dark eyes, a brush moustache, and hair slicked back from a bony face.
He delivered speeches in a strident manner and often appeared uncomfortable in public, wringing his hands as a nervous tick played across his cheeks.
Although aligned with the United States, Videla was at loggerheads with US president Jimmy Carter over the regime's human rights abuses and for refusing to join a US-backed grain embargo against the Soviet Union.
In 1981, Videla handed over power to General Roberto Viola to begin the slow transition to democracy.
But General Leopoldo Galtieri ousted Viola in a palace coup and took Argentina to war and ultimately to a humiliating defeat against British forces in the Falkland Islands the following year.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-18/argentine-dirty-war-leader-jorge-rafael-videla-dies/4697798
RSS Feed