Jorge Rafael Videla

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Jorge Rafael Videla (1976)

Jorge Rafael Videla (born August 2, 1925 in Mercedes , Province of Buenos Aires , † May 17, 2013 in Marcos Paz , Province of Buenos Aires) was an Argentine general and dictator of Argentina from 1976 to 1981.

Putschist and chairman of the military junta

General Videla

Argentina was in the mid-1970s in a social crisis, by a long lasting economic decline, terrorist activities left- and right-wing groups - the left Peronist Montoneros and the Marxist ERP on one side, the far-right, pro-government death squad argentine anticommunist alliance on the other side - as well as an extensive loss of confidence in the political class. In this situation, General Jorge Videla took over the office of president as head of a junta in a military coup in 1976, both politically and economically . The commanders of the Army (Videla), the Navy (Admiral Emilio Massera ) and the Air Force (General Agosti) dissolved the Congress on March 24, 1976, overthrew President Isabel Perón , banned the parties and took part in the military junta at its head Videla was appointed President for five years.

In the early days of his government, the man who was described as correct, polite and very puritanical , enjoyed sympathy in the bourgeois camp. The junta began the self-proclaimed "process of national reorganization". This was based ideologically on a “doctrine of national security ” and envisaged radical action against left oppositionists, which in practice meant their secret arrest, torture and murder. In the following seven years (1976–1983) up to 30,000 opposition members " disappeared " without a trace in the " dirty war " ( Guerra sucia ) declared by the rulers themselves , including around a hundred Germans and ethnic Germans. These were known as Desaparecidos (German: "The Disappeared"). Videla was replaced in March 1981 by his junta colleague Roberto Eduardo Viola .

Videla saw himself as a professional military man who did his duty in the fight against terrorism (or the “ subversives ”) and - after the chaotic years of Isabel Perón's government - to restore social order: “There must be as many people as must die in Argentina so that the country is safe again. "

Videla was not considered to be the cruelest member of the Argentine junta, in which there were so-called "Blandos" (soft) and "Duros" (hard) with regard to their attitude to violent measures - Videla was more likely to be counted among the blandos, the pragmatists wanted to end the domestic political terror against the opposition quickly. The FAZ wrote in Videla's obituary that the junta member Emilio Massera, who had built the navy into an “all-powerful apparatus of repression ” and the naval mechanics school in Buenos Aires , the ESMA , made him the largest secret torture center in the country, “presumably still excelled in cruelty ”.

The Argentine journalist and writer Rodolfo Walsh published in 1977, on the first anniversary of the dictatorship, his open letter from a writer to the military junta to Videla and his junta members, in which he also denounced the secret murder of political opponents:

“15,000 disappeared, 10,000 prisoners, 4,000 dead, tens of thousands who have been driven out of the country - these are the bare numbers of this terror. When the traditional prisons were overcrowded, they turned the country's largest military facilities into regular concentration camps , to which no judge, no lawyer, no journalist, no international observer had access. The use of military secrecy, declared inevitable for the investigation of all the cases, makes the majority of arrests de facto kidnappings , which enables torture without any restrictions and executions without a court judgment. "

During the Football World Cup in Argentina in 1978 , which Videla personally opened, the regime was emphatically open-hearted, friendly and democratic. The largely uncritical attitude of the other participating football nations towards the military regime and the dictator is still the subject of criticism today.

No regrets about the dictatorship's murders

Videla herself long denied the military's responsibility for the thousands of murders. It was not until 2012 that he admitted in court that "7,000 or 8,000" opponents of the regime had been killed during his military rule. They have "let the bodies disappear" so as not to provoke protests. It was a "necessary military means" at the time. At the end of his trial, he said literally at the end of his trial: “All childbearing mothers whom I respect as mothers were active militants in the machinery of terrorism, about the estimated 500 or so cases of child robbery of newborn babies imprisoned by oppositional women, who were almost always killed after birth. They used their children as human shields. "

Law enforcement and convictions

First convicted in 1985 and pardoned by President Menem

Memorial march with photos of the "disappeared" on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the military coup in Argentina (March 24, 2006)

In 1985, two years after the end of the military dictatorship, Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment for human rights violations (murder, torture and kidnapping), but was pardoned in 1990 by Decree No. 2741/90 of President Carlos Menem . He was arrested again in 1998 for his responsibility for child kidnapping; he had ordered the forced adoption of small children of prisoners of the opposition, most of whom were then murdered. Videla was placed under house arrest in 1998 and arrested again in 2001; he was now accused of having been the head of a conspiracy against opposition members during his tenure . In the meantime, however, he was able to return to his apartment in the Belgrano district .

Extradition request from Germany

On March 4, 2004, the German federal government officially requested the extradition of the former dictator and two other former military personnel for the multiple murders of German citizens, including Elisabeth Käsemann . The application was dismissed on April 17, 2007 by the Argentine Supreme Court.

New trial and conviction in 2010

On October 10, 2008, Videla's house arrest was lifted. On the same day, Videla was transferred to Unidad Penitenciaria 34 , a military prison on Campo de Mayo .

In June 2010, another trial began in Argentina against those responsible for the military dictatorship, including Videla and the former general Luciano Benjamín Menéndez . Videla assumed full responsibility for crimes committed under his rule during the trial. On December 22, 2010 Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment together with Menéndez and 14 other perpetrators. Videla had to serve her sentence in an ordinary detention center.

Life sentence for child robbery and forced adoptions in 2012

From February 28, 2011, Videla was again on trial , this time together with Reynaldo Bignone . There, the accusation of multiple child robbery through the ordered withdrawal of newborns from the birth mothers and the subsequent transfer of the children to families of Argentine military members was tried. In early July 2012, Videla was sentenced to 50 years in prison by the federal court in Buenos Aires. He died on May 17, 2013 at the age of 87 in Marco Paz's prison. Videla did not receive a funeral with military honors. The funeral took place in a private setting.

legacy

Until March 24, 2004, a picture of Videla officially hung among the portraits in a gallery of the national officers' college of Argentina, the Colegio Militar de la Nación , before it was removed there in the presence of the President Néstor Kirchner .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Jorge Rafael Videla  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Death of General Videla - Military Dictator Without Remorse In: NZZ Online from May 17, 2013, accessed on May 18, 2013
  2. ↑ Stephan Panther: Why is Argentina not a rich country? ( Memento of March 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 170 kB) in: Success and Failure of Institutions. Committee for Economic Systems and Institutional Economics of the Verein für Socialpolitik, 35th Annual Conference, Duncker & Humblot, pp. 199–216, ISBN 978-3-428-11731-4
  3. ↑ a b Murió Jorge Rafael Videla, símbolo de la dictadura militar ( Memento from January 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) in diariohoy.net from May 17, 2013, accessed on May 18, 2013
  4. ↑ Karin Janker: Bergoglio is a Pilate. Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 16, 2013
  5. ^ German arrest warrant against Argentina's ex-dictator. Die ZEIT, January 22nd, 2010
  6. ↑ "Blando" Perfil.com, May 19, 2013
  7. ↑ Josef Oehrlein: "The ideologue of the dirty war". FAZ , May 18, 2013
  8. ↑ Rodolfo Walsh : Open letter from a writer to the military junta. ( Memento from May 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 94 kB) Walsh website at Rotpunktverlag.
  9. ↑ Rafael Videla Admits His Government Killed and Disappeared Thousands. ( June 18, 2012 memento on the Internet Archive ) Fox News Latino, April 16, 2012
  10. ↑ a b Werner Marti: Videla convicted of child robbery. Argentina's judiciary speaks of the systematic appropriation of babies by the military. Neue Zürcher Zeitung online, July 7, 2012
  11. ^ Elisabeth Käsemann Family Education Center ( Memento from September 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Biography Elisabeth Käsemann, accessed on May 18, 2013
  12. ↑ Argentina: Dictator Videla is tried . Frankfurter Rundschau June 30, 2010
  13. ↑ spiegel.de: Argentina: The settlement with the regime of horrors , August 23, 2011, accessed on September 15, 2011
  14. ↑ Argentina: Lifelong for ex-dictator Videla . The standard December 22, 2010
  15. ↑ Videla y Menéndez, condenados a prisión perpetua en Córdoba , LaVoz.com.ar , December 22, 2010
  16. ↑ Videla fue condenado a prisión perpetua e irá a una cárcel común , LaNacion.com , December 22, 2010
  17. ^ "Junta Members in Court for Child Robbery", Deutsche Welle, March 1, 2011
  18. ↑ Argentina: Ex-dictators Videla and Bignone convicted of baby robbery at zeit.de, July 6, 2012 (accessed on July 6, 2012).
  19. ↑ Article in La Nacion (span.)
  20. ↑ Militares pidieron el retiro por medida de Kirchner (March 24, 2004) on the pages of www.terra.com.ar (Spanish; accessed October 12, 2007); Video recording of the acceptance of the pictures by Videla and Reynaldo Bignone from a tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (accessed October 12, 2007).
  21. ↑ Insights into the atrocities of a dictatorship. In: NZZ Online from April 14, 2012
predecessor Office successor
Isabel Martínez de Perón
(President of the Republic)		 Leader of the Argentine Military
Regime 1976–1981 		Roberto Eduardo Viola
personal data
SURNAME Videla, Jorge Rafael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine military and politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Mercedes (Province of Buenos Aires ), Argentina
DATE OF DEATH 17th May 2013
Place of death Marcos Paz , Argentina