Reynaldo Bignone, the last Argentine dictator, dead at 90

[sandensea]

Reynaldo Bignone, the last military dictator of Argentina, has died at Buenos Aires' Central Military Hospital. He was 90.

Bignone, who had been serving a life sentence for his role in the 1970s Dirty War, led Argentina for 18 months between July 1982 and December 10, 1983, when he turned over the presidency to a democratically-elected civilian, Raúl Alfonsín.

An Army General and former head of the National Military College, Bignone was appointed to succeed Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri after the latter's defeat in the Falklands War.

He was credited for partially restoring labor union rights and the freedom of assembly - and for ultimately yielding to popular calls for free elections, which were held for the first time in a decade in October 1983.

While Bignone's domestic team oversaw a recovery in real wages, his tenure was also marked by a Central Bank bailout of some $15 billion in private foreign debt - including some $124 million owed by Franco Macri, the father of current President Mauricio Macri.

Bignone's "self-amnesty" decree, moreover, granted a blanket pardon to all involved in human rights abuses during the Dirty War, when up to 30,000 dissidents, most of them known to be non-violent, were murdered.

The self-amnesty was overturned by Congress just days after President Alfonsín took office; but Bignone's order for the systematic destruction of evidence made prosecuting the those implicated - as well as determining the true scope of the atrocities - a challenging task that is still ongoing.

Imprisoned in 1984, Bignone, like many dictatorship officials, was given amnesty - first by the 1987 Law of Due Obedience, which Alfonsín signed due to military pressure, and later by a blanket pardon issued by President Carlos Menem in 1990.

He was arrested in 2007 for his role in the kidnapping of 40 people at the Alejandro Posadas Hospital, west of Buenos Aires, and the trafficking of infants born to and abducted from the roughly 500 pregnant women who were among the disappeared.

Bignone was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2010 for his involvement in the torture and murder of 56 people at the Campo de Mayo Army Base, which he headed. He was sentenced on April 14, 2011, to life in prison for crimes against humanity.

His detention was part of President Néstor Kirchner's renewed drive to investigate past human rights abuses, and since then neary 3,000 others have been prosecuted, with over 1,000 convictions.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infobae.com%2Fpolitica%2F2018%2F03%2F07%2Fmurio-el-dictador-reynaldo-bignone-el-ultimo-presidente-de-la-dictadura%2F

Reynaldo Bignone (1928-2018).

[Judi Lynn]

1. Shocking personal record, hideous career. Would love to see how they wrote his obituary.

Had no idea until seeing your information that Bignone not only destroyed essential records regarding the shocking atrocities of the Dirty War, but also arranged amnesty for himself and his fellow monsters.

He not only wasted his life on torture, bloodshed, inflicting desperate suffering on political prisoners and their loved ones, keeping a entire country paralyzed by fear, afraid to speak for years, he helped destroy over 30,000 human beings who were living in Argentina before his regime's rule by violence. Sadly, US Americans had no idea whatever that the Dirty War, the reign of the Death cult, had the full support from the right-wingers of this country, and active day-to-day endorsement from Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State.

Yes, this planet lost Bignone, but "heaven" gained a sadistic, vicious killer and criminal!

It seemed he'd never leave!

Thank you, sandensea.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Argentina's 'baby theft general' Reynaldo Bignone dies

7 March 2018

. . .

Gen Bignone died in a military hospital, where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.

Bignone, who ruled from July 1982 to December 1983, was also serving a sentence for overseeing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners.

About 30,000 people were killed or disappeared under Argentina's military rule from 1976 to 1983.

Bignone's crimes were part of the Dirty War, a brutal plan to silence the left-wing opposition in the country during the 1970s and 80s which included kidnapping, torturing and killing opponents, and handing their children to supporters of military rule.

More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43318136

[sandensea]

3. Estela de Carlotto, head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, described her encounter w Bignone

Her daughter Laura was abducted in 1977. The Carlottos were friends of Marta Bignone, the general's sister, and sought his assistance in recovering Laura.

The normally affable Bignone, according to Carlotto, seemed a different person altogether - even insane. He spoke to her, a woman he had known for years, with a gun on his desk, and went on a tirade about her daughter "being up to something," about her "insisting" on "guerrilla" activities (there were none), and about the murders "having to be done."

A few months later, Bignone presented Laura's corpse to her mother as a "matter of honor." He never expressed the least remorse (on the contrary).

Still, his brief presidency, a few years later, was a marked improvement over his three military predecessors.

Political prisoners (those that hadn't been killed) were freed, martial law was lifted, the economy recovered somewhat from the 1981-82 free-fall, and, most importantly, elections were called.

On a final note, Judi, I found rare footage of Bignone voting in the 1983 elections near his home in Castelar (a suburb west of Buenos Aires). He expressed satisfaction with the elections as well as with having voted, and manifested his wish that he might be the "last military ruler" of Argentina.