While The World Watched

[Judi Lynn]

2. Dirty Wars and Football

Weekend Edition July 4-6, 2014
Dirty Wars and Football

The Ghost of General Videla

by BINOY KAMPMARK

I think the 1978 World Cup is one of the deep wounds of Argentine society.

– Norberto Liwski, former political prisoner, ESPN, Jun 9, 2014


As the elimination phase of the Football World Cup unfolds in Brazil, the political slant on such events is hard to resist. Sporting events on such a scale are political promotions and projections. Brazil’s own government was thrilled about obtaining the tournament, so much so that it ran up the bills, raised the cost of transportation, and imposed a series of near draconian measures for population control.

The return of the World Cup to South America has a wafting smell of regret and denial to it. When it was staged in 1978 in Argentina, the country was being bled and controlled by the military junta of General Jorge Rafael Videla. All in the name of order; all in the name of pride.

The local boys did not disappoint the general. The remarkable Mario Kempes, along with the mercurial midfielder Osvaldo Ardiles and such figures as Ricardo Villa, won the tournament. The football could at stages be beautiful; Kempes, a gangly creature of beauty who proved lethal with his golden boot; Ardiles controlling play with mesmerising potency.

For all their efforts, they could not help but be marionettes of the military junta, the playthings of a brutal regime which expended an exorbitant amount on hosting the tournament. The amount, by one estimate, was eighteen times more than that of West Germany in 1974. Nothing would be spared.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/04/the-ghost-of-general-videla/