b. August 2, 1925 at Mercedes in Argentina, d. May 17, 2013 in Marcos Paz.
A son of a military colonel. In 1944 he joined the army. In 1973 he was promoted to Brigadier General. In the same year, he became the head of the general staff of the army. In 1975, President Isabel Perón appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Army. He began reorganizing the army and removed the officers sympathizing with the Peronism. In 1975 he campaigned against the Revolutionary People's Army in the province of Tucumán. On March 24, 1976, he participated in a military coup. On March 29, he formally assumed the office of president.
At the moment of taking power by the junta, the country was plunged into economic catastrophe, high inflation and corruption. There was a leftist guerilla movement (the Revolutionary Army of the People and Montoneros) and armed groups of the rightist Peronist. Videl suspended the parliament, the activities of political parties and trade unions. He filled the most important government positions with military personnel. In the economy, he adopted the free market model.
In the next few years, the junta killed thousands of people. Official figures say about 9,000 victims, other sources estimate that the dictator killed between 15 and 30 thousand people. Many other people have been imprisoned and subjected to torture.
In 1981, he handed over the office of the president to general Roberto Eduardo Violi. Democracy was restored in 1983. Videla was brought to trial, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges against him were related to the violation of human rights. In 1990, President Carlos Men pardoned the former dictator. Videla returned briefly to prison in 1998, when the court found him guilty of less known kidnappings during the so-called dirty war. Because of his health, the prison was turned into a house arrest for Videla. On December 22, 2010, the former dictator was again sentenced to life imprisonment. The Córdoba court found him guilty of the deaths of 31 political prisoners during the reign of the junta in the 1970s and 1980s. He died on May 17, 2013 in a prison in Buenos Aires due to natural causes
| Latin American juntas and dictatorships! (1944-1992) | |
|---|---|
| Operation Condor, Operation PBFortune
and other black-opps |
Black-opps - Operation PBFortune - special-opps- Operation Condor- American collusion in Operation Condor- French collusion in Operation Condor- Argentina's "Dirty War" - Operation Soberanía - La Violencia - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - United States involvement in regime change in Latin America - 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état - United States invasion of Panama - Panamanian 'Dignity Battalions' - Port Belgrano Naval Base |
| Systems of state repression | The "La Técnica" torture center - Vill Gremadi Detention Center - Dirección Nacional de Asuntos Técnicos - Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) - Panamanian 'Dignity Battalions' - Death flight - Political disappearances |
| The ones who tried to get nukes | Brazil (failed) - Chile (failed) - Argentina (failed) - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis |
| Economics | Paving the Quito-Tulcán road in the early 1970s - Argentine Cold War era hyper inflation- Brazil's development of the Amazon region in the 1970s- Transamazon Highway (BR-230) (the 1970s part) |
| Politics and Geo-politics | Falklands sovereignty dispute - 1982 Falklands War - Cold War - Operation Soberanía - Beagle conflict - Snipe incident - United States invasion of Panama - 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties |
| Technology | Alacrán (Condor IAIII) missile - The Condor and Alacrán missile programs - El Torero Enojado (fake aircraft) - FMA IA 58 Pucará - FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II |
| People | General Augusto Pinochet - Alfredo Stroessner - Jorge Rafael Videla - Guillermo Rodríguez (politician) - Leopoldo Galtieri - Juan Domingo Perón -Gustavo Rojas Pinilla- Luis García Meza Tejada - Juan María Bordaberry - Marcos Pérez Jiménez - Manuel Apolinario Odría - João Goulart -Dwight D. Eisenhower - Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno - Anastasio Somoza García - Rafael Trujillo - Fulgencio Batista - Fidel Castro - Carlos Castillo Armas - Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North - Omar Torrijos - Anastasio Somoza Debayle - Luis Somoza Debayle - General Oswaldo López Arellano - (General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García - General Romeo Lucas García - General Carlos Humberto Romero |
| Important places | The "La Técnica" torture center - Vill Gremadi Detention Center - Port Belgrano Naval Base |
| Wars and civil wars | Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - Contras - Sandinistas - Operation Soberanía - Argentina's "Dirty War" - 1982 Falklands War - Operation Soberanía - Beagle conflict - Snipe incident - La guerra del fútbol - Guatemalan Civil War - Salvadoran Civil War - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution |
| Other stuff | 601 Commando Company - 602 Commando Company - 601 Air Assault Regiment - 5th Marine Battalion (Argentina) - Guatemalan genocide against the Maya - Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation |