Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Return to Democracy
The military dictatorship that ruled the country with an iron fist lasted from 1976 to 1983.
General Leopoldo Galtieri took the reins of the draconian military junta in 1981, but its
power was unraveling: the economy was in recession, interest rates skyrocketed and pro-
testers took to the streets of Buenos Aires. A year later, Galtieri tried to divert national at-
tention by goading the UK into a war over control of the Falkland Islands (known in Ar-
gentina as Las Islas Malvinas). The British had more resolve than the junta had imagined
and Argentina was easily defeated. The greatest blow came when the British nuclear sub-
marine
Conqueror
torpedoed the Argentine heavy cruiser
General Belgrano,
killing 323
men. Argentina still holds that the ship was returning to harbor.
Embarrassed and proven ineffectual, the military regime fell apart and a new civilian
government under Raúl Alfonsín took control in 1983. Alfonsín enjoyed a small amount of
success and was able to negotiate a few international loans, but he could not limit inflation
or constrain public spending. By 1989 inflation was out of control and Alfonsín left office
five months early, when Carlos Menem took power.
Nunca Más
(Never Again; 1984), the official report of the National Commission on the Disap-
peared, systematically details military abuses from 1976 to 1983 - during Argentina's Dirty War.
