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| |  | | Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri | | | judgement place : | Argentina  | | status : | Acquitted | | particulars : | Acquitted in 1985 at the trial of the military junta, but later proceeded against for human rights violations | | position : | Commander in Chief of the Army, then President of the Republic |
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| | | | Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri was born on 15 July 1926, the son of poor Italian immigrants. At 17 years of age, he enlisted in the Argentine army and became a civil engineer. In 1949 he took up studies at the North American School of the Americas. In 1975 he commanded the Corps of Army Engineers. As a fervent supporter of the 1976 coup d’état, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1977 then to Commander in Chief with the rank of Lieutenant General in 1980.
In 1981, he was received with full honours by the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who backed the military junta. In December 1981, he organised a coup d’état against General Viola (see “related cases”) and became President of the Republic. Confronted with a diminishing power base and an economic slump at home, he invaded the Falklands in April 1982, buttressed with the enthusiastic support of many Argentines. Two months later, following defeat by the British forces, he was removed from office. Elections were organised and his dictatorship gave way to a democratically elected civilian government with, as its President, the Radical Raul Alfonsin.
During the years of dictatorship, in what was later to be termed a “dirty war” (1976-1983), the Argentine military resolved to eradicate what successive juntas called “subversive thoughts” as well as “terrorists”, namely “anyone who disseminated ideas contrary to Western Christian civilisation”. During the years that followed, the military murdered or forcibly “disappeared” from 10’000 to 30’000 people. Along similar lines, some 500’000 opponents of the regime found themselves forced into exile to escape from its repression.
Several hundred secret detention centres were set up throughout the country. Torture was practised systematically in these centres. Also in these places numerous prisoners were murdered or disappeared. Young women prisoners who gave birth there had their children taken away from them and placed in military families after falsification of the relevant documents.
Galtieri was arrested in 1983 and accused of human rights violations as well as incompetence in the Falklands affair. | |     click for more... | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Argentina | | | date of birth : | | | 15.07.1926 | | | judgement period : | | | 22.04.1985 - 09.12.1985 | | | charges : | | | Other | | | profile last modified : | | | 13.12.2006 |
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