Nearly 50 years have passed since Argentina’s former president Isabel Martínez de Perón was overthrown by a civic-military coup on March 24, 1976. A military dictatorship led by Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti seized control of the country.
There had been five previous coups in Argentina between 1930 and 1966. But the regime that came to power in 1976, calling itself the “process of national reorganisation”, stood out for its systematic campaign of political violence and terror until the end of its rule in 1983.
The dictatorship violently dismantled political parties, trade unions, social and student movements and guerrilla opposition groups. Censorship was also widespread. The military controlled the media, supervised universities and persecuted thousands of intellectuals and artists or forced them into exile.
