Emilio Massera, Leader of Brutal Argentine Junta, Dies at 85

[Judi Lynn]

Emilio Massera, Leader of Brutal Argentine Junta, Dies at 85
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times

BUENOS AIRES -- Emilio Massera, a leader of the military junta of Argentina's bloody dictatorship and the former head of the country's most notorious political prison, where an estimated 5,000 people were tortured and killed, died here on Monday. He was 85. His death, at a naval hospital, was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, an army spokesman said. Mr. Massera had been mostly bedridden since 2002, when he had a stroke. He had been treated for a heart condition and dementia for years.

Mr. Massera, along with Jorge Videla and Orlando Agosti, formed the military junta that, on March 24, 1976, ousted President Isabel Perón, widow of Juan Domingo Perón, the founder of the country's populist movement.

Known by some historians as the "grand orator" of the dictatorship for his captivating rhetoric, Mr. Massera operated the Naval Mechanics School, a clandestine prison known as ESMA where thousands of political prisoners were tortured over the six years of the regime, which collapsed in 1983.

Mr. Massera was "the most sinister character in our history because he was a serial assassin, without exaggeration," Osvaldo Bayer, an Argentine historian, said in a radio interview. "He took advantage of his uniform for power and money."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10314/1102119-82.stm

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Mothers of the Plaza protesting the murders of their children by
the right-wing, Kissinger-assisted military torture-happy dictatorship.