Word: videla
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...junta. Hillenbrand tells us nothing about what the millions of Argentine workers think. He quotes not one of the more than 10,000 political prisoners, and not a single relative of those hundreds who have "disappeared." Nor do we hear from any of the other thousands of victims of Videla's military dictatorship, which rules by terror-kidnaping, torture and murder...
Members of the junta admit that torture takes place, although they deny it is systematic. They argue that harsh tactics are justified "in direct proportion to the nature of the attack." Says Videla: "What is Argentina to do? Does it defend itself or does it let its way of life be changed? I reply: Argentina must defend itself against this aggression." President Carter's decision in February to cut U.S. arms aid was received with angry dismay. "Carter does not understand us," said one officer. "He is playing into the hands of the terrorists, not helping the forces...
...rail-thin Videla, known as el Hueso (the Bone), is regarded as a moderate within the junta. Videla, who has resisted demands from hard-liners like Navy Admiral Emilio Massera for sterner repression of intellectuals and students, is committed to restoring civilian rule "once the situation permits." The military, he says, "does not have a totalitarian calling." Nonetheless, some Argentines fear there are high-ranking officers who would like to establish a neofascist regime...
That task has been assigned principally to Videla's wiry, pragmatic Economy Minister, José Martinez de Hoz, 51, former chairman of Argentina's largest private steel company. If the country's economy can be saved, business leaders agree, he can do it. Thanks largely to his conservative fiscal policies, Argentina's foreign reserves have grown in the past year from $23 million to more than $2.3 billion. After a $1 billion deficit in 1975, the country's 1976 balance of payments returned to the black, buoyed by a record 11.2 million-ton wheat harvest...
...Videla is determined to wrestle down the unions' "political power and abnormal privileges." Toward that goal, Martinez de Hoz is trying to prune the mammoth state-run industrial sector, a Perón-era albatross that produces less than 10% of Argentina's G.N.P.-and much of the government's debts and deficits. State enterprises employ an estimated 300,000 unnecessary workers. But the Economy Minister's plans to cut bloated staff and sell losing businesses to private firms have run into strong union opposition. When Videla raised the work week of Buenos Aires' huge...