timeline

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1975 – 1976 – 1977 – 1978 – 1979 – 1980 – 1981 – 1982 – 1983

events for 1980

Jan 2, 1980	Judge Anzoátegui, who order recent raids on human rights groups, orders a probe of the issue of “disappeared” people. Little comes of this.
Jan 18, 1980	A group of European Socialists propose the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Jan 21, 1980	Borges receives the Cervantes Literary Award in Spain.
Jan 25, 1980	US presidential envoy General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster meets with President Videla to discuss Argentina’s trade links with the USSR.
Jan 28, 1980	Carlos Menem and Jorge Vázquez (former sub-secretary of foreign relations) liberated.
Jan 30, 1980	British Television Company Granada Television names Robert Cox the “Best Editor of the Year” for 1979.
Feb 5, 1980	Government makes public a section of the US State Department’s human rights report on Argentina, which includes estimates of the number of missing people in Argentina and suggests that the situation improved in 78 and 79.
Feb 12, 1980	Argentine pianist Miguel Angel Estrella expelled from Uruguay. A Uruguayan court had found him guilty of Montonero membership in August, 1978 and sentenced him to 4.5 years in prison.
Feb 12, 1980	General Santiago Omar Riveros — commander of Military Institutes/head of Campo de Mayo region, gives his farewell speech to the Inter-American Defense Council in Washington, DC, saying that the anti-subversive fight in Argentina “never needed, as some accuse, paramilitary organizations,” and that the armed forces “made war with a doctrine in hand.”
Mar 6, 1980	President Videla announces on national TV that the government will begin a dialogue with political leaders, but will exclude corrupt and subversive elements and also those who “sustain ideologies [which are] incompatible with our national lifestyle.”
Mar 20, 1980	Police arrest a reported 28 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as they attempt to demonstrate in the Plaza for the first time since their banning from the plaza. Herald photographer also held.
Mar 26, 1980	Harguindeguy begins rounds of “dialogue,” speaking to representatives of Democracia Progresista.
Apr 12, 1980	Radical politician Balbín says on Spanish TV that the missing in Argentina are all dead. The statement provokes conflict with human rights groups in Argentina.
Apr 14, 1980	Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report handed to Foreign Minister Pastor. Only the conclusion, combined with a lengthy rebuttal from the Argentine government, is released within Argentina.
Apr 17, 1980	Lorenzo Miguel released after 4 years, 25 days arrest.
Apr 18, 1980	The Organization of American States releases highly critical report on human rights in Argentina. The report is not distributed in Argentina, although clandestine copies are circulated by human rights groups.
Apr 27, 1980	The New York Times, citing reports of 5,800 “disappearances,” says that the International Human Rights Committee report shows that Argentina’s government has taken actions approaching “state terrorism.”
May 1, 1980	Color TV broadcast starts in Argentina.
May 5, 1980	Robert Cox, speaking in Italy, says that more than 60 journalists have “disappeared” in the last 4 years in Argentina.
May 7, 1980	Argentine government releases reply to the OAS International Human Rights Committee report.
May 8, 1980	Argentina says that it won’t participate in the Moscow Olympics for ideological reasons. In June, however, the National Grain Junta reports that 62% of exported grain is purchased by the USSR.
Jun 15, 1980	Daughter of Lebanese counsel in Argentina “disappears.”
Jul 2, 1980	Rolando Rodriguez receives a 1-year suspended sentence for disrespect to national anthem after he remained seated when the song was played at a movie theatre.
Jul 2, 1980	Papers report twice as many business have failed in the first 6 months of 1980 than in the same period last year.
Jul 2, 1980	La Prensa reports that Argentina again has the highest inflation rate in the world at an annual 140%.
Jul 19, 1980	Editor James Neilson writes in the Herald that he and his family have been subjected to continual harrassment over the past 2 weeks, including a visit to his apartment by armed men.
Jul 28, 1980	Colonel Dotti, director of prisons, is quoted as saying that he’s tired of hearing about bad treatment and suicide of political prisoners.
Aug 7, 1980	Government removes the word “Obrero” from the name of Calle Obrero Roberto Nuñez.
Aug 12, 1980	Clarín publishes for the first time an ad requesting info on the “disappeared” with a long list of signatories including César Luís Menotti, Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Menem, Jorge Luís Borges, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
Aug 14, 1980	Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo hold press conference disrupted by a bomb threat in which they hand over an appeal for the “disappeared” with 12,500 signatures.
Sep 22, 1980	Menem detained again and banished to Formosa.
Sep 30, 1980	Junta postpones expected announcement on who will succeed Videla in the presidency.
Oct 2, 1980	Borges comes under fire in Argentina for speaking out about the “disappeared,” saying “they say the number of victims has been exaggerated…but one case would be enough.”
Oct 3, 1980	Junta announces that Viola will be the next president.
Oct 13, 1980	Announcement made that Argentine Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, founder of Servicio, Paz, Justicia, will be awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
Nov 5, 1980	Reagan beats Carter in US presidential race.
Nov 8, 1980	The Supreme Court temporarily suspends the right to strike.
Dec 10, 1980	On the day that Adolfo Pérez Esquivel officially receives the Nobel Peace Prize, the police break up demonstration of about 500 people in the Plaza de Mayo, arresting around 15.
Dec 19, 1980	Former Argentine president Cámpora dies in Cuernava, Mexico at 71.
Dec 22, 1980	Body of Roberto Daniel Rigoni, who “disappeared” in December 1976 , is returned to his family with the date of death listed as April 10, 1977. Reportedly the first case of such a return.

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