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events for 1983
| Jan 11, 1983 | Humor issue 97 banned. The issue featues a cartoon of General Nicolaides and also mentions the rumored converation between Judge Narvaiz and Army legal advisor Héctor Lopez Domínguez. |
| Jan 27, 1983 | Spanish daily El Pueblo prints interview with Buenos Aires police chief Camps who is quoted as saying that there are no missing still alive. He estimates that 6,000-8,000 “disappeared” in Argentina between 1973 and 1979, and denies the existence of paramilitary groups, instead saying that the armed forces controlled the fight against subversion. Asked wheither the Army fought terrorists with terrorist methods, Camps replied “why not?” |
| Jan 31, 1983 | An estimated 1,200 demonstrators march in the Plaza de Mayo, demanding the return of the “missing.” |
| Feb 2, 1983 | Army chaplain José Miguel Medina says that there are no clandestine jails or camps, and says it would be good for relatives of “disappeared” people to face reality. His comments inspire outrage among human rights groups. |
| Feb 8, 1983 | Appeals court overturns a lower court ruling which had ordered Humor issue 97 released. Herald says that this ruling implies the regime can ban any issue it wants. |
| Feb 9, 1983 | Government bans latest Quorum, saying that it gave a distorted picture of the governments role in the fight against “subversion action.” |
| Feb 15, 1983 | Former Secretary for Economic Programming and Coordination Guillermo Walter Klein placed under preventive arrest for his role in liquidating the Banco de los Andes. |
| Feb 21, 1983 | Holmberg case closed a second time for lack of evidence. |
| Feb 28, 1983 | President Bignone announces that elections will be held on October 30, 1983. |
| Mar 4, 1983 | Peronist Humberto Luis Raffatella abducted and tortured in the presence of a doctor after being dragged from a house where neighbors tried to shelter him. While in captivity, he reports being told “you’re one of those people who think that the [intelligence] services can’t repress anymore — this should show you differently.” Raffatella also reports that his captors said “you guys are idiots. You keep asking about 30,000 missing people, when there are really 45,000 — and we killed 40,000 of them.” |
| Mar 11, 1983 | Government bans issue of Quorum for the third time this year. The banned issue contained a detailed account of tortures at the Naval Mechanics School (ESMA) and included names of suspected torturers and information on the 3.3.2 task force — a death squad led by the infamous Navy Captain Alfredo Astíz who becomes known as the “angel of death.” |
| Mar 23, 1983 | Government confiscates La Semana issue containing, among other articles, an interview with Quorum’s former editor who is quoted as saying “it wasn’t the military government that took over in 1976 — it was the P-2 Lodge.” |
| Mar 24, 1983 | Police seek La Semana editor Jorge Fontevecchia, accusing him of being part of a British plot to destabilize the government. Fontevecchia takes shelter in the Venezuelan embassy. |
| Mar 24, 1983 | Bishop of Quilmes, Monsignor Adolfo Novak, says that an amnesty law should be passed for “dirty war” crimes. |
| Mar 24, 1983 | Issue 328 of La Semana stopped because it contains an investigation of Navy captain Alfredo Astíz. |
| Mar 28, 1983 | General strike cripple country for second time in three months. Declared 95% successful by labor leaders. |
| Apr 11, 1983 | Army chief General Nicolaides orders former president Galtieri imprisoned for 60 days for recently published comments he made criticizing the military’s conduct in the Malvinas/Falkands war. |
| Apr 15, 1983 | Court orders government to return the seized copies of La Semanaissue 328. |
| Apr 15, 1983 | An estimated 15,000 take part in human rights march for the “disappeared,” declaring “we want them back alive.” The government refuses to accept the demonstrator’s petition requesting the reappearance of 20,000 missing people. |
| Apr 19, 1983 | the Center of Legal and Socal Studies (CELS) holds a press conference announcing the existence of 47 secret detention centers in Buenos Aires. |
| Apr 21, 1983 | Herald editor James Neilson receives a telephone threat from a supposed Triple-A spokesman who give him 48 hours to leave the country. |
| Apr 28, 1983 | Armed forces release their official final report on the “Dirty War,” saying that 2,050 people died in 742 clashes between security forces and terrorists between 1973 and 1979, and downplaying “disappearances.” |
| Apr 28, 1983 | An estimated 1,000 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo hold their weekly demonstration in the pouring rain, marking the 6th anniversary of their first demonstration. |
| Apr 30, 1983 | Police reportedly kill Montonero leader Raúl Clemente Yaguer, alias “Comandante Roque.” |
| May 5, 1983 | A reported 4,000 gather with the Mothers in the Plaza de Mayo to protest the armed forces final report on the “Dirty War.” |
| May 6, 1983 | Agustín Peralta’s case come to light after he wins a labor dispute but it turns out he “disappeared” in 1977. |
| May 13, 1983 | Over 100 unidentified corpses reported found in San Miguél de Tucumán, where a florist reports that trucks often delivered corpses in canvas sacks to the cemetary “until a few years ago.” |
| May 14, 1983 | Leftwing peronist militant Osvaldo Cambiasso and friend Eduardo Pereira Rossi abducted from a bar in Rosario by heavily armed men. |
| May 17, 1983 | Buenos Aires police report that Cambiasso and Rossi were killed in a shootout with police on May 14. The report is widely doubted. |
| May 20, 1983 | An estimated 30,000 march in Buenos Aires to protest the shooting of Cambiasso and Rossi. Marchers are accompanied by Pérez Esquivel, on the 11th day of a 13-day hunger strike. |
| Jun 3, 1983 | Government lifts ban on strikes in place since the coup. |
| Jun 3, 1983 | Anonymous letter to CELS (the Center for Legal and Social Studies) says that the Cambiasso and Rossi killings were arranged to look like deaths from a shootout. In reality, the writer says, the two were chloroformed and shot in the back. |
| Jun 11, 1983 | Former Radical Party senator Hipolito Solari Yrigoyen returns to Argentina after six years in exile. |
| Jun 13, 1983 | Former junta member Massera ordered arrested by Judge Oscar Salvi in connection with the April 77 “disappearance” of Fernando Branca who went missing after leaving for a sailing trip with the admiral. |
| Jun 13, 1983 | Police raid offices of La Voz after the paper prints a story accusing the government of selling arms to Honduran-based rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government. |
| Jun 18, 1983 | Massera enters to prison and faces judge Oscar Mario Salvi on charges relating to the “disappearance” of Fernando Branca. |
| Jun 21, 1983 | Supreme Court closes case involving 106 unidentified bodies in the Chacarita cemetary in Buenos Aires, declaring that that morgue followed correct procedures in disposing of the bodies whose cause of death was largely listed as “assault and resisting authority — homicide.” |
| Jun 30, 1983 | Judge Laura Damianovich de Cerredo is disbarred, accused of illegally holding suspects. Responding to charges that she overlooked torture, the judge admitted she may have been “forgetful,” omitting some accusations of mistreatment by prisoners, and said that a broken photocopier had made it impossible to reproduce some proceedings. |
| Jul 13, 1983 | Government approves call for elections on October 30. |
| Jul 17, 1983 | Radical Party candidate for president Raúl Alfonsín wins landslide victory in the Buenos Aires primary. |
| Jul 22, 1983 | Investigation reveals that Cambiasso and Rossi, killed on May 14 in a supposed shootout with police, had been beaten and tortured before death, then shot from close range. |
| Aug 6, 1983 | Some Radical Party representatives call for an investigation into another 100 unidentified bodies unearthed by a bulldozer. |
| Aug 9, 1983 | Government lifts 1976 bans on union and political activity. |
| Aug 11, 1983 | Nationalist leader Guillermo Patricio Kelly accuses mysterious figure Aníbal Gordon of involvement in the murder of Elena Holmberg and others. |
| Aug 18, 1983 | Massera indicted in case alleging his involvement with the Triple-A. Judge Dibur, who is handling the case reports receiving threats. |
| Aug 19, 1983 | Over 35,000 attend march to protest the government’s proposed “amnesty law.” |
| Aug 24, 1983 | Guillermo Patricio Kelly, who weeks before had accused a supposed Aníbal Gordon, is abducted. |
| Aug 25, 1983 | Kelly, abducted the previous day, turns up alive and accuses labor leader Lorenzo Miguel of involvement in his kidnapping. He later says Aníbal Gordon, a man he had accused of terror squad involvement, was part of the squad that abducted him, and that he had been released because public reaction to his “disappearance” was too great. |
| Sep 1, 1983 | Guillermo Kelly says that one of his abductors was from the private detective agency Magister. |
| Sep 4, 1983 | Guillermo Kelly gives details on several more people he believes were involved in his kidnapping. Attended by a crowd and referring to himself as “Rambo,” Kelly visits the house of two people he accused of death squad membership carving a large K in the door of one. |
| Sep 8, 1983 | A group of men reportedly from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) beat a group of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who had accused CGT-Brazil of doing nothing for arrested and missing workers. |
| Sep 22, 1983 | Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo stage and 24-hour vigil which attracts 12,000. |
| Sep 23, 1983 | Government issues self-amnesty law, which they call the “national pacification law.” |
| Sep 25, 1983 | Judge Alfredo Giorgi confirms that a police garage in Floresta was used as a clandestine prison known as “Olimpo.” |
| Sep 27, 1983 | Junta releases the text of their new “Law for the defence of Democracy,” number 22,928, allowing the taping of phone conversations and surveillance of correspondence from organizations the state believes to be connected with subversion. |
| Oct 7, 1983 | 100,000 turn out to support Radical candidate Alfonsín in Córdoba. |
| Oct 17, 1983 | Peronist rally with 180,000 in Vélez stadium is marred by violent incidents |
| Oct 18, 1983 | Three policemen detained five months ago in connection with the killings of Cambiasso and Rossi released, officially for lack of evidence. |
| Oct 20, 1983 | Conflict erupts at Mothers of the Plaza demonstration between the Mothers and a group distributing pamphlets saying that the “disappeared” were members of terrorist organizations. DYN Photographer Rodolfo del Percio, who was recording the event, is attacked. |
| Oct 26, 1983 | Giant end-of-campaign rally for Radical candidate Raúl Alfonsín and running-mate Víctor Martínez draws close to a million people. |
| Oct 28, 1983 | Giant final campaign rally for Peronist candidate for president Italo Luder and running-mate Deolindo Bittel draws around a million people, while Alfonsín draws 400,000 to Córdoba. |
| Oct 29, 1983 | President Bignone announces that the state of siege will be lifted for voting the following day. |
| Oct 30, 1983 | Alfonsín and Martínez defeat Luder and Bittel for the presidency. |
| Dec 6, 1983 | Junta dissolves. |
| Dec 10, 1983 | Alfonsín takes office as president. |