A Dictatorship is a country, government or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator. It is usually violent. These are some examples of the dictatorships in Latin America.
PERU
Peru has had over a dozen coup, often short-lived, sometimes populist. Below is a small sample.
Manuel A. Odria (1948-56)
Modified the penal code to punish "political terrorism" with the death penalty, adopted a draconian Internal Security Law, suppressed opposition party APRA.
Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-75) A rare left-leaning dictator, Alvarado stifled some dissent (exiling publishers), nationalized companies, and pursued relations with the Soviet Union. As his health deteriorated, he was overthrown.
OPERATION CONDOR Peru joins in 1978
ECUADOR
A military coup in 1963 to keep the country from going communist, commences with jailing or exiling the entire leadership of the communist left and reorganizing the universities to squash the left. The junta returns power in 1967. The leader of the 1972 coup, General Guillermo Rodríguez Lara, believed in “revolutionary nationalism” and created state-run companies, often run directly by the armed forces,as part of an effort to replace foreign-produced goods and services with nationally produced goods and services. The state expanded its role in industries such as the telephone service, airlines, tourism, hotels,and steel. In addition, the government joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). He is deposed by the military in a series of coups in 75/76. Power is handed back in 79.
OPERATION CONDOR Ecuador is known to have participated beginning in 1978. It is unclear to the extent, but is believed to have been peripheral.
CUBA
Fulgencio Batista
Runs the country after a coup in 1933, but is finally elected in 1940. Installed in power by the US in 1952 and rules until being overthrown by the Cuban Revolution. Complete stooge of US corporations and the American Mafia.
CHILE
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973 to 90)
heads coup against President Salvador Allende on Sept 11, 1973. Orders thousands of leftists rounded up, tortured and murdered in the basement of the national sports stadium. Between 5,000 and 30,000 people are believed to have been killed in the operations of Pinochet's regime.
OPERATION CONDOR killed Chilean activists, generals, trade-unionists, and threatened US Congressman (and later NYC Mayor) Ed Koch. The assassination of several people in Washington, D.C. led to the some diplomatic tensions with the U.S. Many Chileans were "disappeared."
BRAZIL
A Military Junta (1964-85), supported by the US [principally, the CIA, the ITT corporation], ousts João Goulart. Congress was shut down, political opposition was reduced to virtual extinction, habeas corpus for "political crimes" was suspended, criticism of the president was forbidden by law, labor unions were taken over by government interveners, mounting protests were met by police and military firing into crowds, peasants' homes were burned down, priests were brutalized...disappearances, death squads, a remarkable degree and depravity of torture...the government had a name for its program: the "moral rehabilitation" of Brazil. Kennedy Ambassador Lincoln Gordon refers to this as "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the mid-twentieth century."
OPERATION CONDOR According to a government-sponsored truth and reconciliation commission in 2007, by the end of the 21 years of dictatorship there were 339 documented cases of government-sponsored political assassinations or disappearances. More were interrogated, tortured, and jailed.
ARGENTINA
Eduardo A. Lonardi Doucet (1955-58)
Overthrew Peron in 1955, deposed two months later by General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu who ruled for three years. Aramburu is later kidnapped and killed in 1970 by the Montoneros in retaliation for his murder of a Peronist-General.
Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-70), a month into his regime ordered La Noche de los Bastones Largos ("The Night of the Long Police Batons"), beating and arresting University professors and students. Overthrown by General Roberto M. Levingston (1970-71) who was then deposed himself byGeneral Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (1971-73).
Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-83)
One of the leaders of the Military Coup, appoints himself president and commences the dirty war. Currently living under House Arrest.
OPERATION CONDOR Alongside the "Dirty War," upwards of 30,000 are "disappeared:" abducted, tortured, killed, their bodies hidden; often their infant children would be kidnapped and adopted by military officers or the wealthy.
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