Background

Raul Ricardo Alfonsin was born in Chascomus, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, on March 13, 1927.

Education

After completing primary school, he entered the General San Martin Military Academy, graduating five years later as a second lieutenant (reserve).

Career

Alfonsin became active in the Movimiento de Intransigencia y Renovacion (Movement for Intransigence and Renovation). This was a reform movement that attempted to give new life to the Radical party after its defeat in the February 1946 presidential elections which brought Gen. Juan Domingo Peron to power. The same year (1945) he joined the Radical party, Alfonsin entered law school. Upon graduation in 1950 he returned to his hometown, where he began to practice law, published a newspaper (El Imparcial), and was elected a member of the Chascomus city council. After the September 1955 military coup put an end to nine years of Peronist rule and banned all political activity by Gen. Peron's followers, the Radical party emerged as the best organized and strongest political force.

In 1958 Alfonsin was elected provincial deputy, although Frondizi won the presidency. In 1960 Alfonsin was reelected for a four year term, but his mandate was terminated in 1962 when President Frondizi was deposed by another military coup. The following year the military held elections. Since the Peronist party was still banned, Arturo Illia, the UCRP candidate, won the contest. Alfonsin was elected national deputy for a four year term and became vice-president of the Radical caucus, but once again a military coup put an abrupt end to his mandate when Gen. Juan Carlos Onganía deposed President Illia in 1966.

The new military regime sought to transform Argentina and announced widescale reforms. Six years and two military coups later the armed forces decided to return the government to civilians, allow the Peronists to run for office, and put an end to Peron's long exile, permitting his return to Argentina. The call for elections brought about a heated debate within the Radical party. Balbin's longstanding leadership was challenged by a new reform movement, the Movimiento de Renovación y Cambio (Movement for Renewal and Change), created in 1972. Alfonsin was one of its founders and became its presidential candidate. Balbin and the party old guard successfully contained Alfonsin's challenge. Defeated, Alfonsin supported Balbin, who received the endorsement of the Radical party. The March 1973 elections, however, returned the Peronists to power and eventually led to Perón's third term in office. The Peronists stayed in power until 1976 when another military coup deposed President Maria Estela Martinez de Peron (Isabel), who had succeeded her husband in 1974. The coup put an end to a period marked by significant right-wing and left-wing violence, government corruption and inefficiency, and economic chaos.

Headed by a junta composed of the commanders-in-chief of the three armed forces, the new government announced the beginning of the "Proceso de Reorganizacion National" (Process of National Reorganization). While enacting unprecedented liberal policies intended to bring about economic development, it proceeded to establish a rigid authoritarian regime which became the most repressive government in the history of modern Argentina. Responding to guerrilla violence with state terrorism, the junta launched a brutal campaign that led to large scale human rights violations and killed thousands of innocent persons, including children. Despite the ban on political activity, Alfonsín was an early critic of the junta's human rights violations. He was a co-founder and active member of the Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos (Permanent Assembly for Human Rights) which included prominent jurists, politicians, and churchmen. He also became its president, together with Monsignor Jaime de Nevares, Bishop of Neuguen. By 1980 the armed forces faced serious economic difficulties and found themselves increasingly unable to solve the problems created by their anti-guerrilla campaign, especially the question of the desaparecidos (disappeared), persons who had been kidnapped by security forces and had literally disappeared. The defeat of the Argentine armed forces in the April-June 1982 war with the United Kingdom over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands hastened the deterioration of the military regime. A transition government headed by Gen. Reynaldo Bignone was given the task of holding elections and negotiating assurances that the armed forces would not be held accountable for their acts during the "dirty war, " as the military itself called the anti-guerrilla campaign. General Bignone failed to reach an agreement with political parties, and elections were set for October 30, 1983.

Taking the initiative, Alfonsin successfully altered the minority status of Renovacion y Cambio within UCR and won his party nomination. Then, while the Peronists were still seeking a nominee, Alfonsin launched his campaign. He defined the elections as a contest in which the Radical party's democratic credentials were far superior to those of the Peronist party. He emphasized the need to restore the rule of law to Argentina, extolled democratic values, and projected an image of honesty and hope in the future that found a response not only among the middle class, but also made inroads in the traditionally Peronist working class. When the returns came in, Alfonsin had won the elections with 52 percent of the vote. When Alfonsín took office on December 10, 1983, he faced a difficult task. He had to strengthen democratic institutions, weakened by successive military coups since 1930; curb the armed forces; dismantle the security forces that had carried out the repressive campaign of the 1970s; satisfy the demands of human rights groups and relatives of desparecidos; and bring about the economic recovery of a country burdened by a $45 billion foreign debt. Taking an exceptional step, he brought the members of the three military juntas that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1982 to trial. Although he failed in his attempt to democratize the labor movement, he tackled inflation with a bold economic plan and, despite his austerity measures, managed to increase his support in the 1985 congressional elections. Carlos Saul Menem, from the (Peronist) Justicialist Party, was elected President of Argentina in 1989 and re-elected in 1995.

Achievements

• Alfonsin is considered the "father of modern democracy in Argentina". He established the Argentine Foundation for the Freedom of Information.
  
  Alfonsin was an effective president, and that he set an example of not using the state for personal gain. He received the 1985 Princess of Asturias Award for international cooperation because of both his role in ending the Beagle dispute and his work to reestablish democracy in Argentina.

Works

More photos

• book

  • La cuestión argentina.

    ((Publication Date: 1984) Trabajo de Alfonsín en el que re...)

  • Por que?, doctor Alfonsi?n? (Spanish Edition)

    ((Author: Giussani Pablo  ) El pensamiento del Presidente ...)

  • Hombre de prensa: La actividad periodi?stica de Rau?l Alfonsi?n (Spanish Edition)

    (El autor nacido en Chascomús, prov. de Bs. As., es licenc...)

Politics

He joined the Union Civica Radical (Radical Civic Union, UCR, also known as Radical party) in 1945. However, before the 1958 presidential elections took place the party split. It went to the polls divided into the Union Civica Radical Intransigente (Radical Intransigent Union, UCRI), which eventually changed its name to MID, Movimiento de Integracion y Desarrollo (Movement for Integration and Development), led by Arturo Frondizi and the Union Civica Radical del Pueblo (The People's Radical Civic Union, UCRP) under the leadership of Ricardo Balbin. Alfonsin joined Balbin's party. He became the leader of the UCR after Balbín's death.

He opposed both sides of the Dirty War, and several times filed a writ of Habeas corpus, requesting the freedom of victims of forced disappearances, during the National Reorganization Process.

Connections

He married Maria Lorenza Barreneche, whom he met in the 1940s at a masquerade ball, in 1949.

Spouse:

Maria Lorenza Barreneche

References

• RAUL ALFONSIN (Spanish Edition)