Dictatorship

Dictatorship (1976-1983)

When Argentina's debt started growing

A military coup took power in 1976 with Rafael Videla as a leader, and exercised power until 1983. The armed forces repressed the population using harsh torturing measures and censorship. Most of the military repressors were trained in the U.S. financed School of the Americas.

Economic problems, charges of corruption, public revulsion in the face of human rights abuses and, finally, the country's 1982 defeat in the Falklands War discredited the Argentine military regime.

Servicio pagado 1976-2000 : 212 280 millones de dólares. Economy Minister created a speculative model that destroyed the country’s economy. Most of the loans came from American banks. Every public company was forced to borrow money from these banks. For instance, the main state company, YPF’s external debt went up to $372 million. Seven years later, they were owing $6,000 million. However, the money the company was borrowing wasn’t for them, but for the dictatorship. The military leaders and the IMF were backing up this massive borrowing as a way to increase their reserves in a foreign currency to maintain an open market economy. 83% of these reserves, which were managed by the army, were all deposit in foreign banks.The interest they got from those reserves was still lower than the interest they had to pay for the debt. The main purposes of the army were: 1) get money for themselves 2) increase international reservs to sostein the huge increase in imports, mainly weapons 3) the open market model and the debt recommended by the IMF allowed the dictatorship to have a better image with the US. The Federal Reserve was encouraging the debt since most of it was deposit in American banks.