Jorge Rafael Videla, an austere former army commander who led Argentina during the bloodiest period of a "dirty war" dictatorship and was unrepentant about kidnappings and murders ordered by the state, died on Friday at age 87, Reuters reported. Videla was the first president to head the military junta that "disappeared" thousands of suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983, and he spent his final years behind bars for human rights crimes including the systematic theft of babies born to political prisoners in secret torture centers. He died of natural causes in his jail cell in a prison outside the capital, Buenos Aires, a government spokesman said. Rights groups say up to 30,000 people were "disappeared" - a euphemism for kidnapped and murdered - during the dictatorship, which began in March 1976 when Videla and two other military leaders staged a coup against President Maria Estela Martinez de Peron, the widow of former leader Juan Domingo Peron. Argentina's left-wing guerrilla groups such as the Montoneros had been weakened by the time Videla came to power. He targeted union organizers, students, journalists and anyone else perceived to be associated with communism. Last year Videla told an Argentine journalist that the crackdown he oversaw was the price that Argentina had to pay in order to remain a republic. -- SPA 19:05 LOCAL TIME 16:05 GMT تغريد
