Antonio Domingo Bussi
Encyclopedia
Antonio Domingo Bussi was an Army General and politician prominent in the recent history of Tucumán Province
, Argentina
.
in Argentina's Entre Ríos Province
on 17 January 1926. He entered the National Military College
in 1943 and graduated in 1947 as a second lieutenant
in the Army's Infantry
Division. He was assigned to Regiment 28 in the city of Goya
, and was later made an instructor in the General San Martín Lyceum. Promoted to captain in 1954, he entered the War College to train as a staff officer, and remained there three years transferring to the Army's Mountain Division in Mendoza Province
. He married Josefina Beatriz Bigoglio; the couple had four children.
Bussi was designated Master of military logistics
by the Army High Command, and he taught the discipline in the General Luis María Campos War College. In that capacity, he was sent to receive further instruction at the Command and General Staff College
, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Appointed lieutenant colonel
upon his return in 1964, he briefly served as Chief of Staff at Army Headquarters.
Named head of the 19th Mountain Infantry Regiment in Tucumán Province, in 1969 he was sent as part of an Argentine Army commission of observers to the Vietnam War
theatre, and returned to Army Headquarters in a bureaucratic capacity. Bussi was promoted to brigadier general
in 1975, named head of the Tenth Infantry Brigade of the city of Buenos Aires
, and in December, he was tapped to replace General Acdel Vilas as commander of Operativo Independencia
, a military offensive ordered early that year by President Isabel Perón to counter a growing People's Revolutionary Army
(ERP) insurgency in Tucumán, which had already resulted in the deaths of at least 43 troops and 160 insurgents.
to a more remote, rural location, and ordered the use of torture. The move was made to evade inspections by international human rights
agencies, by concealing or transferring prisoners prior to their visits. The 24 March 1976, military coup
resulted in Bussi's appointment as Governor of Tucumán, and in the worsening of an already repressive human and legal rights situation.
The report of the Congressional Commission on Human Rights Violations in the Province of Tucumán described the Bussi administration as a vast repressive apparatus, directed mainly against labor union leaders, political figures, academics and students (many of whom were known to be unrelated to the climate of left-wing violence in evidence during the early 1970s). However, according to Professor Paul H. Lewis, a large percentage of the disappeared in Tucumán were indeed students, professors and recent graduates of the local university, who had allegedly been caught providing supplies and information to the guerrillas. After handing over command of the 5th Mountain Brigade to Bussi in mid-December 1975, Brigadier-General Acdel Vilas (who had largely defeated the rural insurgency in Tucuman) later wrote that he received a telephone call after Christmas from Bussi and that he commented, "Vilas, you've left me with nothing much to do."
The Argentine military maintained in early 1976 that the guerrillas posed a serious problem, although they expressed guarded optimism that they were gaining control of the situation.The Baltimore Sun reported at the time, "In the jungle-covered mountains of Tucuman, long known as 'Argentina's garden', Argentines are fighting Argentines in a Vietnam-style civil war. So far, the outcome is in doubt. But there is no doubt about the seriousness of the combat, which involves 2,000 or so leftist guerrillas and perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers."
In all, 293 servicemen and policemen were killed in left wing terrorist incidents between 1975 and 1976. Combating a recently-formed ERP alliance in Tucumán with the Montoneros
, an extremist group better known for attacks and kidnappings in urban areas, Bussi achieved a major success on 13 February 1976, when his parachute forces on loan from the elite Córdoba-based 4th Airborne Brigade ambushed and defeated the elite 65-strong Montoneros jungle company sent to rekindle the insurgency in Tucuman. Despite this defeat, the ERP reinforced the guerrilla front with their "Decididos de Córdoba" Company from Córdoba provinceand 24 armed clashes took place in 1976, resulting in the deaths of 74 guerrillas and 18 soldiers and police in Tucumán province. The Argentine Army 4th Airborne Infantry Brigade and local police scored further successes in mid-April in the city of Córdoba, when in a series of raids it captured and later killed some 300 militants entrusted with supporting the ERP military operations.
A Police Investigations Brigade was formed to attach selected policemen to Army shock troop
s, and these units were responsible for, among other civilian attacks, the bombing of the National University of Tucumán, the Provincial Legislature, the local headquarters of the centrist Radical Civic Union
, the Communist Party
, the Socialist Party, and the Tucumán Bar Association
. Lawyers were intimidated into refusing to defend captured guerrillas and their sympathizers, and those who proved uncooperative had their offices ransacked or bombed. Some lawyers were assassinated outright. Doctors, politicians and trade unionists were also subject to kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and torture. Bussi's personal role in the atrocities included the murder of detainees with his own hands in at least three cases. Bussi was known for requiring his prisoners to recite the Our Father and the Hail Mary, exhorting them to give thanks for having lived one day longer.
His administration was efficient economically. An expressway
connecting the capital to suburbs to the north was completed, as well as numerous schools, parks, and clinics. The Swedish
industrial firm Scania
opened a facility in Colombres
during his tenure that remains the fourth-largest maker of freight trucks and buses in the country. However, Bussi used his office to amass more than three million dollars in property and real estate (at 1976-77 prices), and expropriated large numbers of properties without compensation; among his administration's more bizarre crimes was the expulsion of 25 homeless men to mountainous, neighboring Catamarca Province
in the dead of winter and without provisions of any kind.
A June 1976 operation succeeded in capturing People's Revolutionary Army
(ERP) leader Mario Roberto Santucho
, who was taken alive and died in a military hospital. His body was frozen and later publicly displayed by Bussi at the dictatorship's Museum of Subversion, outside Buenos Aires. Argentine intelligence officers claimed ERP guerrillas were responsible for the deaths of at least 700 people in addition to scores of attacks on police and military units as well as kidnappings and robberies.Bussi was made second in command of the base upon his removal as Governor in 1977, and retired from active duty in 1981 with the rank of General
.
in 1983 led to the indictments of dozens of members of the armed forces of various human rights violations, including General Bussi. Litigation against Bussi and hundreds of others was suspended by the December 1986 "Full Stop Law"
, which limited indictments to those that could be secured within 60 days of its enactment. The law was sponsored by President Raúl Alfonsín
as a result of military pressure. Bussi was thus spared trial on charges of unlawful imprisonment, torture, murder and of falsifying documents.In late 1990, before any trials could commence against him and fellow officers, President Carlos Menem
pardoned him as well as 64 left-wing guerrilla commanders, including ERP commanders responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians and members of the government forces.In a televised address to the nation, President Menem said, "I have signed the decrees so we may begin to rebuild the country in peace, in liberty and in justice... We come from long and cruel confrontations. There was a wound to heal."Lieutenant-General Félix Martín Bonnet, commander of the Argentine Army at the time, welcomed the pardons as an "inspiration of the armed forces, not only because those who had been their commanders were deprived of their freedom, but because many of their present members fought, and did so, in fulfillment of express orders."
Free from litigation, Bussi ran as a candidate for the Tucumán Provincial Legislature in 1997 on the conservative, "Provincial Defense/White Flag" ticket. Obtaining a surprising 18% of the vote, the showing (and his base of support among large provincial landowners) encouraged him to form the Republican Force
party and run for Governor in 1991. He led the polls during much of the campaign, though the Justicialist Party
's selection of a popular singer, Ramón "Palito" Ortega
, led to his defeat. Support from sugar plantation owners, who created the "Patriotic Fund" for a 1995 campaign, and Ortega's own lackluster performance as Governor, led to Bussi's election to the post in 1995. During his tenure, he had an important railyard
cooperative in Tafí Viejo
shuttered and faced charges of embezzlement for failing to disclose a Swiss bank account worth over US$ 100,000; when pressed on the issue, Bussi refused to confirm or deny the allegations.
The Republican Force party nominated Bussi's son, Ricardo Bussi Bigoglio, as a candidate for Governor in 1999, though his father's sagging approval led to the election of Justicialist candidate Julio Miranda
. The aging Bussi, in turn, was elected to the Lower House of Congress
that year. Congress rejected the certification due to his prominent role in crimes against humanity and evidence of massive, ongoing embezzlement. His election in 2003 as Mayor of San Miguel de Tucumán by 17 votes was likewise rejected and he was arrested on 15 October 2003 for his role in the 1976 disappearance of Congressman Guillermo Vargas Aignasse
.
Following the newly-elected President Néstor Kirchner
pledge to prosecute Dirty War
-era crimes, and Congress' 2003 rescission of the Full Stop
and Due Obedience Laws
which had sheltered the military officers and ERP, Montoneros, and other guerrilla commanders guilty of human-right abuses, Bussi became a defendant in more than 600 cases. The Federal Appeals Court of Tucumán ruled in December 2004 that the crimes committed during his term as Governor constituted crimes against humanity, were not subject to statutes of limitations, and thus subject to prosecution.
Bussi was ordered by judge Jorge Parache to be held under house arrest
, but in July 2007 the Argentine Supreme Court ruled that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority in denying Bussi his seat; the ruling did not supersede his ban from Congress as a convicted felon. Further charges resulted in his 28 August 2008, sentence of life imprisonment
without benefit of house arrest.
Bussi wept several times during his testimony, and described himself as the victim of political persecution, and thanked the soldiers who helped him to fight communism.
Bussi died on 24 November 2011, aged 85. He was under house arrest at Yerba Buena
at the time, but he was taken to a hospital in San Miguel de Tucumán the previous week due to failing health.
Tucumán Province
Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Early career
Bussi was born in VictoriaVictoria, Entre Ríos
Victoria is a city in the southwest of the province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. It is located on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, opposite Rosario, Santa Fe, to which it is connected since 2003 by the Rosario-Victoria Bridge .The site of a 1750 defeat of a native uprising and an 1810 oratory to...
in Argentina's Entre Ríos Province
Entre Rios
Entre Rios may refer to:*Entre Rios, Santa Catarina, a city of the Santa Catarina State, Brazil...
on 17 January 1926. He entered the National Military College
National Military College
The National Military College is the institution in charge of the undergraduate education of officers of the Argentine Army. It is located at El Palomar, Buenos Aires....
in 1943 and graduated in 1947 as a second lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the Army's Infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
Division. He was assigned to Regiment 28 in the city of Goya
Goya, Corrientes
Goya is a city in the south-west of the province of Corrientes in the Argentine Mesopotamia. It has about 87,000 inhabitants as of the .The city lies on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, opposite Reconquista, Santa Fe, 222 kilometres south from the provincial capital and 715 kilometres...
, and was later made an instructor in the General San Martín Lyceum. Promoted to captain in 1954, he entered the War College to train as a staff officer, and remained there three years transferring to the Army's Mountain Division in Mendoza Province
Mendoza Province
The Province of Mendoza is a province of Argentina, located in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders to the north with San Juan, the south with La Pampa and Neuquén, the east with San Luis, and to the west with the republic of Chile; the international limit is...
. He married Josefina Beatriz Bigoglio; the couple had four children.
Bussi was designated Master of military logistics
Military logistics
Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:...
by the Army High Command, and he taught the discipline in the General Luis María Campos War College. In that capacity, he was sent to receive further instruction at the Command and General Staff College
Command and General Staff College
The United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas is a graduate school for United States Army and sister service officers, interagency representatives, and international military officers. The college was established in 1881 by William Tecumseh Sherman as a...
, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Appointed lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
upon his return in 1964, he briefly served as Chief of Staff at Army Headquarters.
Named head of the 19th Mountain Infantry Regiment in Tucumán Province, in 1969 he was sent as part of an Argentine Army commission of observers to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
theatre, and returned to Army Headquarters in a bureaucratic capacity. Bussi was promoted to brigadier general
Brigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
in 1975, named head of the Tenth Infantry Brigade of the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, and in December, he was tapped to replace General Acdel Vilas as commander of Operativo Independencia
Operativo Independencia
Operativo Independencia was the code-name of the Argentine military operation in the Tucumán Province, started in 1975, to crush the ERP , a Guevarist guerrilla group which attempted to secede part of Tucuman as an independent nation, in the north-west of Argentina...
, a military offensive ordered early that year by President Isabel Perón to counter a growing People's Revolutionary Army
People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
(ERP) insurgency in Tucumán, which had already resulted in the deaths of at least 43 troops and 160 insurgents.
Tucumán
Bussi moved the secret detention center that his predecessor had installed in FamailláFamaillá
Famaillá is a city in the province of Tucumán, Argentina, located 30 km south from the provincial capital San Miguel de Tucumán. It has 30,951 inhabitants as per the , and is the head town of the Famaillá Department....
to a more remote, rural location, and ordered the use of torture. The move was made to evade inspections by international human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
agencies, by concealing or transferring prisoners prior to their visits. The 24 March 1976, military coup
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
resulted in Bussi's appointment as Governor of Tucumán, and in the worsening of an already repressive human and legal rights situation.
The report of the Congressional Commission on Human Rights Violations in the Province of Tucumán described the Bussi administration as a vast repressive apparatus, directed mainly against labor union leaders, political figures, academics and students (many of whom were known to be unrelated to the climate of left-wing violence in evidence during the early 1970s). However, according to Professor Paul H. Lewis, a large percentage of the disappeared in Tucumán were indeed students, professors and recent graduates of the local university, who had allegedly been caught providing supplies and information to the guerrillas. After handing over command of the 5th Mountain Brigade to Bussi in mid-December 1975, Brigadier-General Acdel Vilas (who had largely defeated the rural insurgency in Tucuman) later wrote that he received a telephone call after Christmas from Bussi and that he commented, "Vilas, you've left me with nothing much to do."
The Argentine military maintained in early 1976 that the guerrillas posed a serious problem, although they expressed guarded optimism that they were gaining control of the situation.The Baltimore Sun reported at the time, "In the jungle-covered mountains of Tucuman, long known as 'Argentina's garden', Argentines are fighting Argentines in a Vietnam-style civil war. So far, the outcome is in doubt. But there is no doubt about the seriousness of the combat, which involves 2,000 or so leftist guerrillas and perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers."
In all, 293 servicemen and policemen were killed in left wing terrorist incidents between 1975 and 1976. Combating a recently-formed ERP alliance in Tucumán with the Montoneros
Montoneros
Montoneros was an Argentine Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing...
, an extremist group better known for attacks and kidnappings in urban areas, Bussi achieved a major success on 13 February 1976, when his parachute forces on loan from the elite Córdoba-based 4th Airborne Brigade ambushed and defeated the elite 65-strong Montoneros jungle company sent to rekindle the insurgency in Tucuman. Despite this defeat, the ERP reinforced the guerrilla front with their "Decididos de Córdoba" Company from Córdoba provinceand 24 armed clashes took place in 1976, resulting in the deaths of 74 guerrillas and 18 soldiers and police in Tucumán province. The Argentine Army 4th Airborne Infantry Brigade and local police scored further successes in mid-April in the city of Córdoba, when in a series of raids it captured and later killed some 300 militants entrusted with supporting the ERP military operations.
A Police Investigations Brigade was formed to attach selected policemen to Army shock troop
Shock troop
Shock troop might refer to:* Shock troops, troops intended to lead an attack* Shock Troopers, an arcade game* Shock Troops , an album by punk rock band Cock Sparrer, released in 1982...
s, and these units were responsible for, among other civilian attacks, the bombing of the National University of Tucumán, the Provincial Legislature, the local headquarters of the centrist Radical Civic Union
Radical Civic Union
The Radical Civic Union is a political party in Argentina. The party's positions on issues range from liberal to social democratic. The UCR is a member of the Socialist International. Founded in 1891 by radical liberals, it is the oldest political party active in Argentina...
, the Communist Party
Communist Party of Argentina
The Communist Party of Argentina is a communist party from Argentina. It was founded in 1918.At the 2005 legislative elections, the Party joined the Encuentro Amplio with other left-wing parties in Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires Province...
, the Socialist Party, and the Tucumán Bar Association
Bar association
A bar association is a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both...
. Lawyers were intimidated into refusing to defend captured guerrillas and their sympathizers, and those who proved uncooperative had their offices ransacked or bombed. Some lawyers were assassinated outright. Doctors, politicians and trade unionists were also subject to kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and torture. Bussi's personal role in the atrocities included the murder of detainees with his own hands in at least three cases. Bussi was known for requiring his prisoners to recite the Our Father and the Hail Mary, exhorting them to give thanks for having lived one day longer.
His administration was efficient economically. An expressway
Limited-access road
A limited-access road known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway , including limited or no access to adjacent...
connecting the capital to suburbs to the north was completed, as well as numerous schools, parks, and clinics. The Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
industrial firm Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
opened a facility in Colombres
Colombres (Tucumán)
Colombres is a settlement in Tucumán Province in northern Argentina....
during his tenure that remains the fourth-largest maker of freight trucks and buses in the country. However, Bussi used his office to amass more than three million dollars in property and real estate (at 1976-77 prices), and expropriated large numbers of properties without compensation; among his administration's more bizarre crimes was the expulsion of 25 homeless men to mountainous, neighboring Catamarca Province
Catamarca Province
Catamarca is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province has a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km². Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are : Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja...
in the dead of winter and without provisions of any kind.
A June 1976 operation succeeded in capturing People's Revolutionary Army
People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
(ERP) leader Mario Roberto Santucho
Mario Roberto Santucho
Mario Roberto Santucho was an Argentine revolutionary. He was the leader of ERP . He was killed by the military in a shootout after his hideout was undercovered in 1976. His wife Liliana Delfino was also killed by the military of Argentina the same year.-References:*...
, who was taken alive and died in a military hospital. His body was frozen and later publicly displayed by Bussi at the dictatorship's Museum of Subversion, outside Buenos Aires. Argentine intelligence officers claimed ERP guerrillas were responsible for the deaths of at least 700 people in addition to scores of attacks on police and military units as well as kidnappings and robberies.Bussi was made second in command of the base upon his removal as Governor in 1977, and retired from active duty in 1981 with the rank of General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
.
Following the dictatorship
The restoration of democracyArgentine general election, 1983
The Argentine general election of 1983 was held on 30 October and marked the return of Democracy after the 1976's dictatorship self-known as National Reorganization Process...
in 1983 led to the indictments of dozens of members of the armed forces of various human rights violations, including General Bussi. Litigation against Bussi and hundreds of others was suspended by the December 1986 "Full Stop Law"
Ley de Punto Final
Ley de Punto Final was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional . Formally, this law is referred to by number Ley de Punto Final (Spanish, roughly translated Full Stop Law) was a law passed by the...
, which limited indictments to those that could be secured within 60 days of its enactment. The law was sponsored by President Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically-elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization...
as a result of military pressure. Bussi was thus spared trial on charges of unlawful imprisonment, torture, murder and of falsifying documents.In late 1990, before any trials could commence against him and fellow officers, President Carlos Menem
Carlos Menem
Carlos Saúl Menem is an Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. He is currently an Argentine National Senator for La Rioja Province.-Early life:...
pardoned him as well as 64 left-wing guerrilla commanders, including ERP commanders responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians and members of the government forces.In a televised address to the nation, President Menem said, "I have signed the decrees so we may begin to rebuild the country in peace, in liberty and in justice... We come from long and cruel confrontations. There was a wound to heal."Lieutenant-General Félix Martín Bonnet, commander of the Argentine Army at the time, welcomed the pardons as an "inspiration of the armed forces, not only because those who had been their commanders were deprived of their freedom, but because many of their present members fought, and did so, in fulfillment of express orders."
Free from litigation, Bussi ran as a candidate for the Tucumán Provincial Legislature in 1997 on the conservative, "Provincial Defense/White Flag" ticket. Obtaining a surprising 18% of the vote, the showing (and his base of support among large provincial landowners) encouraged him to form the Republican Force
Republican Force Tucumán
The Republican Force Tucumán is a provincial conservative political party in Tucumán Province, Argentina.The party was set up by Antonio Domingo Bussi, who was Tucumán's Governor during the eary years of the 1976-83 dictatorship, and was found guilty of murder, kidnapping, and corruption...
party and run for Governor in 1991. He led the polls during much of the campaign, though the Justicialist Party
Justicialist Party
The Justicialist Party , or PJ, is a Peronist political party in Argentina, and the largest component of the Peronist movement.The party was led by Néstor Kirchner, President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, until his death on October 27, 2010. The current Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de...
's selection of a popular singer, Ramón "Palito" Ortega
Palito Ortega
Ramón Bautista Ortega Argentine singer and actor, better known as Palito Ortega. Ortega reached international fame, particularly in Latin America and Spain, during the 1960s, when Rock and Roll music was popularized among teenagers in the region.- Youth :Ortega was born to a very poor family in...
, led to his defeat. Support from sugar plantation owners, who created the "Patriotic Fund" for a 1995 campaign, and Ortega's own lackluster performance as Governor, led to Bussi's election to the post in 1995. During his tenure, he had an important railyard
Rail transport in Argentina
The Argentine railway network comprised of track at the end of the Second World War and was, in its time, one of the most extensive and prosperous in South America. However, with the increase in highway construction, there followed a sharp decline in railway profitability, leading to the break-up...
cooperative in Tafí Viejo
Tafí Viejo, Tucumán
Tafí Viejo is an Argentine town in the Province of Tucumán. The municipality's population, as of the , was 48,459 inhabitants. Tafí Viejo is located 15 km north of the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, just west of National Route 9; today, it is an important suburb in the larger city's metro...
shuttered and faced charges of embezzlement for failing to disclose a Swiss bank account worth over US$ 100,000; when pressed on the issue, Bussi refused to confirm or deny the allegations.
The Republican Force party nominated Bussi's son, Ricardo Bussi Bigoglio, as a candidate for Governor in 1999, though his father's sagging approval led to the election of Justicialist candidate Julio Miranda
Julio Miranda
Julio Antonio Miranda is an Argentine politician and a member of the Justicialist Party. He is a former Senator for Tucumán Province and was part of the majority Front for Victory parliamentary group...
. The aging Bussi, in turn, was elected to the Lower House of Congress
Argentine Chamber of Deputies
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress. This Chamber holds exclusive rights to create taxes, to draft troops, and to accuse the President, the ministers and the members of the Supreme Court before the Senate....
that year. Congress rejected the certification due to his prominent role in crimes against humanity and evidence of massive, ongoing embezzlement. His election in 2003 as Mayor of San Miguel de Tucumán by 17 votes was likewise rejected and he was arrested on 15 October 2003 for his role in the 1976 disappearance of Congressman Guillermo Vargas Aignasse
Guillermo Vargas Aignasse
Guillermo Vargas Aignasse was an Argentine Peronist politician, serving as a provincial Senator in Tucumán Province from 1973 until his disappearance in 1976...
.
Following the newly-elected President Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations ...
pledge to prosecute Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
-era crimes, and Congress' 2003 rescission of the Full Stop
Ley de Punto Final
Ley de Punto Final was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional . Formally, this law is referred to by number Ley de Punto Final (Spanish, roughly translated Full Stop Law) was a law passed by the...
and Due Obedience Laws
Ley de Obediencia Debida
Ley de Obediencia Debida was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional . Formally, this law is referred to by number Ley de Obediencia Debida (Spanish, Law of Due Obedience) was a law passed by the...
which had sheltered the military officers and ERP, Montoneros, and other guerrilla commanders guilty of human-right abuses, Bussi became a defendant in more than 600 cases. The Federal Appeals Court of Tucumán ruled in December 2004 that the crimes committed during his term as Governor constituted crimes against humanity, were not subject to statutes of limitations, and thus subject to prosecution.
Bussi was ordered by judge Jorge Parache to be held under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
, but in July 2007 the Argentine Supreme Court ruled that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority in denying Bussi his seat; the ruling did not supersede his ban from Congress as a convicted felon. Further charges resulted in his 28 August 2008, sentence of life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
without benefit of house arrest.
Bussi wept several times during his testimony, and described himself as the victim of political persecution, and thanked the soldiers who helped him to fight communism.
Bussi died on 24 November 2011, aged 85. He was under house arrest at Yerba Buena
Yerba Buena, Tucumán
Yerba Buena is the capital of the Yerba Buena Department in the province of Tucumán, Argentina. It's located at an altitude of around 466 metres ....
at the time, but he was taken to a hospital in San Miguel de Tucumán the previous week due to failing health.