Former Argentine dictator dies

GENERAL Leopoldo F Galtieri, the former Argentinian dictator who ordered the 1982 invasion of the Falklands Islands and touched off a 10-week war, died yesterday of heart failure. He was 76.

General Galtieri was admitted on Saturday to a Buenos Aires hospital when his condition deteriorated. He had pancreatic cancer.

General Galtieri was the third of the four presidents of the 1976-1983 military junta, in which thousands of dissidents and leftists were killed. Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 were killed or disappeared during the period known as Argentina’s dirty war.

General Galtieri was appointed president in November 1981 and six months later ordered troops to invade the Falkland Islands to reclaim the British territory in the south Atlantic Ocean, which Argentina claims it inherited from the Spanish crown.

Galtieri lost his post after the Argentinian defeat in June 1982. All of the former military leaders were imprisoned for human rights abuses three years after the dictatorship fell.

General Galtieri was arrested last July after a judge ordered the arrest of 42 former military and state security officials for prosecution on human rights abuses.