Jorge Anaya, 81; led Argentina to war in Falklands
BUENOS AIRES - Jorge Isaac Anaya, a former Argentine Navy chief who was the leading proponent of the past dictatorship's ill-fated 1982 invasion of the Falklands Islands, has died at 81.
Mr. Anaya, who suffered a heart attack in 2006 while awaiting court questioning about human rights abuses during military rule, died at home late Wednesday of complications from heart problems, his family said. He was buried yesterday.
He was the chief proponent of the failed military campaign to take the remote British-held South Atlantic archipelago, called las Malvinas by Argentina.
The invasion triggered a 10-week war that claimed hundreds of lives and hastened the end of Argentina's last dictatorship.
Mr. Anaya, junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri, and other top officers were prosecuted after the end of the 1976-83 dictatorship for negligence in leading the war.
In 1986 a military tribunal ordered Mr. Anaya to serve 14 years in prison and be stripped of rank. He was pardoned in 1990 along with other top former officers by President Carlos Menem.
In November 2006, Mr. Anaya was summoned back to court to testify before a federal judge probing hundreds of cases of illegal kidnapping and torture at the former Navy Mechanics' School, the chief clandestine torture center of the former dictatorship.
Authorities said Mr. Anaya had been in declining health since suffering the heart attack in 2006.
Argentina's Supreme Court in 2005 annulled 1980s amnesty laws, freeing investigators to reopen dozens cases of suspected human rights abuses dating to military rule.
Nearly 13,000 people are reported as dead or missing from a seven-year crackdown on dissent known as the Dirty War.
