Page 62 - Across the Andes: Chile’s Atacama Desert & Argentina’s Northwest

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working class. Her Eva Perón Foundation provided basic needs to the poor and built schools,
orphanages, and hospitals throughout Argentina. She died at the young age of 33, a national
heroine. President Perón, having been pressured to increase industry more than support its
workers, was overthrown in a violent coup in 1955.

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and labor protests against an increasingly oppressive regime. But his next term was short-
lived; he died in 1974, leaving his third wife, Isabel (also his vice president), to take his
place. However, she was loyal to Perón’s more fascist advisors, which led to social unrest and
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But what followed was far from an improvement. From 1976 to 1983, a series of military
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historians, that term also covers the human rights violations started under Perón). Opposition
and left-leaning groups were oppressed. Many dissidents disappeared, as did ordinary citizens
who were suspected of having ties to dissidents. A policy of wage-freezing was frequently put
in place. Living standards plummeted, foreign debt soared, and the peso collapsed. Finally,
when Argentina lost the Falklands War (in Spanish, the Guerra de las Malvinas) to the British
in 1982, the military’s credibility languished, leading to the next free elections.

It took Argentina 20 years and seven presidents to dig out of this dire economic and social
instability. Administrations through the ‘80s and ‘90s were marred by corruption, the freezing
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Things turned around in late 2002, and the economy has been growing since, largely under the
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proved to be widely unpopular, and provoked a 129-day strike by farmers and agricultural
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reduce the national debt.

Other recent controversies in Argentine politics have included the mounting tension over the
possible oil reserves under the Falkland Islands, which have rekindled the debate on whether
the islands should belong to Argentina or Great Britain. There have also been a number of
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for crimes against humanity.

Uruguay

Facts & Figures
• Area: 68,037 square miles

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