![Alfredo Bravo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Alfredo_Bravo.png)
Alfredo Bravo (30 April 1925 – 26 May 2003) was an
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
Socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
politician, teacher, leader of the teachers' union CTERA,
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
fighter, and
legislator
A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for ex ...
.
Life and times
Bravo was born in
Concepción del Uruguay
Concepción del Uruguay is a city in Argentina.
It is located in the Entre Ríos Province, Entre Ríos province, on the western shore of the Uruguay River, some 320 kilometers north from Buenos Aires. Its population is about 80,000 inhabitants ( ...
,
Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos (, "Between Rivers") is a central province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires (south), Corrientes (north) and Santa Fe (west), and Uruguay in the east.
Its capital is Paraná ( ...
. He studied in
Avellaneda
Avellaneda (, ) is a port city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the seat of the Avellaneda Partido, whose population was 342,677 as per the . Avellaneda is located within the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, and is connected ...
,
Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires (), officially the Buenos Aires Province (''Provincia de Buenos Aires'' ), is the largest and most populous Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of th ...
, and became a teacher at 18. Teaching in the rural north of
Santa Fe Province
The Province of Santa Fe ( es, Provincia de Santa Fe, ) is a Provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco Province, Chaco (divided by the 28th ...
, he returned upon being called for
compulsory military training
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
. He moved to
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
afterwards, where he joined the union movement.
Bravo left the
Socialist Party
Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...
in 1957, since he opposed the participation of many of his fellow party members in the Consultative Junta convened by the
military regime
A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer.
The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...
that had ousted President
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
two years earlier. He took part in the writing of the Teacher's Statute, and was involved in the 1973 unification of the teachers' labour movement into the Education Workers Confederation of the Argentine Republic (CTERA), of which he became Secretary General.
On September 8, 1977, about a year and a half after the
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
that started the dictatorship of the
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...
, Bravo was kidnapped by a government task force while he was teaching. He remained "
disappeared
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
" until September 20, and was only released in 1979. During his detention he was
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
d,
which left him with vascular damage in his legs. Bravo recognized
Buenos Aires Provincial Police
The Buenos Aires Provincial Police (Spanish: ''Policía de la Provincia de Buenos Aires'', informally ''Policía Bonaerense'') is the police service responsible for policing the Province of Buenos Aires, in Argentina.
It is one of the biggest pol ...
officer
Miguel Etchecolatz
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz (1 May 1929 – 2 July 2022) was an Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship of the 1970s. Etchecolatz was deeply involved in the " ...
and General
Ramón Camps
Ramón Juan Alberto Camps (25 January 1927 – 22 August 1994) was an Argentina, Argentine general and the head of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the National Reorganization Process (1976–1983). Although he was found guilty of mul ...
as his torturers.
Once freed, he became a human rights militant at the
Permanent Assembly for Human Rights
The Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (in Spanish, La Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos (APDH)) is an Argentine non-governmental human rights organization; founded in 1975. According to its official website the organization is the pr ...
(APDH). President
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after more than ...
, who was elected democratically in 1983 and ordered the
trial of the dictatorship's leaders, appointed him Subsecretary of State in the area of Education; however, Bravo resigned after the passing of the
Full Stop Law
The Full stop law, ''Ley de Punto Final'', was passed by the National Congress of Argentina in 1986, three years after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (1976 to 1983) and restoration of democracy. F ...
and the
Due Obedience Law, which halted judicial procedures on many people involved in the crimes of the dictatorial period.
Bravo returned to his party (the moderate faction, called
Democratic Socialist Party) in the late 1980s, and was elected a
National Deputy in 1991. He was reelected in 1995 and 1999. He became a personal friend of his fellow Deputy
Elisa Carrió
Elisa María Avelina "Lilita" Carrió (born 26 December 1956) is an Argentine lawyer, professor, and politician. She is the leader of Civic Coalition ARI, one of the founders of Cambiemos, and was National Deputy for Chaco Province and Buenos Ai ...
, founder of
ARI
Ari may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Ari (name), a name in various languages, including a list of people and fictional characters
* Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572), Jewish rabbinical scholar and mystic known also as Ari
* Ari (foot ...
(although the relationship would deteriorate in the following years, culminating in an acrimonious split in 2002), and participated in the
Alliance for Work, Justice and Education
The Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (in Spanish: ''Alianza para el Trabajo, la Justicia y la Educación''), also known as Alliance (in Spanish: ''Alianza'') was a centre-left political coalition in Argentina around the turn of the third ...
, which brought
Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa (15 September 19379 July 2019) was an Argentine politician and a member of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) political party who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1999 to 21 December 2001. De la Rúa was born in ...
to the presidency in the
1999 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1999.
* 1999 electoral calendar
Africa
* 1999 Algerian presidential election
* 1999 Botswana general election
* 1999 Beninese parliamentary election
* 1999 Central African Republic presidential elect ...
, though he later distanced himself from de la Rúa's
austerity
Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
policies.
As a fan of
River Plate, que was a member of the Representative's Assembly for the Agrupación Tradicional, between 1993 and 1997. In 1997, he ran for president. In 2001, Alfredo Bravo was part of the formula of the Agrupación Tradicional who had Carlos Lancioni as candidate for president.
In 2001 he ran for
senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
representing the City of Buenos Aires and obtained enough votes to win a seat, but a legal conflict led to the assumption of
Gustavo Béliz instead. In the
2003 elections he ran for President (with
Rubén Giustiniani
Rubén Héctor Giustiniani (born November 3, 1955 in Rosario) is an Argentine politician from the Socialist Party (PS), who was National Senator representing Santa Fe Province from 2003 to 2015. An engineer by occupation, he also served as presid ...
as candidate for Vice-President); but only gathered about 1% of the vote.
On the early hours of May 26, 2003, one day after the inauguration of President
Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, Secretary General of UNASUR and ...
, Bravo suffered a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
and died. He was waked at the ''Salón de los Pasos Perdidos'' of the Argentine Congress, attended by figures from across the political establishment.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bravo, Alfredo
1925 births
2003 deaths
People from Uruguay Department
Argentine educators
Argentine human rights activists
Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Buenos Aires
Socialist Party (Argentina) politicians
Torture victims of the Dirty War
Candidates for President of Argentina
Burials at La Chacarita Cemetery