January 13, 2007 [LINK / comment]
The former Argentine President Isabel Peron was placed under arrest for three hours in Madrid, as part of the Argentine government's investigation into human rights abuses of that era. She may be extradited back to her home country, after 26 years in exile. She succeeded her husband Juan Peron after he died in 1974, but failed to cope with rising political violence and inflation, so the generals decided to depose her in March 1976. It is possible that she bears some responsibility for the infamous "Dirty War," because she signed a decree that authorized a brutal crackdown on leftist dissidents. This gave rise to the formation of the "Argentina Anticommunist Alliance," an instrument of state terror. See CNN.com. Anything Isabel did paled in comparison to the horrors that transpired after she was thrown out of office, however. Isabel was never admired as much as her husband or his first wife Evita, so there are probably not many people willing to go out of their way to defend her.