Raúl Alfonsín

Raúl Alfonsín (Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín Foulkes), 1927-, president of Argentina (1983-89). As leader of the Radical party, he was elected president following the bloody military rule from 1976-83, in which an estimated 10,000 people were killed or "disappeared." His government prosecuted and imprisoned many of the previous military rulers and their collaborators, converting Alfonsín into an international symbol of human rights. He had less success in stemming Argentina's hyper-inflation, and his failure in economic policy paved the way for the victory of the Peronist candidate, Carlos Saúl Menem , in the presidential elections of 1989. Alfonsín was elected to the Argentine senate in 2001.