People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
People's Revolutionary Army | |
---|---|
Leaders | |
Motives | Establishment of a Foco theory Trotskyism (factions) |
Political position | Far-left |
Opponents | Orthodox Peronism |
The People's Revolutionary Army (
History
Origins
The ERP was founded as the armed wing of the PRT, a
The ERP launched its guerrilla campaign against the
The group continued the violent campaign even after democratic elections and the return to civilian rule in 1973, with
The ERP publicly remained in the forefront. ERP guerrilla activity took the form of attacks on military outposts, police stations and convoys. In 1971, 57 policemen were killed fighting the left-wing guerrillas, and in 1972 another 38 policemen lost their lives in the guerrilla violence.[6] On 28 December 1972, Marine Private Julio César Provenzano of the ERP, is killed when the bomb he planted in one of the lavatories of the Argentine Naval Headquarters went off prematurely.[7] On 3 April 1973, ERP guerrillas kidnapped Rear-Admiral Francisco Agustín Alemán.[8]
In January 1974 the ERP Compañía Héroes de Trelew, named in commemoration of the 1972
In 1976 there had been plans to send a large part of the Uruguayan
Operations in Tucumán and Buenos Aires
After the return of
In July 2008, Cuban leader Fidel Castro admitted that he supported the guerrilla forces in South America: "The only place where we didn't attempt to promote a revolution was in Mexico. Everywhere else, without exception, we tried".[20] Politician Gustavo Breide Obeid, who fought as an army captain against ERP guerrillas in Tucumán Province, claimed in 2007 that mercenaries from Jordan, Nicaragua and Angola served in the 'Ramón Rosa Jimenez' Mountain Company. By December 1974, the guerrillas numbered about 100 fighters, with a 400-person support network from the Montoneros.[21] Led by Mario Roberto Santucho, they soon established control over a third of the province and organized a base of some 2,500 sympathizers.[22]
Santucho's armed guerrillas in the northwestern province of Tucuman never exceeded 300 in the first year of the campaign.
The growth in ERP strength in the northwest, together with an increase in urban violence carried out by the left-Peronist
Some 3,500 soldiers of the 5th Mountain Infantry Brigade, and two companies of elite
In May 1975, ERP representative Amilcar Santucho was captured trying to cross into
Meanwhile, the guerrilla movement switched its main effort to the north and on 5 October 1975 guerrillas struck the 29th Mountain Infantry Regiment. The 5th Brigade suffered a major blow at the hands of Montoneros, when over one-hundred—perhaps several hundred[25]—Montoneros guerrillas and milicianos (militants) were involved in the planning and execution of the most elaborate Montoneros operation in the so-called "Dirty War", which involved the hijacking of a civilian airliner, taking over the provincial airport, attacking the 29th Infantry Regiment's barracks at Formosa province and capturing its cache of arms, and finally escaping by air. Once the operation was over, they made good their escape towards a remote area in Santa Fe province. The aircraft, a Boeing 737, eventually landed on a crop field not far from the city of Rafaela. In the aftermath, 12 soldiers and 2 policemen[26] were killed and several wounded. The sophistication of the operation, and the getaway cars and safehouses they used to escape from the crash-landing site, suggest several hundred guerrillas and their civilian supporters were involved.[27]
In December 1975 most 5th Brigade units were committed to the border areas of Tucumán with over 5,000 troops deployed in the province. There was however, nothing to prevent infiltrating through this outer ring and the ERP were still strong inside Buenos Aires. Mario Santucho's Christmas offensive opened on 23 December 1975. The operation was dramatic in its impact, with ERP units, supported by Montoneros, mounting a large scale assault against the army supply base Domingo Viejobueno at the industrial suburb of Monte Chingolo, south of Buenos Aires. The attackers were defeated and driven off with 53 ERP guerrillas and 9 supporting militants killed.[28] Seven army troops and three policemen were reported killed.[15] In this particular battle the ERP and supporting Montoneros militants had about 1,000[29] deployed against 1,000 government forces. This large-scale operation was made possible not only by the planning of the guerrillas involved, but also by their supporters who provided houses to hide them, supplies and the means of escape.
On 30 December a bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Army in Buenos Aires, injuring at least six soldiers.[30] In the eyes of the military, the credibility of the government was now destroyed and the strategy of attrition was bankrupt. The guerrillas had even successfully utilized divers of the Grupo Especial de Combate of the Montoneros: the modern type 42 destroyer Santísima Trinidad was severely damaged by explosives placed under her keel by frogmen of the Montoneros on 22 August 1975 while moored in the port of Ensenada. The damage was so great that the ship remained unseaworthy for several years. By the end of 1975, a total of 137 servicemen and police had been killed that year by left wing guerrillas.[16] Elements within the armed forces, particularly among the junior officers, blamed the weakness of the government and began to seek a leader who they considered was strong enough to ensure a preservation of Argentinian sovereignty, settling on Lieutenant-General Jorge Videla.[15] On 11 February 1976, colonel Raúl Rafael Reyes, the commander of the 601st Air Defence Artillery Group, was killed and two army conscripts (Privates Tempone and Gómez) wounded in an ambush by six ERP guerrillas in the La Plata suburb of Buenos Aires.
The Argentine armed forces moved ahead with the "
Aftermath
After the destruction of the left-wing in Argentina, some revolutionary
Claiming another military coup by the
In January 2016 for the first time in decades, Mauricio Macri (the previous president of Argentina) through the new Human Rights Secretary Claudio Avruj, granted an audience to CELTYV (Centre for Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims) representing the victims of left-wing terrorism in Argentina
See also
References
- ^ "Corporations: Record Ransom". Time Magazine. 25 March 1974. Archived from the original on 22 December 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
- ^ "Court: Exxon Ransom Valid". New York Times. 28 July 1981. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
- ^ Guerrillas and Generals: The "Dirty War" in Argentina, Paul H. Lewis, Page 52, Greenwood Publishing Group (2002) "Moyano classified her armed operations more carefully into arms thefts, attacks on property, takeovers (of towns buildings, broadcasting stations, or police and military posts), bombings, kidnappings, hijackings, and deaths (i.e., assassinations). She found that bombings ( 855 incidents), arms thefts (278) and takeovers (200) were the most frequent kinds of guerrilla action between 1969 and 1973."
- ^ Guerrillas and Generals: The "Dirty War" in Argentina, Paul H. Lewis, Pages 88-89, Greenwood Publishing Group (2002) "Around midmorning they began to notice suspicious movements beyond the fields that flanked the airport highway. Men with different-colored armbands were positioning themselves behind the trees while others were climbing up into them. Then, just before noon, a huge column of armed men, led by Governor Oscar Bidegain, appeared at the southern approach to the overpass, flanked by two Leyland buses and some ambulances. A few minutes later someone fired a shot, and the battle was on. It raged for the next three hours (...) One of the Leyland buses was blown up by a grenade. Later, it was found to be full of weapons, with supports in the windows for machine guns (...) Thrown back, the Montoneros began to scatter, pursued by Osinde's men. Some of those who were caught were shot or badly beaten. Most were hauled to the International Hotel at the Ezeiza Airport, where Osinde had set up an emergency interrogation center, and were beaten unmercifully until they revealed who had ordered the attack."
- ^ U.S. Executive Freed in Argentina; Guerrillas Got Record $14.2 Million. Los Angeles Times. (30 April 1974)
- ISBN 9780275973605. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "Star-News - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "The Age - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "Cuando Perón habló de "exterminar uno a uno" a los guerrilleros". 18 January 2009. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ^ "Ataque a la Fabrica de Polvoras y Explosivos Villa Maria Cordoba". Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2009.
- ^ "Lodi News-Sentinel - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "The Phoenix - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ISBN 9780275973605. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Gustavo Plis-Sterenberg, Monte Chingolo. La mayor batalla de la guerrilla argentina
- ^ a b c "ARGENTINA: Hanging from the Cliff". TIME.com. 5 January 1976. Archived from the original on 20 February 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ ISBN 9780742537217. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ISBN 9041112022. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Enrique Díaz-Araujo. La guerrilla en sus libros. p. 98.
- ^ "Página/12 :: El país :: Gorriarán Merlo cuenta su versión". Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ^ "Página/12". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Setentistas: De La Plata a la Casa Rosada, Fernando Amato, Christian Boyanovsky Bazán, Page 338, Editorial Sudamericana, (1 January 2008) "Luego fundó la Unidad Básica de Combate Logística (UBCL) en la que el Hippte era el jefe. Con el tiempo logró contar con cerca de treinta combatientes, alrededor de doscientos militantes, y mayor número de simpatizantes."
- ISBN 9780275973605. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Operation Condor Archived 27 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, John Dinges
- ^ Abramovici, Pierre (May 2001). "OPERATION CONDOR EXPLAINED - Latin America: the 30 years' dirty war". Le Monde diplomatique. Retrieved 15 December 2006.(free access in French and in Portuguese Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine)
- ISBN 9780271044422. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "The Sydney Morning Herald - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Monte Chingolo: Voces de Resistencia Archived 30 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Review of the River Plate: A weekly journal dealing with commercial financial and economic affairs, 30 December 1975, p. 1021
- ^ "The Spokesman-Review - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ a b c d Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina, Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Page 201, University of Pennsylvania Press (25 January 2005)
- ^ "ARGENTINA: Battling Against Subversion". TIME.com. 12 July 1976. Archived from the original on 20 February 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ISBN 9780275955144. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ "Cedema.org - Viendo: A 32 años de la caída en combate de Mario Roberto Santucho y la Dirección Histórica del PRT-ERP". Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Guerrillas and Generals: The "Dirty War" in Argentina, Paul H. Lewis, Page 47, Greenwood Publishing Group (2002) "Whether one accepts the higher or lower estimates, Argentina's guerrilla organizations, backed by multimillion dollar war chests, were formidable — and lethal ( ...) Their collaborators reached into every level and every sector of society, and no one was safe from their vengeance."
- ^ The lower estimate is from the Asamblea por los Derechos Humanos (APDH). Estimates by human rights organizations estimate up to 30,000
- ^ "Durante la vigencia del estado de sitio entre noviembre de 1974 y octubre de 1983, los organismos de derechos humanos denunciaron la existencia de 12 mil presos politicos legales en las distintas cárceles de 'maxima seguridad' a lo largo de todo el territorio de Argentina."Entre resistentes e “irrecuperables”: Memorias de ex presas y presos políticos (1974-1983), p. 13. Archived 24 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ State terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and international human, Thomas C. Wright, Page 158, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007
- ^ "A Story That Has Not Really Been Told". Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ISBN 978-0822341215. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ E/CN.4/2001/NGO/98, United Nations, 12 January 2001 - URL accessed on 9 February 2007 (in Spanish)
- ^ ANSA cable quoted by RaiNews24: Alcune testimonianze sull'uso militare del fosforo bianco Archived 3 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine (in Italian).
- ^ El Clarín. El ataque a La Tablada, la última aventura de la guerrilla argentina Archived 23 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine, 23 January 2004 (in Spanish)
- ^ "La Tablada: niegan que una atacante haya sido fusilada". La Capital. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ISBN 9780804722759. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ISBN 9780842024877. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ ""Me siento defraudado; soy doctor en idiotez", aseguró Emilio Nani". 29 December 2000. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ^ "El secretario de Derechos Humanos recibió a familiares de víctimas del terrorismo". 14 January 2016. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
- ^ "'Macri says he's too busy to meet us'". Retrieved 11 May 2016.
Bibliography
- Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina, by Paul H. Lewis (2001).
- Nosotros Los Santucho, by Blanca Rina Santucho (1997, in Spanish).
- Argentina's Lost Patrol : Armed Struggle, 1969-1979, by Maria Moyano (1995).
- Argentina, 1943-1987: The National Revolution and Resistance, by Donald C. Hodges (1988).
- Monte Chingolo, la mayor batalla de la guerrilla argentina, by Gustavo Plis-Sterenberg (2003).