Montoneros
Encyclopedia
Montoneros was an Argentine
Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing Peronism, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist party in May 1974 by Perón. The group was almost completely destroyed by 1977, during the Dirty War
.
The Montoneros initiated a campaign to destabilize by force what they deemed a pro-American regime. In 1970, claiming to act in retribution for the June 1956 León Suárez massacre and Juan José Valle
's execution, the Montoneros kidnapped and executed former dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu
(1955–1958) and others who they said were his collaborators, such as unionists, politicians, diplomats, and businessmen. In November 1971, in solidarity with militant car workers, Montoneros took over a car manufacturing plant in Caseros, sprayed 38 Fiats with petrol, and then set them afire.
In July 1972, they laid explosives in the Plaza de San Isidro in Buenos Aires that injured three policemen, blinded one fireman, and killed another. In April 1973, Colonel Héctor Irabarren, head of the 3rd Army Corps' Intelligence Service, was killed when resisting a kidnap attempt by the Mariano Pojadas and Susana Lesgart Platoons of the Montoneros. On 17 October 1972, a powerful bomb detonated inside the Sheraton Hotel in Buenos Aires, to the horror of nearly 700 guests, killing a Canadian woman and gravely wounding her husband. The Montoneros and the Revolutionary Armed Forces later claimed responsibility for the attack. The Montoneros financed their operations by kidnapping and collecting ransom for businessmen or executives, making as much as $14.2 million in a single abduction of an Exxon
executive in 1974.
On 11 March 1973, Argentina held general elections for the first time in ten years. Perón loyalist Héctor Cámpora became president, before resigning in July to allow Perón to win the new elections held in October. However, a feud developed between right-wing Peronists and the Montoneros. The right wing of the Peronist party, the unions, and the Radical Party led by Ricardo Balbín
favored a social pact between trade unions and employers rather than a violent socialist revolution. Right-wingers and Montoneros clashed at Perón's homecoming ceremony during the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre
, leaving 13 dead and more than 300 wounded. Perón supported the unions
, the radicals led by Ricardo Balbín
, and the right-wing Peronists. Among the latter was a former federal police corporal, José López Rega
, who was the founder of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
("Triple A") death squad
s, which had organized the massacre.
On 21 February 1974, the Montoneros killed Teodoro Ponce, a right-wing Peronist labor leader in Rosario. He had sought refuge in a business locality after being shot at while driving by a car load of masked gunmen. One of the gunmen who got out of the car shot him dead while he lay on the floor and also shot a woman, who screamed out "Murderer."
In May 1974, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist movement by Perón. However, the Montoneros waited until after the death of Perón in July 1974 to react, with the exception of the assassination of José Ignacio Rucci
, general secretary of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour
) on 25 September 1973, and some other military actions.
The Montoneros claimed to have what they called the "social revolutionary vision of authentic Peronism" and started guerrilla operations against the government. In the government the more radically right-wing factions quickly took control; Isabel Perón, President since Juan Perón's death, was essentially a figurehead under the influence of Rega.
On 15 July 1974, Montoneros assassinated Arturo Mor Roig, a former foreign minister. On 17 July, they murdered journalist and editor-in-chief of El Día
newspaper, David Kraiselburd
. In September, in order to finance their operations, they kidnapped the two brothers of the Bunge and Born family business. Some 20 urban guerrillas, dressed as policemen shot dead a bodyguard and chauffeur, and diverted traffic in this well-orchestrated ambush that saw some 30 militants and sympathizers among the civilian population provide safe houses to the participating guerrillas and the means of escape. They demanded and received as ransom $60 million in cash and $1.2 million worth of food and clothing to be given to the poor. This ransom is the highest ever paid according to the Guinness Book of Records.
The Triple A under López Rega's orders began hunting down, kidnapping, and killing members of Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army
(ERP) as well as other leftist militant groups, or anyone in general considered a leftist subversive or sympathizer, like their deputies or lawyers.
The Montoneros and the ERP went on to attack business and political figures throughout Argentina as well as raid military bases for weapons and explosives. The Montoneros killed executives from General Motors, Ford
and Chrysler. On 16 September 1974 about forty Montoneros bombs exploded throughout Argentina, targeting foreign companies and also ceremonies commemorating the military revolt which had ended Juan Perón's first term as president. Targets included three Ford showrooms; Peugeot
and IKA-Renault
showrooms; Goodyear and Firestone tire distributors, the pharmaceutical manufacturers Riker and Eli Lilly, the Union Carbide Battery Company, the Bank of Boston, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Xerox Corporation, and the soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Discouragement of foreign investment in Argentina came in the form of blowing up executives' homes. For example, in 1975 the homes of five executives of Lazar Laboratories were attacked with bombs in the suburb of La Plata in Buenos Aires. On 26 February 1975, the Montoneros kidnapped 62-year-old John Patrick Egan, the US consul in the city of Córdoba, in the country's northern interior. On 28 February 1975 he was shot in the head and his body wrapped in a Montoneros flag. That same day, three policemen were killed in an ambush by the urban guerrillas in Buenos Aires and an army conscript was killed by a booby-trapped bomb in Tucumán province. On 25 July 1975 four policemen were wounded in attacks in which the Peronist guerrillas employed bazookas and firebombs. On 26 August 1975, 26-year-old Fernando Haymal is killed by fellow Montoneros for allegedly cooperating with government forces.
The Montoneros' leadership was keen to learn from the ERP's Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez operating in the Andean province of Tucumán and in 1975 sent "observers" to spend a few months with the ERP platoons operating against the 5th Infantry Brigade, then consisting of the 19th, 20th and 29th Mountain Infantry Regiments. On 28 August 1975 the Montoneros, in a gesture of solidarity with the ERP, planted a bomb in a culvert at the Tucumán air base airstrip. The blast destroyed an Air Force C-130 transport carrying 116 anti-guerrilla commandos of the Gendarmerie
heading for home leave, killing five and wounding forty, one of whom died of his injuries. On 5 October 1975, in perhaps the most elaborate Montonero operation ever, the 5th Brigade suffered another blow at the hands of Montoneros,
when a Montonero force numbering perhaps several hundred guerrillas and militants hijacked of a civilian airliner bound for Corrientes from Buenos Aires. The guerrillas redirected the plane towards Formosa province
, where they took over the provincial airport. Along with a tactical support from a local militant group, the invaders broke into the barracks of the 29th Infantry Regiment, firing automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades. A montoneros officer, Reinaldo Ramón Briggiler Mazzei managed to shoot several conscripts as they lay resting in their quarters. They Montoneros however, soon met with fierce resistance from a group of conscripts and NCOs who recovered from their initial surprise. In the aftermath, a second lieutenant (Ricardo Massaferro), a sergeant (Víctor Sanabria) and ten soldiers (Antonio Arrieta, Heriberto Ávalos, José Coronel, Dante Salvatierra, Ismael Sánchez, Tomás Sánchez, Edmundo Sosa, Marcelino Torantes, Alberto Villalba and Hermindo Luna) were killed and several wounded; the Montoneros lost 16 men in the fighting and mop-up operations that night. Two policemen died later of their wounds. A female attacker, María Ana Testa had caused the fatal injuries that resulted in the death of policeman Nori Argentino Alegre at the airport after having shot him with an Ithaka shotgun. The Montonero attackers made good their escape by air towards a remote area in adjoining Santa Fe province
. The aircraft, a Boeing 737
, landed on a crop field not far from the city of Rafaela
. The Peronist guerrillas radioed for assistance and fled to waiting cars on a highway nearby. The sophistication of the operation, and the getaway cars and hideouts they used to escape the military crackdown, suggest the involvement several hundred guerrillas and militants. Under the presidency of Nestor Kirchner, the families of all the Montoneros killed in the attack were later compensated with the payment of around US$200,000 each. During February 1976 the Montoneros sent assistance to the hard-pressed Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez in the form of a company of their elite "Jungle Troops", while the ERP backed them up with a company of their own guerrillas from Cordoba.
The Montoneros were inspired by the British and Italian wartime commando raids on warships, and on 1 November 1974 the Montoneros successfully blew up General Commissioner Alberto Villar, the chief of the Argentine federal police in his yacht. His wife was also killed in the spot. On 24 August 1975 their frogmen planted a mine on the river's bed below the hull of a navy destroyer
, the ARA Santísima Trinidad , as she remained docked at Rio Santiago before her commissioning. The explosion caused considerable damage to the ship's computer and electronic equipment. On 14 December 1975, using the same techniques, Montoneros frogmen placed explosives on the naval yacht Itati in an attempt to kill the Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera.While Massera was not injured, the yacht was badly damaged by the explosives.
While the ERP fought the army in Tucumán, the Montoneros were active in Buenos Aires. The Montonero leadership dismissed the tactics of the ERP in Tucumán as "old fashioned" and "inappropriate".On 26 October 1975 five policemen were killed in Buenos Aires when their patrol cars were ambushed near the San Isidro Cathedral.Two of the captured policemen are reported to have been executed in this operation under the orders of the Montoneros commander Eduardo Pereyra Rossi.In December 1975, Montoneros raided an armaments factory in the capital's Munro neighborhood, fleeing with 250 assault rifles and submachineguns. That same month, a Montonero bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Army in Buenos Aires, injuring at least six soldiers. In January 1976, the son of retired Lieutenant-General Julio Alsogoray, Juan Alsogaray (El Hippie), copied from his father's safe a draft of "Battle Order 24 March" and passed it to the head of the Montoneros intelligence, Rodolfo Walsh
, who informed the guerrilla leadership. Private Daniel Tarnopolsky serving in the Argentine Marine Corps in 1976, also passed on valuable information to Walsh regarding the tortures and killings of left-wing guerrillas taking place in ESMA. He was later that year made to disappear along with his father Hugo and mother Blanca and sister Betina and brother Sergio in revenge for a bomb that he planted in the detention center that failed to explode. On 2 February 1976 about fifty Montoneros attacked the Juan Vucetich Police Academy in the suburb of La Plata but were repelled when the police cadets fought back and reinforcements arrived. On 13 February 1976 the Argentinian Army scored a major success when the 14th Airborne Infantry Regiment ambushed the 65-strong Montoneros Jungle Company, in an action near the town of Cadillal in Tucuman. In the week preceding the military coup, the Montoneros killed 13 policemen as part of its Third National Military Campaign. The ERP guerrillas and their supporting network of militants came under heavy attack in April 1976, and the Montoneros were forced to come to their assistance with money, weapons and safe houses. On 2 July 1976 they detonated a powerful bomb in the Argentine Federal Police in Buenos Aires, killing 24 and injuring 66 people. An Argentine Army report entitled Informe Especial: Actividades OPM "Montoneros" año 1976, gave the following surviving Montoneros totals for September 1976: 9,191 members with 991 guerrillas (391 officers and 600 other ranks), 2,700 armed militants and 5,500 sympathizers and active collaborators. On 12 September 1976 a Montoneros car bomb destroyed a bus carrying police officers in Rosario, killing 9 policemen and two passers-by. There were at least 50 wounded. On 17 October a Montoneros bomb blast in an Army Club Cinema in downtown Buenos Aires killed 11 and wounded about 50 officers and their families. On 9 November, eleven police officers were wounded when a Montoneros bomb exploded at the police headquarters of La Plata during a meeting of the Buenos Aires police chiefs. On 16 November, about 40 Montoneros guerrillas stormed the police station at Arana, 30 miles south of Buenos Aires. Five policemen and one army captain were wounded in the battle. On 15 December, another Montoneros bomb planted in a Defense Ministry movie hall killed at least 14 and injured 30 officers and their families. The worst year of the insurgency, 1976, saw 156 Argentine servicemen and police killed.
By the time Videla
's military Junta took power in March of 1976, approximately five thousand political prisoners were being held in various prisons around Argentina, some with political connections and some just guilty by association. These political prisoners were held throughout the years of the dictatorship, many of them never receiving trials, in prisons such as La Plata, Devoto, Rawson, and Caseros
.
Terence Roehrig, who has written The prosecution of former military leaders in newly democratic nations. The cases of Argentina, Greece, and South Korea (McFarland & Company, 2001)
estimates that of the disappeared "at least 10,000 were involved in various ways with the guerrillas". The Montoneros later admitted losing 5,000 guerrillas killed, and the Marxist-Leninist People's Revolutionary Army
(Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo or ERP) admitted the loss of another 5,000 of their own armed fighters killed. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US$200,000 as monetary compensation for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship.
installed, led by General Jorge Rafael Videla
. During the first few months of the military government, more than 70 policemen were killed in leftist attacks. On 1 September 1976, David Kraiselburd, the 2-year-old son of Argentine newspaper publisher Paul Kraiselburd, was kidnapped and killed. On 5 September 1977 five Montoneros confessed to the killing of the child, four of them were later murdered while held in a prison camp in La Plata. The Junta redoubled the Dirty War
anti-guerilla campaign. During 1977, in just Buenos Aires alone, 36 police were reported killed in actions involving urban guerrillasOn 14 August 1977 Susana Leonor Siver and her partner Marcelo Carlos Reinhold, both Montoneros fighters, were kidnapped from Reinold's mother home along with a friend by a 15-strong naval intelligence team and taken to the ESMA naval detention camp. After a brutal torture session in front of his wife, Marcelo was supposedly "transferred" to another camp but nothing has been heard of him since. In February 1978, Susana was disappeared by the military authorities soon after giving birth to a blonde girl.
Adriana and Gaspar Tasca, both identified as montoneros, were taken into custody between 7 and 10 December 1977 and remain unaccounted for. On 6 October 1978, José Pérez Rojo and Patricia Roisinblit, both montoneros members, were made to disappear. According to different sources, 8,000 to 30,000 people, are estimated to have disappeared and died during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US $200,000 as monetary compensation from the state for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship. The commander of the Montoneros, Mario Firmenich, in a radio interview in late 2000 from Spain later stated that "In a country that experienced a civil war, everybody has blood in their hands." The Junta relied on mass illegal arrests, torture, and executions without trial to stifle any political opposition. Some victims were thrown from transport planes into the Atlantic Ocean on what have become famously known as death flights
. Others had their corpses left on streets as intimidation of others. The Montoneros admit 5,000 of their guerrillas killed.
The Montoneros were effectively finished off by 1977, although their "Special Forces" did fight on until 1981. The Montoneros tried to disrupt the World Cup Soccer Tournament being hosted in Argentina in 1978 by launching a number of bomb attacks. In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a "strategic counteroffensive" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East.
Among the Montoneros killed in this operation were Luis Francisco Goya and María Lourdes Martínez Aranda who after crossing the Chilean border into Argentina were abducted in the city of Mendoza in 1980 and never seen again, with their son Jorge Guillermo being adopted and raised by an army NCO, Luis Alberto Tejada and his wife Raquel Quinteros. During the 1980s a captured Sandinista commando revealed that Montoneros "Special Forces" were training Sandinista frogmen and conducting gun runs across the Gulf of Fonseca to the Sandinista allies in El Salvador, FMLN guerrillas. During the Falklands War
against Great Britain, the Argentine military conceived the aborted Operation Algeciras
, a covert plan to support and convince some Montoneros, by appealing to their patriotism, to sabotage British military facilities
in Gibraltar
. Argentina's defeat led to the fall of the Junta, and Raúl Alfonsín
became president in December 1983, thus initiating the democratic transition.
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing Peronism, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist party in May 1974 by Perón. The group was almost completely destroyed by 1977, during the Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
.
From 1970 to Videla's military junta
The Montoneros formed around 1970 out of a confluence of Roman Catholic groups, university students in social sciences, and fascist supporters of Juan Domingo Perón. "The Montoneros took their name from the pejorative term used by the 19th-century elite to discredit the mounted followers of the popular caudillos." Their best-known leader was Mario Firmenich. Montoneros hoped that Perón would return from exile in Francoist Spain and transform Argentina into a "Socialist Fatherland".The Montoneros initiated a campaign to destabilize by force what they deemed a pro-American regime. In 1970, claiming to act in retribution for the June 1956 León Suárez massacre and Juan José Valle
Juan José Valle
Juan José Valle was an Argentine military who headed a rebellion in 1956 against General Aramburu's dictatorship....
's execution, the Montoneros kidnapped and executed former dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu
Pedro Eugenio Aramburu Silveti was an Argentine Army General. Born in Río Cuarto, Córdoba on May 21, 1903. He was a major figure behind the military coup against Juan Perón in 1955. He became de facto president of Argentina from November 13, 1955 to May 1, 1958...
(1955–1958) and others who they said were his collaborators, such as unionists, politicians, diplomats, and businessmen. In November 1971, in solidarity with militant car workers, Montoneros took over a car manufacturing plant in Caseros, sprayed 38 Fiats with petrol, and then set them afire.
In July 1972, they laid explosives in the Plaza de San Isidro in Buenos Aires that injured three policemen, blinded one fireman, and killed another. In April 1973, Colonel Héctor Irabarren, head of the 3rd Army Corps' Intelligence Service, was killed when resisting a kidnap attempt by the Mariano Pojadas and Susana Lesgart Platoons of the Montoneros. On 17 October 1972, a powerful bomb detonated inside the Sheraton Hotel in Buenos Aires, to the horror of nearly 700 guests, killing a Canadian woman and gravely wounding her husband. The Montoneros and the Revolutionary Armed Forces later claimed responsibility for the attack. The Montoneros financed their operations by kidnapping and collecting ransom for businessmen or executives, making as much as $14.2 million in a single abduction of an Exxon
Exxon
Exxon is a chain of gas stations as well as a brand of motor fuel and related products by ExxonMobil. From 1972 to 1999, Exxon was the corporate name of the company previously known as Standard Oil Company of New Jersey or Jersey Standard....
executive in 1974.
On 11 March 1973, Argentina held general elections for the first time in ten years. Perón loyalist Héctor Cámpora became president, before resigning in July to allow Perón to win the new elections held in October. However, a feud developed between right-wing Peronists and the Montoneros. The right wing of the Peronist party, the unions, and the Radical Party led by Ricardo Balbín
Ricardo Balbín
Ricardo Balbín was an Argentine lawyer and politician, and one of the most important figures of the centrist Radical Civic Union , for which he was the presidential nominee four times: in 1951, 1958, and twice in 1973....
favored a social pact between trade unions and employers rather than a violent socialist revolution. Right-wingers and Montoneros clashed at Perón's homecoming ceremony during the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre
1973 Ezeiza massacre
The Ezeiza massacre took place on June 20, 1973 near the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Peronist masses, including many young people, had gathered there to acclaim Juan Perón's definitive return from an 18-year exile in Spain. The police counted three and a half million...
, leaving 13 dead and more than 300 wounded. Perón supported the unions
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, the radicals led by Ricardo Balbín
Ricardo Balbín
Ricardo Balbín was an Argentine lawyer and politician, and one of the most important figures of the centrist Radical Civic Union , for which he was the presidential nominee four times: in 1951, 1958, and twice in 1973....
, and the right-wing Peronists. Among the latter was a former federal police corporal, José López Rega
José López Rega
José López Rega was Argentina's Minister of Social Welfare during the Peronist government started in 1973 by Juan Perón and continued after Perón's death in 1974 by his third wife and vice-president, Isabel Martínez de Perón , until the coup d'etat of 1976 that initiated the so-called National...
, who was the founder of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was a right-wing death squad active in Argentina during the mid-1970s, particularly active under Isabel Perón's rule . Initially associated with the Peronist right, the organisation was bitterly in conflict with the Peronist left and other left organizations...
("Triple A") death squad
Death squad
A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...
s, which had organized the massacre.
On 21 February 1974, the Montoneros killed Teodoro Ponce, a right-wing Peronist labor leader in Rosario. He had sought refuge in a business locality after being shot at while driving by a car load of masked gunmen. One of the gunmen who got out of the car shot him dead while he lay on the floor and also shot a woman, who screamed out "Murderer."
In May 1974, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist movement by Perón. However, the Montoneros waited until after the death of Perón in July 1974 to react, with the exception of the assassination of José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci was an Argentine politician and union leader, appointed general secretary of the CGT in 1970...
, general secretary of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour
General Confederation of Labour (Argentina)
The General Confederation of Labour of the Argentine Republic is a national trade union centre of Argentina founded on September 27, 1930, as the result of the merge of the USA and the COA trade union centres...
) on 25 September 1973, and some other military actions.
The Montoneros claimed to have what they called the "social revolutionary vision of authentic Peronism" and started guerrilla operations against the government. In the government the more radically right-wing factions quickly took control; Isabel Perón, President since Juan Perón's death, was essentially a figurehead under the influence of Rega.
On 15 July 1974, Montoneros assassinated Arturo Mor Roig, a former foreign minister. On 17 July, they murdered journalist and editor-in-chief of El Día
El Día (La Plata)
El Día is an Argentine daily newspaper published in the city of La Plata.-History:A year following the establishment of the city of La Plata as the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, four local intellectuals, Manuel Lainez, Arturo Ugalde, Martín Biedma and Julio Botet formed a partnership...
newspaper, David Kraiselburd
David Kraiselburd
-Life and times:David Kraiselburd was born into a working-class Ukrainian Jewish family in Berisso, a suburb north of La Plata, Argentina, in 1912. In his teens, a high-school writing contest earned him an internship in La Plata's main daily, El Día, after the end of which he was hired by the paper...
. In September, in order to finance their operations, they kidnapped the two brothers of the Bunge and Born family business. Some 20 urban guerrillas, dressed as policemen shot dead a bodyguard and chauffeur, and diverted traffic in this well-orchestrated ambush that saw some 30 militants and sympathizers among the civilian population provide safe houses to the participating guerrillas and the means of escape. They demanded and received as ransom $60 million in cash and $1.2 million worth of food and clothing to be given to the poor. This ransom is the highest ever paid according to the Guinness Book of Records.
The Triple A under López Rega's orders began hunting down, kidnapping, and killing members of Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army
People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
(ERP) as well as other leftist militant groups, or anyone in general considered a leftist subversive or sympathizer, like their deputies or lawyers.
The Montoneros and the ERP went on to attack business and political figures throughout Argentina as well as raid military bases for weapons and explosives. The Montoneros killed executives from General Motors, Ford
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
and Chrysler. On 16 September 1974 about forty Montoneros bombs exploded throughout Argentina, targeting foreign companies and also ceremonies commemorating the military revolt which had ended Juan Perón's first term as president. Targets included three Ford showrooms; Peugeot
Peugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...
and IKA-Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
showrooms; Goodyear and Firestone tire distributors, the pharmaceutical manufacturers Riker and Eli Lilly, the Union Carbide Battery Company, the Bank of Boston, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Xerox Corporation, and the soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Discouragement of foreign investment in Argentina came in the form of blowing up executives' homes. For example, in 1975 the homes of five executives of Lazar Laboratories were attacked with bombs in the suburb of La Plata in Buenos Aires. On 26 February 1975, the Montoneros kidnapped 62-year-old John Patrick Egan, the US consul in the city of Córdoba, in the country's northern interior. On 28 February 1975 he was shot in the head and his body wrapped in a Montoneros flag. That same day, three policemen were killed in an ambush by the urban guerrillas in Buenos Aires and an army conscript was killed by a booby-trapped bomb in Tucumán province. On 25 July 1975 four policemen were wounded in attacks in which the Peronist guerrillas employed bazookas and firebombs. On 26 August 1975, 26-year-old Fernando Haymal is killed by fellow Montoneros for allegedly cooperating with government forces.
The Montoneros' leadership was keen to learn from the ERP's Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez operating in the Andean province of Tucumán and in 1975 sent "observers" to spend a few months with the ERP platoons operating against the 5th Infantry Brigade, then consisting of the 19th, 20th and 29th Mountain Infantry Regiments. On 28 August 1975 the Montoneros, in a gesture of solidarity with the ERP, planted a bomb in a culvert at the Tucumán air base airstrip. The blast destroyed an Air Force C-130 transport carrying 116 anti-guerrilla commandos of the Gendarmerie
Argentine National Gendarmerie
The Argentine National Gendarmerie is the gendarmerie and corps of border guards of Argentina.The Argentine National Gendarmerie has a strength of 12,000....
heading for home leave, killing five and wounding forty, one of whom died of his injuries. On 5 October 1975, in perhaps the most elaborate Montonero operation ever, the 5th Brigade suffered another blow at the hands of Montoneros,
when a Montonero force numbering perhaps several hundred guerrillas and militants hijacked of a civilian airliner bound for Corrientes from Buenos Aires. The guerrillas redirected the plane towards Formosa province
Formosa Province
Formosa Province is in northeastern Argentina, part of the Gran Chaco Region. Its northeast end touches Asunción, Paraguay, and borders the provinces of Chaco and Salta to its south and west, respectively...
, where they took over the provincial airport. Along with a tactical support from a local militant group, the invaders broke into the barracks of the 29th Infantry Regiment, firing automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades. A montoneros officer, Reinaldo Ramón Briggiler Mazzei managed to shoot several conscripts as they lay resting in their quarters. They Montoneros however, soon met with fierce resistance from a group of conscripts and NCOs who recovered from their initial surprise. In the aftermath, a second lieutenant (Ricardo Massaferro), a sergeant (Víctor Sanabria) and ten soldiers (Antonio Arrieta, Heriberto Ávalos, José Coronel, Dante Salvatierra, Ismael Sánchez, Tomás Sánchez, Edmundo Sosa, Marcelino Torantes, Alberto Villalba and Hermindo Luna) were killed and several wounded; the Montoneros lost 16 men in the fighting and mop-up operations that night. Two policemen died later of their wounds. A female attacker, María Ana Testa had caused the fatal injuries that resulted in the death of policeman Nori Argentino Alegre at the airport after having shot him with an Ithaka shotgun. The Montonero attackers made good their escape by air towards a remote area in adjoining Santa Fe province
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
. The aircraft, a Boeing 737
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...
, landed on a crop field not far from the city of Rafaela
Rafaela
Rafaela is a city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, about 96 km from the provincial capital. It is the head town of the Castellanos Department. It has a population of 99,150 per the ....
. The Peronist guerrillas radioed for assistance and fled to waiting cars on a highway nearby. The sophistication of the operation, and the getaway cars and hideouts they used to escape the military crackdown, suggest the involvement several hundred guerrillas and militants. Under the presidency of Nestor Kirchner, the families of all the Montoneros killed in the attack were later compensated with the payment of around US$200,000 each. During February 1976 the Montoneros sent assistance to the hard-pressed Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez in the form of a company of their elite "Jungle Troops", while the ERP backed them up with a company of their own guerrillas from Cordoba.
The Montoneros were inspired by the British and Italian wartime commando raids on warships, and on 1 November 1974 the Montoneros successfully blew up General Commissioner Alberto Villar, the chief of the Argentine federal police in his yacht. His wife was also killed in the spot. On 24 August 1975 their frogmen planted a mine on the river's bed below the hull of a navy destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
, the ARA Santísima Trinidad , as she remained docked at Rio Santiago before her commissioning. The explosion caused considerable damage to the ship's computer and electronic equipment. On 14 December 1975, using the same techniques, Montoneros frogmen placed explosives on the naval yacht Itati in an attempt to kill the Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera.While Massera was not injured, the yacht was badly damaged by the explosives.
While the ERP fought the army in Tucumán, the Montoneros were active in Buenos Aires. The Montonero leadership dismissed the tactics of the ERP in Tucumán as "old fashioned" and "inappropriate".On 26 October 1975 five policemen were killed in Buenos Aires when their patrol cars were ambushed near the San Isidro Cathedral.Two of the captured policemen are reported to have been executed in this operation under the orders of the Montoneros commander Eduardo Pereyra Rossi.In December 1975, Montoneros raided an armaments factory in the capital's Munro neighborhood, fleeing with 250 assault rifles and submachineguns. That same month, a Montonero bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Army in Buenos Aires, injuring at least six soldiers. In January 1976, the son of retired Lieutenant-General Julio Alsogoray, Juan Alsogaray (El Hippie), copied from his father's safe a draft of "Battle Order 24 March" and passed it to the head of the Montoneros intelligence, Rodolfo Walsh
Rodolfo Walsh
Rodolfo Jorge Walsh was an Argentine writer, considered the founder of investigative journalism. He is most famous for his Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta which he wrote the day before his murder, protesting that their economic policies were having an even greater effect on...
, who informed the guerrilla leadership. Private Daniel Tarnopolsky serving in the Argentine Marine Corps in 1976, also passed on valuable information to Walsh regarding the tortures and killings of left-wing guerrillas taking place in ESMA. He was later that year made to disappear along with his father Hugo and mother Blanca and sister Betina and brother Sergio in revenge for a bomb that he planted in the detention center that failed to explode. On 2 February 1976 about fifty Montoneros attacked the Juan Vucetich Police Academy in the suburb of La Plata but were repelled when the police cadets fought back and reinforcements arrived. On 13 February 1976 the Argentinian Army scored a major success when the 14th Airborne Infantry Regiment ambushed the 65-strong Montoneros Jungle Company, in an action near the town of Cadillal in Tucuman. In the week preceding the military coup, the Montoneros killed 13 policemen as part of its Third National Military Campaign. The ERP guerrillas and their supporting network of militants came under heavy attack in April 1976, and the Montoneros were forced to come to their assistance with money, weapons and safe houses. On 2 July 1976 they detonated a powerful bomb in the Argentine Federal Police in Buenos Aires, killing 24 and injuring 66 people. An Argentine Army report entitled Informe Especial: Actividades OPM "Montoneros" año 1976, gave the following surviving Montoneros totals for September 1976: 9,191 members with 991 guerrillas (391 officers and 600 other ranks), 2,700 armed militants and 5,500 sympathizers and active collaborators. On 12 September 1976 a Montoneros car bomb destroyed a bus carrying police officers in Rosario, killing 9 policemen and two passers-by. There were at least 50 wounded. On 17 October a Montoneros bomb blast in an Army Club Cinema in downtown Buenos Aires killed 11 and wounded about 50 officers and their families. On 9 November, eleven police officers were wounded when a Montoneros bomb exploded at the police headquarters of La Plata during a meeting of the Buenos Aires police chiefs. On 16 November, about 40 Montoneros guerrillas stormed the police station at Arana, 30 miles south of Buenos Aires. Five policemen and one army captain were wounded in the battle. On 15 December, another Montoneros bomb planted in a Defense Ministry movie hall killed at least 14 and injured 30 officers and their families. The worst year of the insurgency, 1976, saw 156 Argentine servicemen and police killed.
By the time Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo is a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón...
's military Junta took power in March of 1976, approximately five thousand political prisoners were being held in various prisons around Argentina, some with political connections and some just guilty by association. These political prisoners were held throughout the years of the dictatorship, many of them never receiving trials, in prisons such as La Plata, Devoto, Rawson, and Caseros
Caseros Prison
The Caseros Prison was a panopticon prison in Parque Patricios, a neighborhood in the southern part of Buenos Aires, Argentina.Caseros Prison was conceived by the military dictatorships of the 1960s, originally intended as a short term holding station for prisoners awaiting trial. It was built...
.
Terence Roehrig, who has written The prosecution of former military leaders in newly democratic nations. The cases of Argentina, Greece, and South Korea (McFarland & Company, 2001)
estimates that of the disappeared "at least 10,000 were involved in various ways with the guerrillas". The Montoneros later admitted losing 5,000 guerrillas killed, and the Marxist-Leninist People's Revolutionary Army
People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
(Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo or ERP) admitted the loss of another 5,000 of their own armed fighters killed. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US$200,000 as monetary compensation for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship.
Under Jorge Videla's junta
On 24 March 1976 Isabel Perón was ousted and a military juntaNational Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
installed, led by General Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo is a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón...
. During the first few months of the military government, more than 70 policemen were killed in leftist attacks. On 1 September 1976, David Kraiselburd, the 2-year-old son of Argentine newspaper publisher Paul Kraiselburd, was kidnapped and killed. On 5 September 1977 five Montoneros confessed to the killing of the child, four of them were later murdered while held in a prison camp in La Plata. The Junta redoubled the Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
anti-guerilla campaign. During 1977, in just Buenos Aires alone, 36 police were reported killed in actions involving urban guerrillasOn 14 August 1977 Susana Leonor Siver and her partner Marcelo Carlos Reinhold, both Montoneros fighters, were kidnapped from Reinold's mother home along with a friend by a 15-strong naval intelligence team and taken to the ESMA naval detention camp. After a brutal torture session in front of his wife, Marcelo was supposedly "transferred" to another camp but nothing has been heard of him since. In February 1978, Susana was disappeared by the military authorities soon after giving birth to a blonde girl.
Adriana and Gaspar Tasca, both identified as montoneros, were taken into custody between 7 and 10 December 1977 and remain unaccounted for. On 6 October 1978, José Pérez Rojo and Patricia Roisinblit, both montoneros members, were made to disappear. According to different sources, 8,000 to 30,000 people, are estimated to have disappeared and died during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US $200,000 as monetary compensation from the state for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship. The commander of the Montoneros, Mario Firmenich, in a radio interview in late 2000 from Spain later stated that "In a country that experienced a civil war, everybody has blood in their hands." The Junta relied on mass illegal arrests, torture, and executions without trial to stifle any political opposition. Some victims were thrown from transport planes into the Atlantic Ocean on what have become famously known as death flights
Death flights
The death flights were a form of forced disappearance routinely practiced during the Argentine "Dirty War", begun by Admiral Luis María Mendía. Victims of death flights were first drugged into a stupor, hustled aboard fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, stripped naked and pushed into the Río de la...
. Others had their corpses left on streets as intimidation of others. The Montoneros admit 5,000 of their guerrillas killed.
The Montoneros were effectively finished off by 1977, although their "Special Forces" did fight on until 1981. The Montoneros tried to disrupt the World Cup Soccer Tournament being hosted in Argentina in 1978 by launching a number of bomb attacks. In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a "strategic counteroffensive" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East.
Among the Montoneros killed in this operation were Luis Francisco Goya and María Lourdes Martínez Aranda who after crossing the Chilean border into Argentina were abducted in the city of Mendoza in 1980 and never seen again, with their son Jorge Guillermo being adopted and raised by an army NCO, Luis Alberto Tejada and his wife Raquel Quinteros. During the 1980s a captured Sandinista commando revealed that Montoneros "Special Forces" were training Sandinista frogmen and conducting gun runs across the Gulf of Fonseca to the Sandinista allies in El Salvador, FMLN guerrillas. During the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
against Great Britain, the Argentine military conceived the aborted Operation Algeciras
Operation Algeciras
Operation Algeciras was an ill-fated Argentine plan to sabotage a Royal Navy warship in Gibraltar during the Falklands War. The premise being that if the British military felt vulnerable in Europe, they would decide to keep some vessels in Europe rather than send them to the Falklands.A commando...
, a covert plan to support and convince some Montoneros, by appealing to their patriotism, to sabotage British military facilities
British Forces Gibraltar
British Forces Gibraltar is the name given to the British Armed Forces stationed in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is used primarily as a training area, thanks to its good climate and rocky terrain, and as a stopover for aircraft and ships en route to and from deployments...
in Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
. Argentina's defeat led to the fall of the Junta, and Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically-elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization...
became president in December 1983, thus initiating the democratic transition.
Members
- Esther Norma ArrostitoEsther Norma ArrostitoEsther Norma Arrostito was an Argentine political activist and leftist militant, initially close to communist ideology. In 1970, she became one of the founders of the peronist revolutionary movement Montoneros along with Fernando Abal Medina, who developed a romantic relationship with her...
- Dardo CaboDardo CaboDardo Manuel Cabo was an Argentine journalist and activist. The son of a famous metalworkers' union leader, he started political activism in the Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara , a far-right youth group of the 1960s...
- Juan GelmanJuan GelmanJuan Gelman is an Argentine poet. He has published more than twenty books of poetry since 1956. He won the Cervantes Prize in 2007, the most important in Spanish literature...
- Francisco UrondoFrancisco UrondoFrancisco "Paco" Urondo, was an Argentine writer, and member of the Montoneros guerrilla organization....
- Rodolfo WalshRodolfo WalshRodolfo Jorge Walsh was an Argentine writer, considered the founder of investigative journalism. He is most famous for his Open Letter from a Writer to the Military Junta which he wrote the day before his murder, protesting that their economic policies were having an even greater effect on...
- Hector G. Oesterheld
See also
- Peronist Armed ForcesPeronist Armed ForcesThe Peronist Armed Forces was an Argentine Left-wing Peronist urban guerrilla group created in 1968 active during the 1960s and 1970s. The organization apply terrorism and strike directly against the Argentina state forces.-See also:*Montoneros*People's Revolutionary Army...
- People's Revolutionary ArmyPeople's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
- Dirty WarDirty WarThe Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
- Argentine Anticommunist Alliance
Books
- Brown, Jonathan C. 2010. A brief history of Argentina. 2nd edition. Facts on File, Inc.
- Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina, by Paul H. Lewis (2001).
- Argentina's Lost Patrol: Armed Struggle 1969–1979 by María José Moyano (1995).
- Argentina, 1943–1987: The National Revolution and Resistance, by Donald C. Hodges (1988).
- Soldiers of Perón: Argentina's Montoneros, by Richard Gillespie (1982).
- Guerrilla warfare in Argentina and Colombia, 1974–1982, by Bynum E. Weathers, Jr. (1982).
- Guerrilla politics in Argentina, by Kenneth F. Johnson (1975).