Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 8 November 1974
Argentina: boat bomb
The assassination of police chief Alberto Villar has rocked Argentina more than any other since the death of Peron, causing a fresh estimation of the Montoneros' strength, and speculation about the role of the armed forces.
The federal police chief went boating on the river Parana last Friday and his boat was blown up. Some 47,000 policemen were set to search for his assassins and President Isabel Peron ordered flags to be flown at half mast. Within hours the Montoneros, the clandestine left-wing peronist movement, had claimed responsibility, threatening Jose Lopez Rega, minister of social security, and Ricardo Otero, minister of labour, with the same fate. Cronica published a full-page picture of Lopez Rega in his uniform as a commissioner general in the police force (he was promoted a few months ago, having ended his previous career in the police as a sergeant), prompting memories of the moment in January when General Peron put on his uniform to denounce the ERP attack on the garrison at Azul (see Vol. VIII, No. 4). Lopez Rega said that were it not for his other tasks, he would put on his uniform permanently to hunt out the police chief's assassins.
Next to Lopez Rega, Alberto Villar, head of the federal police since May, has been the left wing's most wanted man. He came to prominence during the military dictatorship as an expert in counter-insurgency. He was in charge of the investigations into the death of ex-President Aramburu, and was at one stage suspended after trying to hide evidence of police torture in Cordoba. He was retired on the accession of President Campora last year, but was brought back to active service in January to take charge of anti-guerrilla operations in the wake of the Azul attack. His return was interpreted at the time as an encouragement to police terrorism (see Vol. VIII, Nos. 6, 7 & 8), and prompted the resignation of a number of senior police officers. The government certainly hoped then that Villar and his deputy. Luis Margaride, would quickly clean up the guerrillas without it being necessary to call in the army. The two men set to work with enthusiasm, and between March and August (according to figures recently provided by Alberto Rocamora, minister of the interior) 32 suspected militants were shot and 827 detained. Nevertheless, although left-wing organisations were severely hit by the wave of police repression, they have not been rooted out. When a new right-wing group appeared a few weeks ago, called the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina it was generally assumed to be the latest anti-terrorist weapon devised by the police. Indeed one of the leaders of the Montoneros, Roberto Quieto, claimed recently that the AAA was organised by Villar himself (see Vol. VIII, No. 40), and this claim was repeated in the Montonero communique claiming responsibility for Villar's death. If true, one would expect activity by the AAA to diminish, though the appointment of Villar's deputy and disciple, Luis Margaride, as the new police chief means that previous policies are unlikely to be changed.
The success of the Montoneros in assassinating one of their principal opponents suggests that they are still a significant force to be reckoned with, and the government must undoubtedly be wondering whether they will soon be forced to bring in the armed forces to join the police in the fight against the guerrillas. There is again talk of reviving the national security council and the security secretariat that had such a brief life in June (See Vo. VIII, No. 23). The original idea of the council, to be headed by General Alberto Caceres, federal police chief in the days of President Lanusse, was to involve the commanders of the three armed services in control of security operations.* It was abandoned the week before Peron died -- partly it seems because of the fear that the military, once unleashed against the guerrillas, would grow too powerful politically. This argument still holds good, though with the deteriorating security situation, the military must be growing restless.
Quite apart from the 25 deaths of leftists attributable to the AAA in recent weeks, the past week has seen a wave of bombings and murders. The police chief in Corrientes was shot and wounded, the police in Misiones have been on strike, the ERP took over a village in Tucuman, three Tupamaros were shot in San Antonio, two foreign journalists have been arrested, and Raimundo Ongaro has been detained. For the first time a prominent figure in the Frente de Izquierda Popular (FIP) of Jorge Abelardo Ramos has been shot, as have members of Juan Carlos Coral's Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores. The death of the FIP leader, Carlos Llorena Rosas, may have been due to the fact that he worked for the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria and was involved in the land reform proposals worked out by the agriculture secretary, Horacio Giberti.
In the reshuffle of posts in the economy ministry, the new minister, Alfredo Gomez Morales, has dropped Giberti, replacing him by Carlos Emery, minister during Peron's first administration. According to Celedonio Pereda, president of the Sociedad Rural Argentina, Emery is muy respetado por todas las entidades agropecuarias. This change spells the end of the proposed land reform, the last 'progressive' element in the peronist programme of last year that had survived (see Vol. VIII, Nos. 29 & 42). Virtually all Gomez Morales's new appointments are men of the older generation that saw service with him in the years before 1955. The final demise of the economic policy of Jose Gelbard occurred on 31 October when President Isabel Peron announced a 15 per cent wage increase, thus ending the 'social pact' that had been the cornerstone of Argentina's policy since the accession of President Campora.
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