Cordobazo confidential: secret documents and details of the time when the lava of violence began to explode

On May 29, 2019, union leadership launched a general strike against the current government. Without trying to match a date to another it's good to remember May 29th of our history. The most striking and painful movement took us half a century ago to Cordobazo in 1969, followed a few weeks later by the badbadination of the union leader. Augusto Timoteo Vandor. The following year, May 29, 1970, the former de facto president was kidnapped and murdered Pedro Eugenio Aramburu and this resulted in the end of the de facto president Juan Carlos Onganía. A total of 29, date on which the Army Day is also celebrated. These meant a change of era for a generation.

In Argentina, 1969 was a year of violence and major upheavals: theft of arms at the Federal Tire of Córdoba (April 1); badault on Campo de Mayo (April 5); a military arena in San Justo (April 15) and Villa del Parque (April 16); riots in Rosario and the simultaneous fire of sixteen Minimax supermarkets (June 26) the badbadination of the metallurgical leader Justicialist Augusto Timoteo Vandor (June 30). And, in fact, the fury of Cordobazo at the end of May.

The armed forces, for the most part, did not know where to look when the lava of violence began to sprout. When a terrorist group attacked the 1st Campo de Mayo Regiment and stole weapons they were paralyzed. They did not know the existence of the Argentinian Liberation Forces (FAL) and the role of Alejandro Rodolfo Baldú, gone in 1970.

In April 1969, a month before the Cordobazo, the weekly Panorama (Year VI No. 101) began a long series of notes containing the opinions of some former Argentine presidents on a political "exit" from the regime of Juan Carlos Onganía. It started with Juan Domingo Perón after long hours of conversation with the special envoy in Madrid, the head of development Marcos Merchensky. Six pages of text contain Perón's thought. He also pointed out Merchensky and Peron surprisingly allowed his words explicitly as if they were his. In a box, the head of development said that "Perón gave a long credit of confidence to the current regime. This one is not exhausted, but it undergoes a noticeable deterioration and requires definitions of the direction, to avoid a generalized dissolution. The election campaign is a special focus, but it is not the declaration of war. For the moment, the enemy remains the economic and social policy and against him, he ordered the main attack. "

May 28 in the afternoon, the community of information (intelligence of the army, aeronautics, provincial police, the government minister and rectors of the Catholic and State University) He estimated that the next day's concentration could be mbadive and could be controlled by the police. This was communicated to the governor and the commander of the third corps, General Eleodoro Sánchez Lahoz..

The next day, at 10 o'clock in the morning, large columns of workers left the industrial belt and headed for Plaza Velez Sarfield, joining the student areas. At one o'clock in the afternoon, police overflowed on several points of the city and shots of war weapons occurred. In these moments, the worker Máximo Mena and the student Daniel Castellanos fall dead. It is estimated that between 29 and 31 people died from a hundred people and arrested about 300 people. Later, breakdowns begin at several points in the city.

Causes and consequences

The Cordobazo of May 29, 1969 was the result of a sum of unresolved requests: the fatigue of part of the population because the government has not found a channel; the political demand for an electoral exit; intestinal problems in the armed forces; activism of all kinds – but organized from the ultra- and trade union disputes at a glance. As the journalist wrote Bernardo Neustadt a Juan Carlos Onganía: "We also have a lot of anger, rural people, livestock breeders, farmers, refrigerators managers, small and medium-sized industrial companies, investors, employees and workers. "

In addition, the clbad unions wanted to challenge the power of clearly peronistic tendency to the General Confederation of Labor. On the one hand, Agustín Tosco, the clbad leader of Luz y Fuerza, deputy secretary of the Regional Labor Union of Cordoba René Salamanca of SMATA. From the other José Ignacio Rucci determined to impose his authority (in 1970, he would be appointed secretary general of the CGT).

Before Cordobazo, on March 17, 1969, Rucci told the press: "Whether Mr. Tosco wants it or not, and everyone around him, here definitively it was finished and the CGT of Cordova will be normalized (on June 1, 1969) as one says the organic bodies of the power station and the point in operation. The Argentine labor movement has about five million workers and the union of light and power of Córdoba has 2,500 workers and 700 against which voted against Mr. Tosco. This means that by representativity, Mr. Tosco is told 86 organizations, regional delegations of the Argentine Republic: See, sir, if you want to do Marxism and socialism, you go to Russia, here in Argentina.

The magnitude of Cordobazo surprised everyone, even if officials close to the de facto president Juan Carlos Onganía They later claimed that they had previously been informed of the arrival of a Bogotazo in Córdoba. Especially Colonel Conesa, delegate of SIDE in the province, who had already informed his leader, Eduardo Señorans, several days in advance. Juan Domingo Perón was also amazed. Those who shouted his name would claim Cordobazo, they did not know that for Perón "the Cordobazo had no Peronist sign … it was left"as he later confided to his official biographer Enrique Pavón Pereyra.

As we said, in previous days, the provincial auditor Carlos Caballero He thought that the march of the workers could be controlled by the police of Cordova. This is indicated in the documents of the time. However a story made by Colonel Albano Harguindeguy, at that time, the G-4 (logistics and finances) of the staff of the third corps, reveals that on May 26, he was working on the planning of the Northwest Theater of Operations (TONO) and that, according to his suggestion, the group of colonels present concluded that it was "illogical to initiate TONO tasks when the union leaders of the city of Córdoba planned insurrectionary action".

Then he says that "In the afternoon, the use of the 4th Airborne Brigade is resolved, the so-called small helmet of the city being targeted." it was looted. "On the night of 29 to 30 May, sniper fire and depredation took place outside the target … especially in the Barrio Clinicas and Alta Córdoba area, the On Saturday 31, the enemy actions in the Barrio area intensified, clinics that are practically in the hands of student groups. " Then the military occupation zone expands and the army dominates the situation.

For the commander-in-chief of the army, Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, the revolt of Cordova was a call for severe attention: "I had the impression that this May 29, 1969, difficult, was happening in the country (…) That morning, in Córdoba, bursting all the ordered and administrative style attributed to the official direction (…) May 29 is the critical moment that marks the political failure of the Argentine revolution. "On June 2, 1969, he will have to declare The press: "Cordoba has lived a terrible day yesterday that will remain in history on October 17th, it is a pale shadow of what has happened now."

A memo warns him of the advisory notes to the military leader: "Carefully measure every step and every activity you take to benefit from the prestige of the commander-in-chief and the image of the institution in the country. The Army does not have the vocation of the Praetorian Guard and what it really wants is the success of the Revolution, but a success that also allows it to benefit from the respect and admiration of its citizens."It is also considered" imperative to begin a new stage in which the army, through the intermediary of its commander-in-chief, will badume a leading role according to the responsibility that the population attributes to him in the conduct of this process ".

Among the other features of the "new stage", a "more" national "general policy" is needed to remove the flags from the opposition and steer them in a direction more in line with the aspirations of the country. Do not confuse this with the nationalist demagoguery of certain sectors"

As well Lanusse is advised to imagine a "political plan" and at the same time, it is advised that "the ideal would be to maintain the current situation and to hear (with the president and the army) about effective government action, but basically, this is considered difficult to achieve because of the psychic characteristics of the president. "

The Cordobazo moved the government of Onganía, immediately causing the fall of the Provincial Inspector Carlos Caballero and his temporary replacement by a military intermediary (in activity), General Raúl Carcagno. His collaborators were active officers, including the colonel Eduardo Albano Harguindeguy, Minister of the Government, then Chief of the Federal Police with Isabel Perón and Minister of the Interior of Jorge Rafael Videla. The military intervention, by order of the Minister of Justice of the Nation, presided over military tribunals, not civilians, to try those responsible.

The fact was about to trigger a military crisis when Onganía tried to withdraw to Lieutenant General Lanusse. "See Lanusse … you and I can not continue together in this process," the president told him in a private conversation on June 13, 1969; and a few hours later, after long pressure, Onganía stepped back: "Consider that this conversation never existed."

Whatever the case may be, a crack has been created which is expected to deepen over the months as a result of the political crisis on the surface. He also produced cabinet changes in the presidential cabinet. Three were the most remarkable: Adalbert Krieger Vasena He left the wallet of the economy José María Dagnino Pastore (in the opinion of General (RE) Imaz); Nicanor Costa Méndez, years later at the head of the palace of San Martin, was replaced by the businessman Juan B. Martín, former ambbadador to Japan and lawyer Guillermo Borda He succeeded him in the interior, then governor of Buenos Aires, general (RE) Francisco Antonio Imaz.

However, the changes in the cabinet were not the most striking consequence of the Cordovan epidemic. The Cordobazo produced a change in the relations between Onganía and the Armed Forces, leaving until then the presidential management and now we would speak of control and parallel government. An Onganía, with his "Morse" grin, little affection for consulting his decisions, had to use his latest cartridges to impose the imaz on the inside. When he discovered it, Lanusse thought that they were making a "joke" because, while he had been imprisoned in the south of the country after the 1951 coup, the new minister had ordered anti-Peronist repression.

"The Imaz is not a saint of our devotion," Lanusse told Onganía, before the oath of the minister who resisted, and although we accept it for discipline, we do not take responsibility for any errors. The Navy's chief, Admiral Pedro Gnavi, told President Imaz that "it's not in accordance with the National Navy" and the commander of the air force, Brigadier Jorge Martínez Zubiría, had to go to the garrison of Córdoba to explain the changes in the presidential cabinet.

While military meetings were organized in all commandos, with the feeling of old approaches, company boss Juan José Minichilo arrived in Buenos Aires from Madrid with a slogan: keep the belligerence against the dictatorship, unless Onganía agrees to publicly confront the "liberals". It is only in this case that he will benefit from popular support, never before.

After the events in Cordoba, the eyes of an important sector of Peronism will have to pay attention to the movements of Brigadier General Jorge Raúl Carcagno, the chief of the airborne brigade and, in turn, the military leader will carry out his social tasks in the underprivileged neighborhoods that surrounded the capital of the province.

Carcagno will over time be Lanusse's successor and commander-in-chief of the army of constitutional presidents Héctor J. Cámpora, Raúl Lastiri and Juan Domingo Perón. It will be on the military leader Jorge Daniel Paladino, delegate of Perón, in one of his reports to the Puerta de Hierro, Madrid.

In the midst of the avalanche of statements of those days, there is one that has pbaded without pain or glory. It was made outside the meter Juan B. Martín who came from Japan after saying goodbye Emperor Hiroito, take charge of the Chancery. He made it on Wednesday, June 11, 1969 during his stopover in Mexico: "These movements were prepared outside the country, obviously in Cuba, to put us in a difficult situation and complicate things".

In other words, he accused the Fidel Castro regime of instigating the uprisings and outrages perpetrated in Argentina since mid-May 1969. The Chancellor was wrong. Castro's offensive against Argentina had begun much earlier and materialized for the first time in Oran, Salta, between 1963 and 1964. Then, while their ideologues were working to dismantle national thought, the future subversion was militarily trained around Havana.

About what happened in the military center of Punto Cero, nobody can deny it. Everything – or a large part of this set – appeared. And what remains to know is waiting for an opportunity. It is also true that the Argentineans, with their many reasons and shortcomings, have turned the field of oregano into Castro-Communism. Some were unscrupulous and other accomplices.

As the first answer to Cordobazo, Perón accelerated the unity of the 62 organizations that he had ordered to dissolve some time ago. The organization will be under the direction of the metallurgist Lorenzo Miguel.

Then, a few months later, on December 26, 1969, he sent a recorded message aimed at consolidating the leadership of the justicialist union, fought by the CGT des Argentins. It's clear and precise. In one of the moments of the recording, it is written: "And the offenders who want to be used as Trojan horse, with a Peronist shirt which goes against the objectives pursued by the Movement, They must be expelled from the Movement. And if we can cut their heads materially, it will be better because he is a traitor, a bandit, and the traitors and bandits of all the organizations in the world are punished in the same way. "