Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina. Antonius C. G. M. Robben
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people with blows, kicks, and gunfire. More people are wounded. Later that morning, the podium is transformed on the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Osinde. The open rostrum with its three large canvas portraits of Perón, Evita, and Isabel is replaced by a closed stand with bulletproof glass.
The conflict escalates at two o’clock in the afternoon. Large contingents of young people, carrying banners of the FAR, Montoneros, and ERP 22 de Agosto guerrilla organizations, converge on the stage. At 2:35 P.M., the clamor between the proponents of the Socialist Fatherland and the Peronist Fatherland erupts again. An intense exchange of gunfire bursts loose. According to the reconstruction by La Nación newspaper, the podium is taken under fire with carbines, machine guns, and pistols by gunmen hiding in a forest about 150 meters away. The security guards at the podium return fire. Frightened bystanders fall on the podium floor for protection, while the throngs of people near the reception area run for cover. The firing lasts for forty minutes. Meanwhile, the eighteen thousand pigeons are released. The newspaper La Prensa reports that at 3:40 P.M. a group of five hundred Montoneros try to take the podium by force. They are thrown back by the security guards, whereupon they flee to a nearby forest and suddenly turn around to shoot at their rivals. Another intense exchange occurs at 4:30 P.M. when security people fire at snipers hiding in the trees close to the podium. The most intense exchanges take place between 6:00 and 7:00 P.M. The crowd disperses when the firing finally stops. The official casualty count at 7:00 P.M. is thirteen dead and 250 wounded.21
Once again, after the obstructed reception of November 1972, the Peronist crowd failed to reunite with its leader. The violence at Ezeiza airport obliged the plane carrying Perón from Madrid to Buenos Aires to land at Morón air force base. Perón touched Argentine soil at 4:49 P.M., was taken for the night to the presidential residence at Olivos, and left the next day for the villa in Vicente López where he had stayed in 1972.
There are conflicting interpretations of the Ezeiza tragedy. The orthodox Peronists accused the revolutionary Peronists of using their numerical superiority to overtake the reception platform in a pincer movement with heavily armed shock troops, and opening fire when their attempt was frustrated by official security personnel.22
The most detailed analysis of the so-called Ezeiza massacre has been written by Horacio Verbitsky in a style that resembles the investigative journalism of his mentor and fellow-Montonero Rodolfo Walsh. He writes that on the fated morning, columns of Peronist Youth and Montoneros were advancing towards the airport but were forbidden to pass behind the reception stage to move to its front. These people came from southern Greater Buenos Aires, and would have had to make a detour of six to twelve hours by way of the Federal Capital if they wanted to approach the north-facing stage from the north. The column organizers suspected political motives when their maneuver was forbidden. So, they decided to ignore the order, approach the stage from an eastern direction, and circle around the over-pass. Once behind the platform, they were fired upon. The Peronist Youth security people responded with small arms they were carrying for personal defense but were struck down by a barrage of heavy weapon fire. Verbitsky, whose interpretation of events is the same as that of the Peronist left at the time, concludes that “the massacre was premeditated to displace Cámpora and grab power.”23 The JP and Montonero leaders stated that the Peronist right had provoked the violence to prevent Perón from meeting his people because such an encounter would have persuaded him that his power base did not rest with the right-wing unionists but with the revolutionary Peronists.24
Whether the confrontation was provoked by left or right, whether one or the other took advantage of a shouting match that arose spontaneously, or whether the shootings were the accidental spark in a factional powder keg cannot be determined with certainty. Conspiracy or not, what matters are the political conclusions that were drawn from the Ezeiza tragedy, the strategies that were devised, and the traumatization of the crowd, factors which all together influenced the political events of the following months. The Peronist right had earned a public and political victory over the revolutionary Peronists. They had ingratiated themselves with Perón, had a strongally in the overbearing presence of Perón’s secretary López Rega, and had interrupted the crowd mobilization of the revolutionary Peronists.
The events at Ezeiza reminded the military once more of the dangers of popular crowds. The pincer movement by the Montoneros column on the reception stage showed most vividly the level of organization reached by the revolutionary left. The discipline of the column, the dutiful execution of the order to advance, the tactical engagement with adversary groups, and the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of sympathizers betrayed a revolutionary potential of menacing dimensions. Such crowd operation could only be achieved by a vanguard which had far from dismantled its organization upon the return of democracy but was craving for more power.
The leaders of the revolutionary Peronists concluded that Perón was surrounded by a cordon that prevented him from reuniting with the Peronist masses. They believed that the orthodox Peronist union leaders, the Peronist political right, and Perón’s secretary López Rega acted in collusion to isolate Perón from the people and take control of the Peronist government after the leader’s death. The Peronist left was convinced that the right wing had resorted to violence at Ezeiza because they had been unable to mobilize their following in equally large numbers. They disturbed the welcome party to prevent the left-wing majority from pulling Perón into their camp and proceeding with a revolutionary line of government that had been initiated by Cámpora.25
Breaking the Cordon
The cordon theory fitted like a glove around the crowd conception with which young Peronists had been raised. Their interpretation of Peronism rested on the dialogue between Perón and the crowd, and on the belief in a spiritual and political alignment of people and leader during Peronist rallies.26 This public dialogue was described as follows: “Between Perón and his people there is always this mutual nourishment: the crowd creates, Perón incorporates, Perón creates, the crowd recreates, and so the movement advances…. The same happened with the Peronist doctrine. Perón proposes and the people pick up and reshape this proposal. And Perón finally synthesizes it and puts it into practice. Let us remember those extraordinary dialogues between Perón and the People assembled, there the President heard what the people wanted.”27
The cordon conspiracy obsessed the leaders of the Peronist left. They wanted to outmaneuver the right wing by showing Perón that they could mobilize much larger crowds than the labor union centrals, and believed that this convocational power translated into political power. The superior numbers of Peronist Youth, FAR, and Montoneros that covered Ezeiza with flags and banners had to be demonstrated again and again until Perón became convinced that most Peronists belonged to the left wing. As in 1972, the key phrase became “to win the street” (ganar la calle), but this time the mobilization was not directed at Lanusse, but against the so-called reactionary forces within the bosom of the Peronist movement.
Perón clearly wished the street mobilizations to end. First, the conflict with the military dictatorship was over and now Argentina had to get back to work. Second, verticality had to reign again within the Peronist Organization, and the youth organizations, guerrilla formations, and their leaders had to subscribe to the party line. Third, the Peronist revolution was not going to happen by way of a grass roots movement, but by Perón leading the people. This demobilization would mean the death blow to the revolutionary Peronist left and prevent the social revolution from taking place at a moment of high political consciousness. Perón wanted to consolidate the Peronist Organization, head a pragmatic government based on a social pact of labor and capital, and appease the political violence that disrupted Argentine society.
On 13 July 1973, President Cámpora presented his resignation to Congress. Raúl Lastiri was sworn in as president until the general elections of 23 September 1973.28 Cámpora’s withdrawal was widely expected, and kept the promise of the electoral slogan “Cámpora into the government, Perón into power.” The Montoneros had their own explanation of events. In a public statement on 17 July titled “Perón confronts the conspiracy,” they quoted Perón as saying that Cámpora’s forty-five days in office had been excellent. Perón had thus no reason to end Cámpora’s presidency. Nevertheless, Perón felt forced to step in, so the Montoneros