When the ERP and the Army were face to face
Sangre en el Monte (Blood on the Mount) tells the time in which the guerrillas went to the jungle of Tucumán to make revolution. Why were destined to fail.
By Ramon Indart (*) | 14/08/2010 | 10:04
April 1975. Isabel Peron reviews the troops participating in Operation Independence. At his side, General Vilas. | Photo: La Gaceta de Tucumán.
"In March 1974 between forty and fifty men of the ERP climbed the mountain to start formal training in rural guerrillas. The area chosen was the same as had been explored since the late sixties: the southwest of the province of Tucumán. " Daniel Gutman journalist reconstructs the adventure of the revolutionaries in the hills and fighting tucumanos that existed between them and the Argentine Army.
The story, told in Blood on the Mount and edited by Sudamericana, precisely on account of the guerrillas went on Mount Tucuman, how to act, the military strategy of "covered under the government of Isabel Peron, and the inevitable victory of "Operation Independence" forces of difference.
"Within what happened in the 70 Mount Tucuman has its particularity. The guerrillas in Argentina was general urban, but in very different Tucumán. That's the only place where there was real fighting between two factions in uniform, "says Gutman in dialogue with Perfil.com.
-But with different firepower.
Well, there's a myth that people in the ERP was trained in Cuba or other communist country for guerrilla war and when a little research you realize that they were a minority who were actually trained. In general, were with more enthusiasm than anything else.
-When we see the working conditions in the mills Tucumán, more unemployment in the province (14.2% in 1972, the highest in the country) can find there the reason for the development of a guerrilla like the ERP?
Tucumán was a province where the sugar industry prospered and the only place with jobs industrialized mass of northern Argentina. It brought immigrants from all over the north and the 60s suffered a total collapse. We must also take account of the fighting tradition of the sugar mills. Roberto Santucho (ERP leader) said there was no such trade union bureaucracy and that was good for the guerrillas.
- What do you think went wrong in Tucuman with ERP?
Make a reading that is wrong, the commitment that they would have there. At that time the U.S. went to Vietnam. They wanted to emulate that feat. But Vietnam was a foreign invader. The PRS said that the armed forces of Argentina were foreign. They dreamed that the loons leave the army and the guerrillas were to move to something wrong.
-The book is told in the chat in Cuba with Fidel Luis Mattini (sent ERP), Castro said that guerrilla is not the time, why think Santucho decide to go ahead?
Santucho had a mystical thought and a belief so strong that the revolution would triumph cost him listen to reason. I think from today and a group of 150 guerrillas in the bush against the Argentine Army and is a big difference in strength that sounds impossible. They saw popular support at first existed. He had a rapport with the guerrillas of the people Tucuman. But from that commitment, benches on the mountain life is different. He only offered a combat outpost.
- What particularly noticeable in the confrontation between the army and the guerrillas in Tucumán?
It is interesting to show that when the Army arrived in 1975 to the province does not go up the mountain, but concentrates on the people who sympathized with the ERP and these farmers are the first to suffer the repression of the Army. Hence the error of the guerrillas. They saw that the Americans walked into a Vietnamese village, killing indiscriminately and that generated hatred against the invader. They thought the same thing would happen but the army installed a thing of terror so hard that no one faces.
-This shows that the dirty war had already begun before '76.
What happens in Argentina after the March coup happened in Tucuman sooner. You can see why the first black sites, about 10 in 1975. It was a rehearsal for what was going to launch. Army officers were already on their way to Tucuman to see how the Army had acted against the guerrillas.
(*) From the staff writers of Perfil.com.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario