On 15 August twenty-five leading members of Argentinian revolutionary groups broke out of the maximum security prison at Rawson in the desolate wastes of Patagonia. After making their way to the nearby airport of Trelew, the escaped prisoners put six of their number on board a plane which they took over. These six together with four other comrades who were already on board, flew to Chile, where they asked for political asylum.
The 19 revolutionaries who remained behind ensured the safe escape of their comrades by defending the airport which had been surrounded by military units. After some negotiations they gave themselves up to the military authorities who offered them the necessary judicial safeguards. Six lawyers who flew down to Trelew to help the prisoners in their defence were arrested and kept incommunicado until Tuesday, 22 August. The Army allege that on 21 August the prisoners attempted a new breakout in which all of them were shot: fifteen died immediately, one later and three are very seriously wounded. The story that the nineteen prisoners were shot trying to escape has been denounced as a blatant lie by the Asociacion Gremial de A bogados (Lawyers Association): The Government imposed a strict censorship on all news relating to the events at Trelew and no journalist or lawyer has been allowed anywhere near either the Rawson Prison or the barracks in which the massacre took place. When the ten revolutionaries who escaped FOREIGN SUBS: Asia/Africa/Australia/N. & S. America: E6 per year (armail); £4 per year (ordinary). Western Europe: £4 per year. precarious. Relations between the Chilean and Argentinian Governments had been improving (last year there was an exchange of visits between Allende and the head of the military government, Lanusse) and an extradition treaty was in force covering situations of this kind. Reaction within the ruling Popular Unity government was mixed. The political committee of the Popular Unity declared its solidarity with the refugees but a Communist Party spokesman declared that the matter would have to be dealt with in a straightforward legal fashion and not on a political basis. The Government declined to give the Argentinians the asylum they asked for. While the situation was still unclear news of the massacre at Trelew came through. Within a few days it was announced that the Argentinians had left for Cuba.
Inside Argentina the events of 21 August had an impact on the general political situation comparable to the after effects of the Derry massacre in Ireland. On the 24th the Peronist trade unions in Cordoba conducted a one day General Strike and in other parts of the country there were vigorous demonstrations against the regime. In Cordoba, centre of the strike movement against the dictatorship in 1969 and 1970, workers and students raised the Red Star of the ERP on the streets, and 600 were arrested by the army.
The revolutionaries who had been murdered in Trelew belonged to three armed groups: the ERP (armed wing of the PRT, Argentinian section of the Fourth International), the Montoneros and the FAR who are generally Peronist in political orientation. Twelve of the victims belonged to the ERP. So too did two of those who escaped, including Roberto Santucho, a founder of the ERP.
The bodies of three of the prisoners were taken to Buenos Aires where the Peronist Party arranged for their funerals. Army units invaded the building where the coffins were lying, seized them and buried them in the local cemetery. This attempt to prevent a demonstration arising out of the funeral further accentuated the mass outrage at the massacre. However the government swiftly imposed a new series of emergency measures and arrested over 700 members of political and trade union groups.
The bloody events at Trelew have already had a major impact on the relationship of forces in Argentina. The reaction to them has greatly complicated the position of General Lanusse's military regime, which is already riven by internal dissensions and has proved quite incapable of dealing with a deteriorating economic SILUaHOn Before Trelew there had been a tendency for a rift to appear between the armed groups and the Peronist trade union movement. Peron himself seemed disposed to do a deal with a section of the army, which would clear the way for his return. Now popular outrage has brought the trade unions closer to the armed groups, and Peron himself has been forced to denounce those responsible for the massacre.
Peron: offers no perspective for working class power Argentina is clearly moving in the direction of civil war. Peronism has given the workers an intense corporate class consciousness but does not equip them with the politics capable of overthrowing capitalism in Argentina. Peron first established ascendancy over the trade unions during the war years when he was Minister of Labour. But although Peron encouraged economic militancy at this time and later as President, he did not and in the nature of things could not encourage it to display independent political initiatives. If imperialism is to be defeated in Argentina, the Argentinian working class will need to create political institutions which can smash and replace those of the bourgeois state. This is why the actions of the PRT/ERP have cardinal importance in the Argentinian class struggle. And this is also why the military have so brutally sought to eliminate their militants and those of the other armed groups. They recognise in them their most dangerous enemy. * The Times (30 August) also reports that on examination of the bodies, the back of the head of one of the women murdered was found to have been smashed by heavy blows, while another of the bodies was perforated by bullets in the back.