A closer look at the circumstances in which sixteen Argentinian revolutionaries were massacred on 22 August. C As a plane carrying ten of their comrades headed for Santiago in Chile on 15 August, nineteen escaped revolutionaries who had been in control of the Argentinian airport of Trelew surrendered without resistance to overwhelming government forces. *I am disappointed", an Argentinian marine officer was quoted as saying. *If they had dared fire one shot we would not have left one of them alive"* Just one week later, the officer was allowed to make up for his earlier disappointment. On 22 August, in what the government vainly attempted to pass off as "another escape bid" all nineteen were shot down by members of a special unit of the armed forces. Thirteen died instantaneously, another three died shortly afterwards from their wounds, and three are still alive, though seriously wounded, in hospital.
EXTENSIVE OPERATION The massacre followed an extensive operation to free the political prisoners in Rawson penitentiary - a joint operation into which had gone five months of careful preparation by the ERP, the FAR, and the Montoneros. Without any trouble, and with the undoubted complicity of some of the prison guards, the prisoners were able to take over most of the prison using arms smuggled in from outside. They then rushed the guard post on the outside gate and after a brief exchange of fire captured it. Outside the gates a car was waiting for them.
This was the first slip-up in the operation. Several cars were needed, not one. So while six of the leaders of the operation headed off for Trelew airport in the first car, the other nineteen had to wait for the arrival of three cars ordered from the local taxi firm. At this point a second failure in the operation became apparent. No walkie-talkie equipment had been provided, and so the two groups of escaped prisoners lost contact. This was later to have disastrous consequences.
Meanwhile an Austral airliner had arrived at Trelew airport from Comodoro Rivadavia en route to Buenos Aires. As the six guerrillas from Rawson took over the airport, the plane was seized by another four who boarded it in Rivadavia. The ten waited anxiously for the arrival of the rest of their comrades.
But the second group of nineteen had been seriously delayed by the lack of sufficient transport. Eventually three taxis arrived and they set off at high speed for the airport. But the timing of the operation was very tight, and the first group had no idea where the second group might be. Eventually they Me Uruguay Santiagg, Landoes)
Sar Capital Federal Pacifico Bahia Blanca Trelew Rawson Rivadavia decided to take off for Santiago, confident in the belief that the second group could easily take over an Aerolineas plane which was at that moment preparing to land. As the Tirst plane took off, the others arrived and took over the airport. According to various press reports, they were trom two to five minutes too late.
TRAPPED Armed to the teeth, and with 60 hostages including an army colonel, the nineteen were in a good position to seize the incoming aircraft. But as it circled the airport, the authorities at the naval base bordering the civilian terminal ordered the runways to be closed. Three minutes before it would have touched down, the plane started to regain height. As government forces surrounded the airport the guerrillas were trapped. Negotiations then began. The comrades demanded that the press and local lawyers be allowed in, and gave several press and radio interviews in order to explain the purpose of their action and denounce the military dictatorship. Then they surrendered. Meanwhile, resistance was still continuing at the prison in ordef to tie up as many of the repressive forces as possible. These last seem to have panicked completely - one army officer present was reported as saying that "for several hours the area was turned into another Vietnam" (!). This nervousness seems to have lasted well after the prison was brought under control. The next day panic-stricken prison guards opened fire on Associated Press journalists who were taking photos some distance away. One journalist, A. H. Finoli, was seriously wounded and had to be hospitalised.
PRE-MEDITATED The massacre which followed a week later was without doubt pre-meditated. It was a calculated attempt to restore the government's position by liquidating a section of the leadership of the revolutionary movement which threatens it. The official account of an 'escape bid" makes no sense even apart from the contradictions between various government statements. The guerrillas, who had already shown their discipline and tactical appreciation of the importance of the balance of forces, were hardly likely to take on an overwhelming number of armed guards with only one weapon between them, as the Lanusse regime tried to make out.
This is substantiated by a statement recently issued by six members of the Argentinian Bar Association, based on sworn statements by the three guerrillas who survived the shooting. The lawyers denounce the official version as "completely false" and go on to conclude that the prisoners "were coldly, deliberately, and vilely massacred while absolutely defenceless". This despite the fact that immediately after the massacre the government attempted to suppress all such reports by issuing a decree imposing jail sentences of six months to three years for publishing, spreading, or propagating communiques or materials coming from, attributed to, or attributable to, illegal associations or persons or groups notoriously dedicated to subversive activities or terrorism". RESPONSE The lawyers' statement is only the latest evid ence that the government's attempt to hush up the truth and prevent any ensuing repercussions from the massacre has failed completely. As we reported in the last issue of The Red Mole, mass demonstrations against the regime rook place in all the major centres, including a 24-hour general strike in Cordoba. Further protests were generated when army units in Buenos Aires seized three of the coltins containing bodies of the victims and forcibly buried them.
As the local Peronist groups and trade unions begin to move closer to the armed groups, even Peron himself has been forced to denounce those responsible for the massacre, though in terms so vague and general that he in fact commits himself to nothing. In an address to "the young people of the nation", written, as the paper which published it notes, at the urging of leaders of the Peronist youth movement, he simply expresses his sympathy with the idealistic youth who have fallen in the struggle against "ignominy" At the same gime he comments that "it is unfortunate that the