People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
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The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP) was the military branch of the communist PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, or Workers' Revolutionary Party) in Argentina. The name means "People's Revolutionary Army".
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[edit] Origins
The ERP was founded as the armed wing of the PRT, a communist party emerging from the Trotskyist tradition, but soon turned to the Maoist theory, specially the Cultural Revolution. During the 1960s, the PRT aligned itself with the communist state of Fidel Castro in Cuba and adopted the foquista strategy of insurgency associated with Che Guevara, an Argentine associate of Castro.
The ERP launched its guerrilla campaign against the Argentine military regime in 1969, using targeted urban guerrilla, such as assassinations and kidnappings of government officials and foreign company executives. For example, in 1974 Enrique Gorriarán Merlo and Benito Urteaga led the ERP kidnapping of Esso executive Víctor Samuelsson and obtaining a ransom of $12 million. However most kidnappings ended in the death of the hostage, specially when he/she wasn't a VIP. They also used to assault several companies offices using heavily armed commandos.
The group continued the violent campaign even after democratic elections and the return to civilian rule in 1973. The avowed aim of the ERP was a communist revolution against the Argentine government, no matter if it was democratic or military, in pursuit of "proletarian rule."
The ERP-PRT joined with the Chilean Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), the Tupamaros of Uruguay, and the National Liberation Army of Bolivia to form the Junta Coordinadora Revolucionaria (JCR).
[edit] Operations in Tucumán
After the return of Juan Perón to the presidency in 1973, the ERP shifted to a rural strategy designed to secure a large land area as a base of military operations against the Argentine state. The ERP leadership chose to send Compania del Monte Ramón Rosa Jimenez to the province of Tucumán at the edge of the long-impoverished Andean highlands in the northwest corner of Argentina. Some guerrilleros were trained in Cuba. By December, 1974, the guerrillas numbered about 100 fighters, with a 400 person support network. Led by Mario Roberto Santucho, they soon established control over a third of the province and organized a base of some 2,500 sympathizers.
The growth in ERP strength in the northwest, together with in increasing urban violence carried out by the left-Peronist Montoneros following Perón's death in 1974, led the government of Isabel de Perón to expand the military's powers to fight a counter-insurgency campaign in February, 1975. General Acdel Vilas immediately began Operacion Independencia, deploying over 3,000 soldiers, including conscripts from the Fifth Infantry Brigade and two companies of elite commandos. While fighting the guerrilla in the jungle, Vilas concentrated on uprooting the ERP support network in the towns, using state terror tactics later adopted nation-wide during the "Dirty War", as well as a civic action campaign. By July, the commandos were mounting search-and-destroy missions in the mountains. Army forces discovered Santucho's base camp in August, then raided the ERP urban headquarters in September. Most of the Compania del Monte's general staff was killed in October and was dispersed by the end of the year. While the leadership of the movement was mostly eradicated, many of the ERP soldiers and sympathizers were taken into custody as political prisoners.
In May, 1975, ERP representative Amilcar Santucho was captured trying to cross into Paraguay to promote the JCR unity effort. As a way to save himself, he provided information that enabled Argentine security agencies to destroy the ERP. The case also contributed to greater security cooperation among South American regimes that came to be known as "Operation Condor," [1]
The Argentine armed forces moved ahead with the Dirty War, dispensing with the civilian government through a coup d'etat in March, 1976. The ERP's commander, Mario Roberto Santucho, was killed in July of that year, although it is not clear if he was killed by the military or his former comrades. Although the ERP continued under the leadership of Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, by late 1977, it had been eradicated. By that time, the military dictatorship had expanded its own campaign against "subversives" to include state terror against non-violent students, intellectuals, and political activists who were presumed to form the social base of the insurgents. The PRT continued political activities, although limited to few members, organizing conventions even after democracy returned to the country.
[edit] Aftermath
After the destruction of the radical Left in Argentina, some cadres made their way to Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had taken power in 1979. Gorriarán, for example, worked for the Nicaraguan security service and was implicated in the assassination of ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1980. Gorriarán returned to Argentina in 1987 to became a leader of the Movimiento Todos por la Patria (All For the Country Movement or MTP). Believing in the danger of another military coup, the MTP sought to renew the guerrilla armed campaign by attacking La Tablada army barracks in January, 1989 causing several casualties to the army, yet most of those killed in the assault were members of the MTP. Gorriarán was arrested in 1995 for his role in the attack and sentenced to life in prison in 1997. However he was liberated some years after that, after a prolonged hunger strike. The MTP still exist today, although it hasn't engaged in any armed attacks and remains as a political movement, often seen in public protests.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina, by Paul H. Lewis (2001).
- Nosotros Los Santuchos, by Blanca Rina Santucho (1997, in Spanish).
- Argentina's Lost Patrol : Armed Struggle, 1969-1979, by Maria Moyano (1995).
- Argentina, 1943-1987: The National Revolution and Resistance, by Donald C. Hodges (1988).
