Argentine Anticommunist Alliance
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was a far-right death squad active in Argentina during the mid-1970s, particularly active under Isabel Peron's rule (1974-1976). It later became linked to the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1983) and played a prominent role in the "Dirty War".
According to a 1983 New York Times article, at the time of the group's founding, Argentina saw a growing number of terrorist attacks by left-wing groups, and harsh repression of dissidence on the part of the military, paramilitary and police forces. However, according to the 1985 Juicio a las Juntas trial, by 1976 both the EPR & the Montoneros had been dismantled, and no real insurgency could legitimize the so-called "Dirty War."
Clandestinely lead by Jose Lopez Rega, Minister of Social Welfare and personal secretary of Juan Domingo Peron, it enforced the repression against the Peronist left-wing. Rodolfo Almiron, arrested in Spain in 2006, was also an important figure of the Triple A, charged of Lopez Rega and Isabel Peron's personal security. SIDE agent Anibal Gordon was allegedly also another important member of the Triple A, although he always denied it Quien fue Anibal Gordon, El Clarin .
Creation
The Triple A was organized by Jose Lopez Rega and Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine federal police, during the brief interim presidency of Raul Lastiri in 1973. Lopez Rega, an occult philosopher and self-styled divinator, had come to exert Rasputin-like influence over Peron's wife at the time, Isabel Martinez de Peron, who assumed the presidency upon Peron's sudden death on 1 July 1974. To support the group, Lopez Rega drew on funds from the Ministry of Social Welfare, which he controlled. Un juez argentino ordena capturar al ex jefe de la 'Triple A', que vive en Valencia, El Mundo, December 20, 2006 Some of the members of the Triple A had taken part in the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, when snipers shot on left-wing peronists on the day Peron came back from exile, thus leading to the definitive separation between left and right-wing peronists.
Judge Baltazar Garzon's investigations demonstrated that Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie had also worked with the Triple A, and was present on the day of Peron's return to Argentina — Delle Chiaie also worked with the Chilean DINA and with Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer.
Victims
The group first came to national attention on 21 November 1973 when it unsuccessfully tried to murder Argentine Senator Hipolito Solari Yrigoyen by means of a car bomb. The AAA went on to target 1,122 victims according to an appendix to the 1983 CONADEP report, including suspected Montoneros and ERP leftist guerrillas and their sympathizers, as well as judges, police chiefs, and social activists. In total, it is suspected of having targeted more than 1500 individuals, Justicia argentina condeno delitos de la Triple A, Agencia Pulsar, 27/12/2006, URL accessed on January 4, 2007
The group is also strongly suspected in the 1974 murder of Jesuit Carlos Mugica, a friend of Mario Firmenich, Montoneros's founder. Others personalities targeted include Silvio Frondizi, brother of former president Arturo Frondizi, former-vice director of the police Julio Troxler, defensor of political prisonners Alfredo Curutchet, former vice-governor of Cordoba, Atilio Lopez... The CONADEP commission on human rights violation has proven the Triple A's execution of 19 homicides in 1973, 50 in 1974 and 359 in 1975, while its involvement in several others hundreds is suspected. Death threats also caused the exile of many others, including scientists such as Manuel Sadosky, artists such as Hector Alterio, Luis Brandoni and Nacha Guevara, and politicians such as Jose Ber Gelbard, as well as Hector Sandler, Norman Brinski. One of the most often cited estimates count 220 terrorist attacks from July to September 1974, which killed 60 and heavily injured 44, as well as 20 kidnappings Gonzalez Jansen, Ignacio (1986), La Triple A, Buenos Aires, Contrapunto. Federal judge Norberto Oyarbide, who signed the extradition demand against former leader of the AAA Rodolfo Almiron, qualified in December 2006 the Triple A's crimes as human rights violations and "beginning of the systematic process directed by the state apparatus" during the dictatorship. Justicia argentina condeno delitos de la Triple A, Agencia Pulsar, 27/12/2006, URL accessed on January 4, 2007 Prision para el ex policia argentino Rodolfo Almiron por su pertenencia a la Triple A, EFE — El Mundo, December 29, 2006 — URL accessed on January 4, 2007
The AAA was known to have strong backing from the military and Army Commander-in-Chief Jorge Rafael Videla, who came to power as President following the 1976 coup d'etat.
Assassination of Rodolfo David Ortega Pena on July 31, 1974
Assassination of Raul Laguzzidel on September 5, 1974
Assassination of Alfredo Alberto Perez Curutchet on September 10, 1974
Kidnapping of Daniel Banfi, Luis Latronica and Guillermo Jabif on September 12, 1974
Assassination of Julio Tomas Troxler on September 20, 1974
Assassination of Domingo Devincenti on November 6, 1974
Assassination of Luis Angel Mendiburu and Silvio Frondizi on September 27, 1974
Assassination of Carlos Ernensto Laham and Pedro Leopoldo Barraza on October 13, 1974.
Others
Fifteen former AAA members participated in the Montejurra 1976 shooting of two left-wing Carlists members in Spain, along with Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie and Jean Pierre Cherid, former member of the OAS and then of the GAL death squad. Former Triple A member Jose Maria Boccardo also participated with Jean Pierre Cherid and others in the 1978 assassination of Argala, the etarra who had participated in the 1973 assassination of Franco's Prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco. Yo mate al asesino de Carrero Blanco, El Mundo, December 21, 2003
See also
601 Intelligence Battalion
Dirty War
Montejurra
Manuel Sadosky and Hector Alterio both were threatened by the AAA.
Rodolfo Almiron, leader of the group wanted for various murders (arrested in 2006)
External links
"El 'jefe' de la Triple A vive en un arrabal de Valencia", El Mundo, Felix Martinez y Nando Garcia
"El Debut del Terror: La Triple A", Pablo Mendelevich
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Argentine Anticommunist Alliance
