Operation Independence
Operativo Independencia was a 1975 Argentine military operation in Tucumán Province to crush the People's Revolutionary Army, a Guevarist guerrilla group which tried to create a Vietnam-style war front in the northwestern province. It was the first large-scale military operation of the Dirty War.
Background
After the return of Juan Perón to Argentina, marked by the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre which led to the split between left and right-wing Peronists, and then his return to the presidency in 1973, the ERP shifted to a rural strategy designed to secure a large land area as a base for military operations against the Argentine state. The ERP leadership chose to send Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez to the province of Tucumán at the edge of the long-impoverished Andean highlands in the northwest corner of Argentina.By December 1974, the guerrillas numbered about 100 fighters, with a 400-person support network, although the size of the guerrilla platoons increased from February onwards as the ERP approached its maximum strength of between 300 and 500 men and women. 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 Montoneros' leadership was keen to learn from their experience, and sent "observers" to spend a few months with the ERP platoons operating in Tucumán.
Earlier on Tucumán province had experienced a number of violent episodes. Montoneros gunmen operating in the province on 9 October 1970 had shot and killed a policeman.
The Montoneros would later kill, on 9 de September 1971, another policeman in the suburb of Yerba Buena of the city of San Miguel de Tucumán.
On 6 September 1971, an ERP platoon had broken into the Villa Urquiza Prison in Tucumán and freed 12 of their guerrillas, killing 5 prison guards in the process.
On 27 July 1972, Montoneros and FAR guerrillas had robbed weapons and uniforms from a local police station and killed two policemen inside.
On 5 August 1973, ERP gunmen traveling in a car had intercepted and shot and killed in a hail of fire a police inspector in Tucumán.On 4 October 1973, the ERP guerrillas operating in the province struck again, shooting and mortally wounding a policeman.
On 22 May 1974, another Tucumán policeman is mortally wounded while conducting traffic control duties after coming under fire by a carload of ERP gunmen.On 20 September 1974, ERP guerrillas lined-up and executed two captured Tucumán Police NCOs, Eudoro Ibarra and Héctor Oscar Zaraspe, in a public square.
Annihilation Actions decree
The military operation to crush the insurgency was authorized by the Provisional President of the Senate, Ítalo Argentino Luder, who was granted executive power during the absence of President Isabel Perón, in virtue of the "Ley de Acefalía". Ítalo Luder issued the presidential decree 261/1975 which stated that the "general command of the Army will proceed to all of the necessary military operations to the effect of neutralizing or annihilating the actions of the subversive elements acting in Tucumán Province."The Argentine military used the territory of the smallest Argentine province to implement, within the framework of the National Security Doctrine, the methods of the "counter-revolutionary warfare". These included the use of terrorism, kidnappings, forced disappearances and concentration camps where hundreds of guerrillas and their supporters in Tucumán were tortured and murdered. The logistical and operational superiority of the military, headed first by General Acdel Vilas, and from December 1975 by Antonio Domingo Bussi, succeeded in crushing the insurgency after a year and by destroying links the ERP, led by Roberto Santucho, had earlier established with the local population.
Brigadier-General Acdel Vilas deployed over 4,000 soldiers, including two companies of elite army commandos, backed by jets, dogs, helicopters, U.S. satellites and a Navy Beechcraft Queen Air B-80 equipped with infrared surveillance assets. The ERP did not enjoy much support from the local population where it planned to wage a terror campaign but was able to initially move at will among the towns of Santa Lucía, Los Sosa, Monteros and La Fronterita around Famaillá and the Monteros mountains, until the Fifth Brigade from Third Army Corps came on the scene, consisting of the 19th, 20th and 29th Regiments. and various support units.
State of emergency
During his brief interlude as the nation's chief executive, interim President Ítalo Luder extended the operation to the whole of the country through Decrees noº 2270, 2271 and 2272, issued on 6 July 1975. The July decrees created a Defense Council headed by the president, and including his ministers and the chiefs of the armed forces. It was given the command of the national and provincial police and correctional facilities and its mission was to "annihilate the actions of subversive elements throughout the country." Military control and the state of emergency was thus generalized to all of the country. The "counter-insurgency" tactics used by the French during the 1957 Battle of Algiers —such as relinquishing of civilian control to the military, state of emergency, block warden system, etc.— were perfectly imitated by the Argentine military.These "annihilation Action decrees" are the source of the charges against Isabel Perón, which called for her arrest in Madrid more than thirty years later, in January 2007, but she was never extradited to Argentina due to her advanced age. The country was then divided into five military zones through a 28 October 1975 directive of struggle against subversion. As had been done during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, each zone was divided in subzones and areas, with its corresponding military responsibles. General Antonio Domingo Bussi replaced Acdel Vilas in December 1975 as responsible of the military operations. A reported 656 people disappeared in Tucumán between 1974 and 1979, 75% of which were laborers and labor union officials.
Operation
1975
On 5 January 1975, an Army DHC-6 transport plane was downed near the Monteros mountains while on a reconnaissance mission, apparently shot down by the Guerrillas. All thirteen on board that were killed, were mostly officers from Third Army Corps, including the Fifth Brigade commander, Brigadier-General Ricardo Agustín Muñoz and his superior Major-General Enrique Eugenio Salgado were killed. The military believe a heavy machine gun had downed the aircraft.The deployment on the ground was completed by 9 February. The guerrillas, who had laid low when the 5th Brigade first arrived, soon began to strike at the mountain units. On 14 February a 60-strong combat team under the command of Captain Juan Carlos Jones-Tamayo from the mountain brigade clashed with 20 guerrillas at Río Pueblo Viejo, and in the ensuing gun-battle 29-year old First Lieutenant Héctor Cáceres was killed attempting to get to the aid of Lieutenant Rodolfo Richter that had been designated as point-man and had been badly wounded. Second Lieutenant Daniel Arias and Corporal Juan Orellana of the combat team were also wounded and two guerrillas were killed, Héctor Enrique Toledo and Víctor Pablo Lasser.
On 24 February, while supporting troops on the ground, a Piper PA-18 crashed near the town of Ingenio Santa Lucía
, killing its two crewmen. On 28 February, an army corporal, Desidero Dardo Pérez, was killed while inspecting an abandoned car rigged with an explosive charge in the city of Famaillá.
Three months of constant patrolling and 'cordon and search' operations with helicopter-borne troops soon reduced the ERP's effectiveness in the Famaillá area, so in June, elements of the 5th Brigade moved to the frontiers of Tucumán to guard against ERP and Montoneros guerrillas crossing into the province from Catamarca, and Santiago del Estero.
On 11 May, an Army officer, Second Lieutenant Raúl Ernesto García was killed while his unit manned a checkpoint during a fierce exchange of fire with a car-load of guerrillas travelling along Route 301 in Tucumán. The guerrilla that fired the fatal shot was identified as Wilfredo Contra Siles, a Bolivian national. That month, ERP representative Amílcar Santucho, brother of Roberto, was captured along with Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, a member of the Chilean Revolutionary Left Movement, trying to cross into Paraguay to promote the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta unity effort with the MIR, the Uruguayan Tupamaros and the Bolivian National Liberation Army. During his interrogation, he provided information that helped the Argentine security agencies destroy the ERP.
On 28 May, a four-hour gun-battle took place between 117 guerrillas and the 32-strong 1st Platoon from the 5th Mountain Engineer Company that had been assigned to carrying out repairs as part of a hearts-and-minds campaign in the schools of Manchalá, Yacuchina, Yonopongo and Balderrama in the Tucumán countryside, resulting in several casualties on both sides. The guerrilla force, wearing Argentine Army uniforms to achieve total surprise, had been instructed to advance in a column of heavy vehicles to the very gates of the headquarters of the 5th Mountain Brigade and force their way in with the aim of seizing and killing the brigade commander and his key officers. In the face of heavy army reinforcements, the guerrillas broke off contact and escaped to their operating base in El Tiro via three routes, leaving two of their own dead, Domingo Villalobos Campos, a Chilean national, and Juan Carlos Irurtia. By July, the commandos were carrying out search-and-destroy missions in the mountains. Army special forces discovered Santucho's hideout in August, then raided the ERP urban headquarters in September.
Nevertheless, the military was not to have everything its way. On 16 August Corporal Miguel Dardo Juárez is shot dead in a gun battle that took place in Las Mesadas, with six guerrillas reportedly killed in that action. On 28 August, a bomb was planted at the Tucumán air base airstrip by Montoneros in support of their comrades in the ERP. The blast destroyed an Air Force C-130 transport carrying 114 anti-guerrilla Gendarmerie commandos heading for home leave, killing six and wounding 29. The following day saw the derailment of a train carrying troops back from the guerrilla front about 64 kilometers south of the city of Tucumán, this time without any casualties. Most of the Compañía de Monte's general staff were killed in a special forces raid in October, but the guerrilla units continued to fight.
On 5 September an army platoon operating outside Potrero Negro fell into an ERP ambush and the officer in charge, Second Lieutenant Rodolfo Berdina was mortally wounded and Private Ismael Maldonado was killed at the very start of the firefight.
On 7 October, four soldiers of the Argentine Army were reported killed after coming under heavy fire from part of a 30-strong ERP force that had take up advantageous positions on a height overlooking the Los Sosa River.
On the night of 8/9 October further fighting takes place near Los Sosa River as the rural guerrillas attempt to escape encirclement with the 28th Mountain Infantry Regiment reporting the loss of another soldier in the night action. In all the 5th Brigade reports the loss of five men in this action that later became known as the Combate de Los Quinchos
On 10 October, a UH-1H helicopter piloted by Second Lieutenant Oscar Delfino was hit by small arms fire during an offensive reconnaissance mission near Acheral, killing its door gunner, Corporal José Anselmo Ramírez and wounding Captain Armando Valiente. After an emergency landing, other helicopters carried out rocket attacks on the reedbed. A total of 13 guerrillas were reported killed in the ensuing firefight.
On 24 October, during another clash that took place with ERP guerrillas on the banks of Fronterista River, Second Lieutenant Diego Barceló and Privates Orlando Moya and Carlos Vizcarra from the 5th Brigade were killed.
On 8 November 1975 there was a further engagement near Fronterita Stream in which the 5th Brigade suffered another two killed, Corporal Wilfredo Napoleón Méndez and Private Benito Oscar Pérez.
On 18 December, Acdel Vilas was relieved of his post and Antonio Domingo Bussi assumed command of the operations. Shortly afterwards, Bussi told Vilas over the phone: "Vilas, you have left me nothing to do."
On 29 December, Bussi launched Operation La Madrid I, the first of a series of four major search-and-destroy operations.