To return without having left: the case of the “Specials Troops of Agitation-South” during the Montonero’s Strategic Counter-Offensive of 1979

Authors

  • Hernán Eduardo Confino Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de General San Martín (IDAES/UNSAM), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53351/ruhm.v7i14.446

Keywords:

strategic counter-offensive, experience, clandestine political activism, state repression, defeat

Abstract

The following paper reconstructs and analyses the experience of clandestine political activism in Argentina of a group of Montonero militants in 1979, during the last military dictatorship in the country (1976-1983). Their involvement took place within the ‘Strategic Counter-Offensive’ planned by the political and military organization Montoneros in October 1978 which stipulated the return to the country of activists who were abroad to fight against the military regime which they considered in crisis. The group that will be analyzed here had the distinctive characteristic of being the only one composed by activists who had not had any experience abroad and had continued working uninterruptedly in Argentina during the de facto government.

Addressing this group allows to challenge the prevailing idea in the specialized scholarship which holds the main reason for the return of the activists was their unawareness of the scale of the dictatorship's state repression. The involvement in the Strategic Counter-Offensive did not arise, at least for the group that will be considered here, from their alienation of the Argentine political context. Furthermore, this article is part of a broader research that constitutes the first scholarly approach that takes the history of the Strategic Counter-Offensive as a specific object of enquiry. The significance of the Strategic Counter-Offensive lies on the fact that its launch meant the total break-up of Montoneros' political project and, for that reason, its explanation has been dominated either by moral condemnation or historical narratives based on that political outcome.

For the reconstruction and analysis, this paper uses written and oral sources. Among the former stand out the declassified documents of intelligence agencies of the military dictatorship, the internal documents of Montoneros and their party press. The oral sources, on the other hand, were produced from interviews conducted by the author with the people involved, bearing in mind their special utility in the historical study of practices that took place in a context of clandestine political activity.

The article seeks to challenge and make more complex some of the premises that have so far dominated the studies of the Strategic Counter-Offensive and Montoneros' latest years.

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Author Biography

  • Hernán Eduardo Confino, Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de General San Martín (IDAES/UNSAM), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)

    Hernán Eduardo Confino es Profesor en Enseñanza Media y Superior en Historia por la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Actualmente se encuentra cursando el Doctorado en Historia en el Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de General San Martín (IDAES/UNSAM) con beca doctoral del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET).

    Forma parte del Núcleo de Política, Sociedad y Cultura en la Historia Reciente y del Centro de Estudios de Historia e Historia del Arte de IDAES/UNSAM y de la Red de Represión y Violencia Política.

    Integra el Proyecto de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (PICT) 2016-0467, financiado por el Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (FONCyT): “La ESMA, de Centro Clandestino de Detención a Sitio de Memoria: procesos históricos y memoriales entre 1976 y 2016.”, a cargo de la Dra. Marina Franco.

    Se desempeña como docente en las carreras de Sociología y Antropología de la UNSAM.

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Fuentes

Documentos de Montoneros

➢ “Boletín Interno N°12” de enero de 1980.

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➢ Evita Montonera N°23, enero de 1979.

➢ “Manual RLTV”, 1978.

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➢ Memoria Abierta, testimonio de Elvio Alberione, Buenos Aires y Córdoba, 7 de Junio y 4 de Agosto de 2008 y 10 de Diciembre de 2009

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➢ Siri, Marina y Rubio, Ricardo, entrevista con el autor, San Miguel, 27 de abril de 2017.

Documentos desclasificados de los servicios de inteligencia de la dictadura

➢ DIPBA, Mesa D(s), “Actualización BDT-Montoneros”, septiembre de 1977.

➢ DIPBA, Mesa “D(s)”, “Informe especial”, Montoneros, diciembre de 1978.

➢ DIPBA, Mesa “D(s)”, Actualización de la BDT Montoneros, enero de 1980.

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Published

2018-07-11

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 14 (2018): La lógica de la guerra “irregular” en la Antigüedad

Section

Estudios

License

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How to Cite

To return without having left: the case of the “Specials Troops of Agitation-South” during the Montonero’s Strategic Counter-Offensive of 1979. (2018). Revista Universitaria De Historia Militar, 7(14). https://doi.org/10.53351/ruhm.v7i14.446

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