Operation Massacre(17)
In La Plata, a bomb thrown at a shoe store downtown appears to be the sign the rebels are waiting for. In the Seventh Regiment, Captain Morganti calls the company under his command to action. Groups of civilians take over the telephone exchanges. Astounded passersby along the main streets see a number of Sherman tanks go by, followed by troops in armored trucks that are headed at full speed to the Second Division Command and the police station. There are barely twenty guards, not well-armed, at the station. Not even the police chief or second-in-command are there: the former is inspecting Mr. Horacio di Chiano’s furniture in Florida, and the latter is leading the repression in Avellaneda and Lanús.
The most spectacular battle of the entire attempt at rebellion is about to begin. Around a hundred thousand shots will be fired, according to an unofficial calculation. There will be a half-dozen killed and some twenty wounded. But the rebel forces, whose superiority in terms of military equipment at first seems overwhelming, will not come away with even the most fleeting success.
Ninety-nine out of every hundred people in the country are unaware of what’s going on. In the very same city of La Plata, where the shooting continues incessantly all night long, there are many who keep sleeping and only find out about it the following morning.
At 11:56 p.m. State Radio, the official voice of the Nation, stops playing Stravinsky and puts on the marching song that they usually use to end their programming. The voice of the announcer bids his listeners goodnight until the following day at the usual time. At midnight the broadcast is interrupted. All of this is confirmed on page fifty-one of State Radio’s registry book of announcers that was in use at the time and is signed by the announcer Gutenberg Pérez.
Not a word has been uttered about the subversive events of the night. Not even the slightest allusion has been made to martial law, which, like any law, must be declared and publicly announced before coming into effect.
Therefore, at midnight on June 9, 1956, nowhere in the Nation’s territory is martial law in effect.
But it has already been applied. And it will be applied later to men who were arrested before it was instated, and without the excuse—like the one they had in Avellaneda—that they had been caught with weapons in hand.
Footnotes:
13 DG: Década Infame (The Infamous Decade) refers to the thirteen years between the military coups that ousted President Hipólito Yrigoyen in 1930 and President Ramón Castillo in 1943, respectively. The term was coined by Argentine historian and writer José Luis Torres, who characterized the period as plagued by state corruption, corporatization and privatization, popular flight from rural areas, and an ever-increasing national deficit. Walsh considers the possibility here of a second década infame.
14 A detailed account of the operations and the repression that followed can be found in the book Martyrs and Executioners by Salvador Ferla, published in 1964.
16. “Watch Out, They Could Execute You . . .”
Meanwhile, the bus filled with prisoners picked up in Florida has headed southwest. It leaves the district of Vicente López and enters that of San Martín. The behavior of the guards escorting them is proper, which is to say indifferent. Some of the prisoners talk to each other.
—Why do you think they’ve taken us? —one asks.
—What do I know . . . —another answers.— Probably for playing cards.
—Something doesn’t smell right. The big guy said something about a revolution.
Mr. Horacio and Giunta are the most baffled of all. Because they weren’t even playing cards. Gavino, who doesn’t know them but could enlighten them, keeps quiet. Dazed and disheveled, wiping the blood away from his lip, he does know why they have been taken.