Operation Massacre(45)
Footnotes:
31 DG: After Perón was ousted in 1955, the Unión Cívica Radical (see Note 10) party split into two factions, the UCR Intransigente and the UCR del Pueblo [The People’s Radical Civil union ]. The Intransigente party was more prepared to work together with Peronist supporters and was led by Arturo Frondizi, while the more rigidly anti-Peronist faction, UCR del Pueblo, was led by Ricardo Balbín.
Part Three
The Evidence
32. The Ghosts
Rodríguez Moreno was an exhausted and bewildered man when, at six o’clock in the morning on June 10, he informed La Plata Police Headquarters by radio that the order for execution had been carried out. Would he mention that more than half the prisoners had escaped? He opted to keep quiet.
At Headquarters, no one was sleeping. They asked for a list of the executed men. And now Rodríguez Moreno really had no choice but to send the list of the five dead.
—And the others? —bellowed Fernández Suárez.
—They escaped.
We will never know exactly what happened in the Chief of Police’s office when the distressed Chief Inspector came in to deliver his report. In a statement before the judge seven months later, Rodríguez Moreno will say that he “was treated severely” by Fernández Suárez.
The Chief of Police’s problem is easy to explain, but difficult to solve. He has arrested a dozen men before martial law was instated. He has executed them without trial. And now it turns out that seven of these men are alive.
Judging by what he does next, it is clear that he understands his situation. The first thing he does is scatter the killers and the witnesses. He sends Rodríguez Moreno and Cuello to the Mar del Plata District Police Department, and later he will send Commissioner De Paula (who saw Livraga in Moreno) to the precinct in Bernal.
On June 12, the papers publish a list—provided by the national government—of five “men executed in the region of San Martín,” with the mistakes that I already noted. The report does not say who arrested them, who ordered for them to be killed and why; it does not so much as allude to the escape of the other seven. An interesting precaution.
But Fernández Suárez feels compelled to talk. There are some who ask why he was not at Headquarters when the attack began, why he left the building undefended, why he only came back when the situation was resolved. Some will suggest that the Chief of Police was hedging his bets that night and that the executions he later ordered were his alibi. He brings in the press and, according to the June 11 and 12 La Plata newspapers, explains to them:
“It was only by fortunate coincidence that I happened to be outside the Department during the uprising. During the emergency, I had traveled to the town of Moreno, where the accidental explosion of a bomb led us to discover a house belonging to the engineer Sarrabayrouse, who was affiliated with the Peronist party. We confiscated thirty-one high-powered time bombs from his arsenal. I was in the middle of this operation on Saturday when I was informed that a secret meeting that included General Tanco had taken place in a house in Vicente López.
“The operation led to the arrest of fourteen individuals, but the aforementioned member of the military was not apprehended. At 11:00 p.m., when I was in that house, I found out about the revolt at the Mechanics School and in Santa Rosa.”
Not a word about the final destination of these individuals. Who would connect the dots between a group of “men executed in the region of San Martín” and an apartment in Vicente López?
And yet, Fernández Suárez has already given himself away. Because the crucial thing that he says here before anyone has even accused him of anything is that he arrested these individuals at 11:00 p.m. An hour and a half before martial law was instated.