Operation Massacre(47)

            —A number of circumstances are being referred to here —proceeded Fernández Suárez with passion in his voice,— but there’s no talk of who is creating them, when they took place, what evidence might exist . . . There needs to be proof, because if there isn’t, the Chief of Police should be singled out as well!

            What happens next is very strange. Up until this moment, there is actually no proof of the secret execution. There is only Livraga’s formal accusation against “whoever was responsible” and Fernández Suárez’s statements, which have been buried in the June 1956 newspapers, and which no one has thought to look for. But now it is the Chief of Police himself who, compelled by a dark, self-incriminating fate, confirms and expands upon those statements.

            So it is he who provides the necessary proof.

            At this time I would like to ask the reader to disbelieve all the claims I have made, to distrust the sound of the words, the possible language games that any journalist turns to when he wants to prove something, and to believe only the parts of my story that match what Fernández Suárez has said.

            Begin by doubting the very existence of those men whom, according to my account, the Chief of Police in Florida arrested on the night of June 9, 1956. Now listen to Fernández Suárez before the Advisory Board on December 18, 1956, as per the stenographic transcription:

            With respect to Mister Livraga, I want to make known that on the night of June 9 I received the order to raid a house in person . . . on that property I found fourteen people . . . among them was this man.

            So those people existed, and among them was Livraga. But I have claimed that he arrested those men before martial law was put into effect. And to determine the time at which it was instated, I have not limited myself to consulting the newspapers of June 10, 1956, which unanimously report that it was announced at 12:30 a.m. of that day. I have gone beyond that by locating the State Radio registry book of announcers and photocopying it to prove, to the minute, that martial law was made public at 12:32 a.m. on June 10.

            And when I maintain that the Chief of Police arrested those men an hour and a half prior, and technically a day early, that is to say at 11:00 p.m. on June 9, the reader should not take my word for it, but rather that of the Chief of Police before the Advisory Board:

            At 11:00 p.m. I raided the property in person . . .

            And when I say that those men did not participate in the rebellion of June 9, 1956, the reader should doubt me more than ever. But believe Fernández Suárez when he states:

            . . . these people . . . were about to participate in these acts . . .

            Were about to. That is to say, had not participated.

            I have said, moreover, that those men did not put up any resistance. And Fernández Suárez says:

            . . . they did not have time to resist . . .

            Whether it was because they did not have the time or because they did not think to do it, what we know is that they did not resist.

            I don’t want to be accused of Jesuitically extracting the segment of Fernández Suárez’s report that refers to Livraga’s case and of making him say something he didn’t say. I am going to reproduce it here unabridged because what it constitutes—rather than a defense—is the very proof that he was demanding.

            With respect to this Mister Livraga, I would like to make known that on the night of June 9 I received the order to raid a house in person where General Tanco was meeting with the leaders of the group that were going to attack the Mechanics School. At 11:00 p.m. I raided that property in person. I was half an hour late; if I had done it a bit earlier, I would have arrested General Tanco. I found fourteen people on that property who did not have time to resist—they were armed with Colt pistols—because we came in through the doors and the windows. Among them was that man. When I found out about what was happening in La Plata, I went to Headquarters and placed these men in the commissioner’s custody. At dawn, the Executive Power ordered the execution of these people who were about to participate in these acts or who had adopted some kind of revolutionary attitude.