Hit by the demonstrations that defeated the "Rodrigazo" and forced López Rega to flee, in September 1975 President Isabel Perón took leave.
Her replacement, Ítalo Luder, sought agreements with radicalism and the Armed Forces and considered advancing future elections to “end coup threats and strengthen the institutional process”, an acknowledgment of the seriousness of the crisis that was shocking the country.
Just as the majority of the parties struggled for a consensus government, pro-coup voices grew along with it.
But on Sunday, October 5, at a high cost, a platoon of Montoneros took over a regiment in Formosa to "recover weapons for the people": 12 military casualties (9 conscript soldiers) and 15 of the attackers.
The episode serves as a pretext for the role of the Armed Forces in the repression to be extended to the entire country within the framework of the state of siege and the creation of new Councils that place the Federal Police and the SIDE under military control.
At the Conference of American Armies, General Videla explained the strategy: "If necessary, in Argentina all the necessary people must die to achieve peace in the country" while Balbín resumed his attacks on the "factory guerrillas": "Subversion is everywhere… the guerrillas from the mountains and from here, in the factories”.
Indeed, the other decisive actor is the labor movement which, after carrying out the first general strike against a Peronist government, is still active, but is confused by the growing power vacuum and the verticalism of its leadership.
Almost alone, Isabel returns on October 17.
The businessmen organize lockouts, the opposition parties put pressure on them with denunciations of corruption and the army and parapolice groups act with total impunity: disappearances and the appearance of corpses shot is a daily occurrence.
The university elections show that the middle class distances itself from the "ultras" in favor of moderate positions and the government announces elections for October 17, 1976 and prepares a new adjustment plan.
The end of the year is more than busy.
On December 18 there is an uprising in the Air Force and Orlando Agosti assumes as the new commander;
On Christmas Eve, Videla, from Tucumán, gives a period of ninety days –mathematical precision– to “bring order”: “Immorality and corruption must be adequately sanctioned;
political, economic and ideological speculation must stop being means used by adventurers to achieve their ends”, an ultimatum issued the day after another shock: in an almost suicidal action the ERP tries to take over the Monte Chingolo Battalion.
The Army knew the plan and caused a disaster;
the ERP loses close to a hundred combatants, most of them young with little training.
Thus, two mega-attempts culminate in resounding failures with many militants sacrificed in an irresponsible and childish way: the logic of "the worse, the better" assumed that misery and repression would help the people join the "revolutionary war";
a coup could therefore be “beneficial”.
The provocative actions, however, take place between the astonishment, indifference or frank repudiation of the population, which the fascist gangs take advantage of to install an imprecise suspicion: "he will be up to something", "he will have done something"... The parties of the arc parliamentarians fail to respond and Peronism is consumed in its own sauce and Isabel –whom no one respects– tries to establish herself as “the woman with the whip” with speeches that border on the grotesque.
The military spokesmen reiterate her adherence to the National Constitution.
“Everything has been said”, headlines an evening newspaper on the 23rd while Isabel –says López Saavedra– “celebrated the birthday of one of her employees at the Casa Rosada with pastries and snacks”.
Hours later, she is invited to board a helicopter and is virtually kidnapped as she leaves for the south in a secret direction.
Lorenzo Miguel repeats: "we will not fall without pain or glory", although the head of the CGT Casildo Herreras flees, showing off his combative loyalty: "I erased myself".
Broad sectors of a middle class fed up with “misgovernment” and the climate of violence trust that the military will bring order. In the shadows of the early morning of the 24th, the Military Junta seizes power;
five days later Videla is president and on April 2 Martínez de Hoz disembarks at the Ministry of Economy.
The self-styled “National Reorganization Process” begins: messianism –as later,
Today, as in that 1975, political precariousness, with its particularities, cannot be concealed.
There are 40 years of democracy that add up to unfulfilled promises: "with democracy you eat...", "due obedience", the "productive revolution", being part of the "first world", the scam of "whoever deposited dollars will receive dollars" , a supposed “decade won”;
a “change” that resulted in more of the same… As then, weariness and skepticism open doors to messianic extremes that, with grandiloquent and arrogant language, present “saviors of the homeland” as the incarnation of a “true republic with freedom”, Strictly speaking, an old speech, a classic trap of the fabulators who bid for new worn-out mailboxes.
By lowering the price of passion, it is necessary to bet on alternatives that show seriousness, responsibility, concrete programs and proposals, teams, learning capacity, self-criticism and listening, and courageously combine them to fight for them.
Passion, yes;
but, even more, right.
Far from all demagogic and messianic discourse, citizens have the right to demand that those who apply to represent them be suitable, experts, committed and transparent, rejecting those who "play" to muddy the field with fallacious half-truths.
That the crisis is an opportunity?
Today, anger must mutate into intelligent participation by exercising a good memory because, as Aristotle pointed out... the only truth is reality.
Historian. Author of "Argentine history in 25 episodes"
look too
The state parties
Sarmiento in the Republic of Children