Roberto Perdía, former head of Montoneros, was fired at a wake that had Peronist flags, figures from the seventies and
even a Montonero cantata
.
He was in charge of the Juglar de la Libertad, the guitarist and singer invited to say goodbye to one of the most controversial personalities of that decade.
Perdía, 82, died Wednesday.
He came to occupy the third place in command within the Peronist organization, below Roberto Firmenich and Fernando Vaca Narvaja.
He joined the Peronist Armed Forces (FAP) in 1969. After the start of the last military dictatorship, he went into exile to Madrid.
And in 1979 he launched
the so-called Montoneros "counteroffensive" from the Spanish capital.
His farewell evoked the spirit of those years.
It happened on Thursday, at the Buenos Aires Graphic Federation, where figures from Peronism and seventies militancy arrived.
Some of them joined together for a monotonera cantata.
Everything was recorded on social networks, with a video that went viral.
The moment was also captured by
Francisco Alvero
, the singer who encouraged the collective cantata inches from the open drawer that carried Perdía's remains.
We are the blood of those companions / already spilled that the people have not forgotten, / free or dead but never slaves
It is monotonous, the cry is Peronism, / it is hope, we have to fight. / It's a lot, the people are the way, / Perón or death, national socialism.
It is the fragment of the
Marcha Montonera,
a zamba that Alvero played on the guitar and sang with some of those present.
Montonera cantata at Roberto Perdía's wake.
"Palmas!"
he asked, clad in a poncho and wearing a hat and wiphala scarf.
Without interruptions, he added other verses from those years:
"Memory of the garbage dumps (El Aramburazo)"
, by the folklore group Huerque Mapu, who had to go into exile in Mexico due to the dictatorship.
Where is the rifleman / that of the Liberator / May 1970. / They don't know where he is now.
Who took the murderer, / the Valle murderer. / Who do people wonder / in their homes and on their streets.
It will be a vigil in arms / to reach judgment / the combatant night / with burning hands.
It was because of that memory / of old garbage dumps / that illuminated a lot / the dawned light.
Luck of the dictatorship / slowness and loss. / With villages and guerrillas / the relapse came.
The singer finished with his arms raised, recognized with general applause.
The couple from Perdía looked at him, soaked in tears, next to the remains of the former Montonero commander.
Montonera cantata at Roberto Perdía's wake.
The hall of the Buenos Aires Graphic Federation was decorated with
allusive flags
.
The largest, from Montoneros, with the group's logo that crosses a rifle and a tacuara.
Just in front, between the emblem and the coffin, a religious cross.
On the coffin, other flags.
And the walls covered with wreaths of flowers dedicated to "Pelado", as they knew him.
Fernando Esteche, Emilio Pérsico and
Fernando Vaca Narvaja
were some of those who attended the farewell to Perdía.
None competed with the singer.
Francisco Alvero introduces himself as a "minstrel and singer" with a tenor register.
He calls himself
"The Minstrel of Freedom"
or "The Minstrel of World Peace."
He also calls himself "Guerrero de la Pacha y Arco Iris" on his social networks.
In recent weeks he launched a search for "popular lyrical singers, musicians, actors, actresses, clowns, dancers" for his next project.
He defines it as a "cycle of short works of
political musical theater."
In fact, he already anticipated the tone of those works in a podcast of his own creation.
On his YouTube channel you can follow, chapter by chapter, his latest creation:
"El Peluca y la Milica".