Operativo Independencia ("Operation Independence") was a 1975 Argentine military operation in Tucumán Province to crush the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), a Guevarist guerrilla group which tried to create a Vietnam-style war front in the northwestern province. It was the first large-scale military operation of the Dirty War.
Background
After the return of Juan Perón to Argentina, marked by the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre which led to the split between left and right-wing Peronists, and then his return to the presidency in 1973, the ERP shifted to a rural strategy designed to secure a large land area as a base for military operations against the Argentine state. The ERP leadership chose to send Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez to the province of Tucumán at the edge of the long-impoverished Andean highlands in the northwest corner of Argentina.
The People's Guerrilla Army (EGP) campaign in Salta (1963–1964) served as Argentina's first disastrous experiment with Cuban-style foquismo. Initiated by journalist Jorge Ricardo Masetti and Cuban officer Hermes Peña Torres ("Captain Hermes") under the guidance of Che Guevara, the small vanguard attempted to ignite a revolution from the isolated, rugged cloud forests of Orán. However, because they relied on the theory that a tiny armed nucleus could spark a rebellion without prior political roots, they quickly found themselves completely isolated from the local population. Plagued by tropical diseases and near-total starvation, the group collapsed from within—culminating in the tragic summary executions of their own panicked recruits, before being easily dismantled by the National Gendarmerie in mid-1964.
Mario Roberto Santucho and the PRT-ERP deeply analyzed this failure, transforming the tragedy of the EGP into a definitive negative blueprint for how not to wage a rural insurgency. Rejecting Masetti's isolated strategy, Santucho realized that a guerrilla army could not survive in a vacuum; it required a robust political party deeply embedded in the working class to provide a permanent urban-rural logistics lifeline and prevent psychological collapse. When the ERP launched its own rural front (Frente Rural) in 1974, Santucho deliberately chose Tucumán Province over Salta because the terrain offered the same tactical jungle cover but was highly populated and anchored by radicalized sugarcane worker unions. By capitalizing on years of prior political organizing among these workers, the ERP successfully secured the 2,500-person civilian support and intelligence network that the EGP had fatally lacked a decade earlier.
By December 1974, the guerrillas numbered about 100 fighters, with a 400-person support network, although the size of the guerrilla platoons increased from February onwards as the ERP approached its maximum strength of between 300 and 500 men and women. Led by Mario Roberto Santucho, they soon established control over a third of the province and organized a base of some 2,500 sympathizers. The Montoneros' leadership was keen to learn from their experience, and sent "observers" to spend a few months with the ERP platoons operating in Tucumán.
According to the findings of Antonius Robben in his book, in all 84 members of the Argentine Armed Forces and Police were killed in clashes involving left-wing guerrillas and supporting militants in Tucumán Province.Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina. Antonius C. G. M. Robben. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2010. p. 153
Tucumán Province had experienced a number of violent episodes in the early 1970s. Montoneros gunmen operating in the province on 9 October 1970 had shot and killed a policeman (Juan Carlos Ceballos).Los otros Muertos: Las Víctimas Civiles del Terrorismo Guerrillero de los 70, Carlos Manfroni, Victoria E. Villarruel, SUDAMERICANA, 2014
The Montoneros would later kill, on 9 de September 1971, another policeman (Juan Carlos Vallejo) in the suburb of Yerba Buena of the city of San Miguel de Tucumán.In Memoriam, Tomo II, Círculo Militar, 1999, p. 579
On 6 September 1971, an ERP platoon had broken into the Villa Urquiza Prison in Tucumán and freed 12 of their guerrillas, killing 5 prison guards (Raúl Villagra, Saul Carlos Rojas, José Rosas Abregú, Néstor Lobos and Juan Ordóñez) in the process.Avanza el Enemigo, Gabriel Ruiz de los Llanos, Pg. 55, Editorial Del Nuevo Amanecer, 2000
On 27 July 1972, Montoneros and FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias) guerrillas had robbed weapons and uniforms from a local police station and killed two policemen inside.«27 de julio: un comando unificado de las organizaciones FAR y Montoneros copó una subcomisaría en Tucumán apoderándose de armas y uniformes. En el hecho mueren dos policías por resistirse.» Golpe o Revolución: La Violencia Legitimada, Argentina, 1966-1973, María Matilde Ollier, p. 67, EDUNTREF, 2005
On 5 August 1973, ERP gunmen traveling in a car had intercepted and shot and killed in a hail of fire a police inspector (Major Hugo Tomagnini) in Tucumán.El Escarmiento: La Ofensiva de Perón contra Cámpora y Los Montoneros, 1973-1974., Juan B. Yofre, Pg. ?, Sudamericana, 2011 On 4 October 1973, the ERP guerrillas operating in the province struck again, shooting and mortally wounding a policeman (Casimiro Reyes Mansilla).In Memoriam, Volumen 2, Círculo Militar, 1998
On 22 May 1974, another Tucumán policeman (Vicente Marcelo Lazarte) is mortally wounded while conducting traffic control duties after coming under fire by a carload of ERP gunmen.Evolución de la Delincuencia Terrorista en la Argentina, Poder Ejecutivo Nacional, Pg. 308, República Argentina, 1979 On 20 September 1974, ERP guerrillas lined-up and executed two captured Tucumán Police NCOs, Eudoro Ibarra and Héctor Oscar Zaraspe, in a public square.Nadie Fue, Juan B. Yofre, Pg. ?, Sudamericana, 2011
Annihilation Actions decree
The military operation to crush the insurgency was authorized by the Provisional President of the Senate, Ítalo Argentino Luder, who was granted executive power during the absence (due to illness) of President Isabel Perón, in virtue of the "Ley de Acefalía" (law of succession). Ítalo Luder issued the presidential decree 261/1975 which stated that the "general command of the Army will proceed to all of the necessary military operations to the effect of neutralizing or annihilating the actions of the subversive elements acting in Tucumán Province."Decree No. 261/75 . NuncaMas.org, Decretos de aniquilamiento. Spanish: El Comando General del Ejército procederá a ejecutar todas las operaciones militares que sean necesarias a efectos de neutralizar o aniquilar el accionar de los elementos subversivos que actúan en la provincia de Tucumán.
The Argentine military used the territory of the smallest Argentine province to implement, within the framework of the National Security Doctrine, the methods of the "counter-revolutionary warfare". These included the use of terrorism, kidnappings, forced disappearances and concentration camps where hundreds of guerrillas and their supporters in Tucumán were tortured and murdered. The logistical and operational superiority of the military, headed first by General Acdel Vilas, and from December 1975 by Antonio Domingo Bussi, succeeded in crushing the insurgency after a year and by destroying links the ERP, led by Roberto Santucho, had earlier established with the local population.
Brigadier-General Acdel Vilas deployed over 4,000 soldiers, including two companies of elite army commandos, backed by jets, dogs, helicopters, U.S. satellites and a Navy Beechcraft Queen Air B-80 equipped with infrared surveillance assets.Comandos en acción: el Ejército en Malvinas, Isidoro Ruiz Moreno, p. 24, Emecé Editores, 1986 The ERP did have some crucial support from the local population where it planned to wage a guerrilla campaign and was initially able to initially move at will among the towns of Santa Lucía, Los Sosa, Monteros and La Fronterita around Famaillá and the Monteros mountains, until the Fifth Brigade from Third Army Corps came on the scene, consisting of the 19th, 20th and 29th Regiments. and various support units.
State of emergency During his brief interlude as the nation's chief executive, interim President Ítalo Luder extended the operation to the whole of the country through Decrees noº 2270, 2271 and 2272, issued on 6 July 1975. The July decrees created a Defense Council headed by the president, and including his ministers and the chiefs of the armed forces.Decree No. 2770/75 . NuncaMas.org, Decretos de aniquilamiento.Decree No. 2771/75 . NuncaMas.org, Decretos de aniquilamiento.Decree No. 2772/75 . NuncaMas.org, Decretos de aniquilamiento. It was given the command of the national and provincial police and correctional facilities and its mission was to "annihilate the actions of subversive elements throughout the country." Military control and the state of emergency was thus generalized to all of the country. The "counter-insurgency" tactics used by the French during the 1957 Battle of Algiers —such as relinquishing of civilian control to the military, state of emergency, block warden system ("quadrillage"), etc.— were perfectly imitated by the Argentine military.
These "annihilation Action decrees" are the source of the charges against Isabel Perón, which called for her arrest in Madrid more than thirty years later, in January 2007, but she was never extradited to Argentina due to her advanced age. The country was then divided into five military zones through a 28 October 1975 directive of struggle against subversion. As had been done during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, each zone was divided in subzones and areas, with its corresponding military responsibles. General Antonio Domingo Bussi replaced Acdel Vilas in December 1975 as responsible of the military operations. A reported 656 people disappeared in Tucumán between 1974 and 1979, 75% of which were laborers and labor union officials.
Operation
1975 On 5 January 1975, an Army DHC-6 transport plane was downed near the Monteros mountains while on a reconnaissance mission, apparently brought down down by Guerrillas operating heavy machine-guns or through sabotage.John Keegan, World Armies|page=22, Macmillan, 1983 All thirteen on board that were killed, were mostly officers from Third Army Corps, including the Fifth Brigade commander, Brigadier-General Ricardo Agustín Muñoz and his superior Major-General Enrique Eugenio Salgado were killed. The military believe a heavy machine gun or sabotage had downed the aircraft."Allí hubo gran acción en combates como el de Acheral, Pueblo Viejo y Famailla donde se volaron mas de 3 400 horas. Como consecuencia de los mismos, se produjo el derribo de un Twin Otter, un Piper L-21B y dos Bell UH-1H." Tecnología Militar, Tomo 24. Grupo Editorial Mönch. 2002. p. 26"El 5 de enero de 1975, una aeronave militar ( Twin Otter ) que transportaba altos mandos del III Cuerpo del Ejército, se desplomó muriendo los trece oficiales, entre ellos el Comandante del respectivo Cuerpo con base en Tucumán, General de División Eugenio Salgado y el comandante de la V Brigada de Infantería el General de Brigada Ricardo Agustín Muñoz. El hecho conmocionó al país, como puede vislumbrarse en cualquier periódico del 6 de enero de ese año, especialmente cuando la investigación arrojó que el avión fue derribado por el fuego de ametralladoras antiaéreas de origen ruso, que hicieron impacto sobre el timón del avión, haciendo que se precipitara contra el terreno, disparado por guerrilleros del Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP)." Ni Yanquis Ni Marxistas ¡Peronistas!, Diego Mazzieri, p. 257, Lulu Press, 2012Argentina maintained compulsory military service (the conscription draft). Left-wing organizations like the ERP and Montoneros successfully placed or radicalised young draftees inside the armed forces, using them as internal spies, weapon suppliers, or saboteurs.