The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine far-right or radical anti-communist political paramilitary group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, linked with the Italian pseudo-Masonic lodge and criminal organisation Propaganda Due (see Licio Gelli), that killed artists, priests, intellectuals, leftist politicians, students, historians and union members, as well as issuing threats and carrying out extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances during the presidencies of Juan Perón and Isabel Perón between 1973 and 1976.Conadep, Informe Nunca Más, Capítulo II, Título Primero: Víctimas. The group was responsible for the disappearance and death of between 700 and 1100 people.
The Triple A was secretly led by José López Rega, Minister of Social Welfare and personal secretary of Juan Perón. Rodolfo Almirón, arrested in Spain in 2006, was alleged to be his chief operating officer of the group, and was officially head of López Rega's and Isabel Perón's personal security. He was extradited from Spain in 2006 and prosecuted; he died in jail in June 2009. SIDE agent Anibal Gordon was another important member of the Triple A, although he always denied it. He was tried in Argentina in 1985 after the restoration of democracy and convicted in October 1986. Gordon died in prison of lung cancer the next year."Quién fue Aníbal Gordon?" (Who was Anibal Gordon) , Clarín, 14 October
In 2006, Argentine Judge Norberto Oyarbide ruled the Triple A had committed "crimes against humanity," which meant their crimes were exempt from statutes of limitations. Suspects can be prosecuted for actions committed in the 1970s and early 1980s.
History Background Historian Osvaldo Bayer and researcher Atilio Borón have argued that the Triple A has antecedents in the parapolice bands that emerged at the beginning of the , following the Social Defense Decree Law.
Creation
José López Rega, from 1973 when he was appointed Minister of Social Welfare by Héctor J. Cámpora, began to surround himself with militants from other groups who "wanted to eliminate the left", among them former members of the Tacuara Nationalist Movement of the Movimiento Nueva Argentina (MNA), militants of the Juventud Federal of the Peronist leader Manuel de Anchorena, of the Concentración Nacional Universitaria, of the Comando de Organización, technical cadres of Guardia de Hierro and orthodox trade union groups specialized in doctrinal training. In addition, he created the Juventud Peronista República Argentina (JPRA), because he needed an apparatus that would go out to fight for "the streets" directly against the Tendencia, groups that responded organically to the organizations Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias and Montoneros (which financed themselves with bank robberies and kidnappings of businessmen for ransom). The organization was sustained with resources from the Ministry, and it even allowed them entry into the youth branch of the Peronist Superior Council, the institutional body from which they began to combat the Juventud Peronista Regionales, the surface organization of Montoneros.
The Triple A was believed to have been organized in 1973 by José López Rega and Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine federal police, during the brief interim presidency of Raúl Lastiri in 1973. Reportedly, the movement was conceived at a high-level Peronist meeting on 1 October 1973, attended by President Raúl Lastiri, Interior Minister Benito Llambí, Social Welfare Minister José López Rega, general secretary of the Presidency José Humberto Martiarena and various provincial governors.Manuel Justo Gaggero, "El general en su laberinto", Pagina/12, 19 February 2007 The group operated under the governments of Lastiri, Perón and Isabel Perón through López Rega resignation and exile in July 1975. Villar and his wife were murdered in 1974 with a bomb that was planted on his cabin cruiser in Tigre by members of the Montoneros, a militant, leftist group.
Workers of the Ministry and militants of the Juventud Peronista de la República Argentina (JPRA) began to simulate attacks by Montoneros against themselves as part of a strategy to present themselves as military targets of left-wing groups, which allowed them to revalue themselves within the Ministry.
In a warehouse called "microcine", in the second basement of the Ministry, weapons were stored. A significant supply occurred after Manuel de Anchorena was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom. Through his management in that country, he arranged for two hundred Sten MKII submachine guns to be sent, which could be easily disassembled and also came with a silencer adaptable to another weapon widely used in the Ministry, the Sterling. Payment was carried out through the Directorate of Administration.
López Rega, a devotee of occultism and self-styled divinator, became a powerful force in the Peronist movement. He exerted great influence over Perón, who was elected to the presidency and took office in 1973, and his wife Isabel Perón, elected as vice-president, who succeeded to the presidency upon Perón's sudden death on 1 July 1974. To support the paramilitary group, López Rega drew on funds from the Ministry of Social Welfare, which he controlled."Un juez argentino ordena capturar al ex jefe de la 'Triple A', que vive en Valencia" (An Argentine judge ordered the capture of the ex-chief of 'Triple A', who lives in Valencia, El Mundo, 20 December 2006 Some of the members of the Triple A had earlier taken part in the Peronist 1973 Ezeiza massacre. On the day Perón returned from exile, snipers shot and killed numerous (13 at least killed) left-wing Peronists at the mass gathering to welcome his return, leading to the definitive separation between left and right-wing Peronists.
There are theories about the name of the Alliance that could be due to the esoteric profile of López Rega, who believed that the morality of humanity would evolve as the three magnetic vertices of the triangle of the Triple A developed.
The Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzón's investigations, directed at human rights abuses internationally, revealed that Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie had also worked with the Triple A, and was present at Ezeiza. Delle Chiaie also worked with the Chilean DINA in Chile, and for Hugo Banzer, a Bolivian dictator.
According to a 1983 article in The New York Times, the group was founded when there were an increasing number of guerrilla attacks by left-wing militant groups, which were met by harsh repression of political dissidents on the part of the military, paramilitary and police forces. This environment of social unrest was the justification used by the subsequent military junta for its Dirty War against political opponents.
Attacks prior to the public emergence of the Triple A On 15 August, militants of the JP who were carrying out a demonstration in support of the resigning governor Bidegain were detained and tortured. On 7 September, Oscar Suárez, upon recovering his freedom in Tucumán, denounced that he had been a victim of torture inflicted by Héctor García Rey, chief of the provincial police, linked to López Rega.
On 14 September, the "Ateneo 20 de junio" of the JP was machine-gunned by unknown assailants. On the 19th, the Federación Gráfica Bonaerense denounced the disappearance of Sergio Joaquín Maillman, 24 years old. On the 13th he had been seen wounded and beaten when he was taken out of a light-blue Ford Falcon and introduced into the house at Miraflores 2044. At the end of that block was installed the Fifth Surveillance Corps of the Federal Police. The car in which he arrived at Miraflores had license plate C 468.596, whose registered owner was María Esther Tagarelli de Martini, an official of the Ministry of Social Welfare.
On 23 September, Perón was elected president and on 25 September José Ignacio Rucci, secretary general of the CGT, was assassinated. Researcher Julieta Rostica maintains:Julieta Rostica, "Apuntes sobre la 'Triple A'. Argentina, 1973-1976:", Desafíos, Bogotá, (23-2), second semester of 2011, p. 43.
On 28 September, in Rosario, the lawyer Roberto Raúl Catalá was shot; the attackers left pamphlets in which they assigned themselves the character of "anti-Marxist commands".
During October, in Córdoba, the JP militant Ramón Fajardo was wounded by gunfire. Armed members of the Juventud Sindical Peronista took over the headquarters of Banco Social; bombs were detonated at the homes of provincial deputies Fausto Rodríguez and Miguel A. Marcattini, members of the Frejuli. A bomb also exploded at the home of Senator Tejada, president of the provincial Senate, and Leandro Fote and other militants of popular organizations were detained during a "dragnet" operation. In Corrientes, the Frente de Izquierda Popular denounced the explosion of a bomb at its premises. In Tucumán, the Provincial Board of Justicialism, following instructions from the Superior Council presided over by Humberto Martiarena, "will alert all comrades to the situation of war against Marxist groups". In Mar del Plata, the home of the Juventud Peronista leader Andrés Cabo was set on fire, and the same occurred with that of the secretary of the local university and JP member Alfredo Cuestas. In Mendoza, a bomb exploded in the office of the governor of Mendoza, Martínez Baca, questioned by right-wing sectors of Justicialism.
In the province of Buenos Aires, at the Communist Party premises on Estados Unidos and Sáenz Peña streets a bomb that did not explode was found; another exploded at the Basic Unit "Mártires de Trelew", at Urquiza 2193, which caused extensive damage. Nemesio Aquino, a member of the JP and affiliated with the Basic Unit "Héroes de Trelew", was murdered. Journalist José Colombo, of the newspaper El Norte, was also killed in San Nicolás, and the attackers stated that that newspaper was "full of communists". His widow denounced that "in the San Nicolás regional CGT there is a list of 141 'bolches' in which my husband and I were included". The leader Dante Gullo denounced a series of attacks against JP premises. Opposition leaders expressed concern over the "anti-Marxist instructions" formulated within Peronism. The Unión Tranviarios Automotor (UTA) carried out a strike over the kidnapping of Oscar Arca, delegate of the company Costera Criolla and member of the JTP.
Reserved document of the PJ Superior Council