50 years of the definitive return of Perón, key in the historical evolution of Argentina

50 years ago, the former president Juan Domingo Peron (1895-1974) returned permanently to Argentina after 18 years of exile, a historic chapter that left 13 dead and a multitude of wounded in the so-called ‘Ezeiza Massacre’, due to the duel between two factions of the peronism who was registered in the welcome to the old leader and who was key in the immediate future of the country.

On June 20, 1973, in the vicinity of the Ezeiza International Airport, in the province of Buenos Aires, some two million people awaited the arrival of their leader, who was returning from his exile in Madrid, where he was very close to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

The party turned into a tragedy when the columns of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and Montoneros -armed arms of the Peronist Youth- tried to approach the box where the Peronist right was, from where they fired on the left Peronists, killing 13 people and wounding 365.

Given the lack of security, Perón decided to land in another town in Buenos Aires: Morón.

The massacre became “one of the most important situations to understand the evolution of the Argentina”affirms the political leader Julio Bárbaro, who at that time was a national deputy.

The confrontation between the two factions of Peronism – the conservative or right-wing sectors and the revolutionary or left-wing sectors – bloodily modified Peronism and gave rise, according to the politician, to the military dictatorship (1976-1983).

“That guerrilla is not going to serve to liberate the people and it is going to serve as an excuse for the military to carry out the coup”says Bárbaro, who was part of several Peronist governments.

Confrontation

After Perón, who ruled between 1946 and 1955 and already twice a widower, was overthrown by a military coup, he went into exile in Paraguay, Panama – where he met his third wife, María Estela Martínez ‘Elizabeth’-, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and finally Spain.

Then began the “resistance of the Peronist people”which called for the return of Perón.

This took place fleetingly in 1972. But it was not until 1973 when it was finally installed until his death in 1974.

Part of the youth adhered to Perón because of his identification with the people, while a Peronist guerrilla was formed with young people influenced by the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959): “Fight and come back”chanted the Montoneros to light up a socialist homeland.

The Peronist right was linked to the powerful unions and party apparatus, led by Perón’s private secretary, José López Rega.

The ‘Ezeiza massacre’ took place a month after Héctor J. Cámpora, who had won the first elections without proscriptions to Peronism since 1955 and in which the Peronist Youth had been the protagonist, took office as president.

“Perón had delivered to them, to the leftall power” and “they refuse to occupy the box (welcome) with the Armed Forces”, because “they conceive the Armed Forces, the police, the sectors of which they were heads and responsible, as enemies”Barbarian explains.

“They had the drama, the tragedy that they never resolved, due to the mental limitation, of being power and people at the same time,” adds, noting that “they dreamed of being the people”.

Although Bárbaro tried to intercede on that tragic day to warn the revolutionaries that they were “far from the stage”comments that his “mental limitation” led to confrontation.

Perón spoke out against extremism and in favor of the republican regime the day after the massacre on national television, and then launched a claim by the trade unionists: “We have wonderful youth, but beware that you may take a wrong turn!”

End of story

Cámpora, who was president by delegation of Perón and had no authority, resigned on July 13, making way for Perón’s last term, on October 12, 1973, with his wife as vice president.

The climax of the estrangement with the Montoneros occurred on May 1, 1974, when Perón called them “beardless and stupid” at a Labor Day celebration, prompting more than half the crowd to withdraw from the plaza.

“Ezeiza is a historic, atrocious, unfortunate fact, which is going to end Cámpora and is going to force Perón to assume the Government. And he was going to take his life ”Barbaro points out.

Indeed, the leader died on July 1, 1974, when his widow assumed power. The sinister Triple A (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance), a vigilante group that sowed terror as a step prior to the dictatorship that darkened the country for 7 years, had already been operating before.

Source: EFE