The Montoneros 1973
Source: Monotoneros, Documentos internos, resoluciones, comunicados y actas de guerra. Cuadernos de la memoria, elortiba.org;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2010.
We, the Montoneros, are the children of the Perónist Movement. Of its history, its experience. Our origins can be found in the first militants of the Resistance, of those who saw the gorilla force cast us from the government s without our being able to contest them.
The Montoneros as such have existed since 1968, when Peronism and the enemy had already tried all – or almost all – of the possible forms of struggle in two absolute terms: we pressed and they repressed. Nevertheless, nothing was decided. They couldn’t govern, but we too remained removed from power.
Taking their understanding of this situation as the starting point, various groups throughout the country proposed the armed road, the organization of the armed struggle for the conquest of power, since the enemy’s principal force was in his weapons.
After a long preparation in underground activity, the Montoneros considered that the moment had come for all of the Peronist Movement to know that they were dealing with an organization, an effective weapon, for confronting Ongania’s dictatorship. There was no better way to demonstrate that Peronism was capable of fighting to the death for the liberation of the people and the Fatherland than by judging and executing the person primarily responsible for the massacre of June 6, 1956. What is more, Aramburu was attempting another maneuver, a coup d’état that Lanusse later led with the same objective: initiate the policy of a ‘great national accord’ in order to destroy the national Peronist movement. With a delay of 15 years the Aramburazo was a mandate of popular justice, and with this one blow we eliminated the two great enemies of the popular movement: the leader of the Libertadora [which overthrew Perón in 1955] and Ogania, the leader of the “Argentine revolution.”
In order to demonstrate that our action wasn’t reduced to our simply confronting the Onganista version of the “Argentine Revolution” we proceeded to the capturing of the Cordoban city of La Calera, acting here too in solidarity with the heroic struggle of the machine workers of Cordoba who battled against the imperialist bosses. The Argentine people, and especially Peronism, had begun to offer mass battle against the oligarchic-imperialist regime. There were the Cordobazos and the Rosariazos, and we adopted methods of the highest possible level along with the tactic of the urban guerrilla. In this way the National Peronist Movement began to structure its strategy of total war, that is, striking the enemy everywhere, by all methods and at any time.
There occurred the first losses of compañeros. Emilio Maza, Fernando Abal Medina, Carlos Ramus were the first irreparable losses in our ranks, fruit of the decision to combat and fight at whatever cost for national and social liberation, and also of the original organizational weakness of our organization. The reaction of those of us who remained was the strengthening of our conviction to either win or die. The reaction of the Argentine people was the active support and solidarity that allowed us to expand the war and continuously augment our organized forces and redouble our combats against the dictatorship.
Developing the strategy of total war, the Montoneros continue fighting, pressing on the enemy, meting out justice to torturers like Major Sammartino and Colonel Irribarren, the expropriation of the funds in the hands of the banks of the imperialist enemy, the recovery by the people of the armaments in the hands of the repressive forces, the meting out of justice to traitors.
The development of this total war has led to many losses. Nevertheless, the definitive decision to consolidate a politico-military organizational structure allowed us to recover in every case from the blows inflicted by the enemy, replacing every loss suffered in combat against the enemy with ten arms sprung from the breast of the Peronist people.
Faithful to the watchword of Compañera Evita (“Perónism will be revolutionary or it will not be at all”) we Montoneros work for the politico-military organizational development of the Peronist Movement in order to destroy all the variants that the regime introduces in our midst (“participationism,” “developmentism,” bureaucracy, etc.) and to construct the Peronist army. The revolutionary faith of Evita is our militant example.
In union with the other sister armed organization of the movement, we fight against the enemies of the people and of Perón, against the oligarchy and Yankee imperialism, and we are in solidarity with those within our movement who have accepted the perspective of revolutionary war.
The fight of the Montoneros is not the combat of a few select individuals. It is the fight of all Peronist organizations intransigently for the seizing of power and the construction of national socialism. Only the participation of the people, ever growing and defiant, is the guarantee of the definitive defeat of the regime.
At this moment, when the Peronist movement is taking over the government and the Leader of the workers, General Perón is definitively returning to the Fatherland, the memory of the compañeros constitutes the guide for our actions, with their dedication to the People, the Fatherland, and Perón. Maza, Abal Medina, Ramus, Navarro, Diaz, Salatino, Lepore, Aguirre, Rossi, Ecribano, Burgos, Capuano, Martinez, Pujadas, Lesgard, Caraal, are the names of the heroes who gave their lives for national liberation.
The Montoneros are an integral part of the Peronist Movement and we subordinate ourselves to the strategic leadership of the Leader of the same: General Perón. The regime’s fear grows from this loyalty to the leadership of our chief and our rejection of the various betrayals that the regime is preparing with the collaboration of the internal enemies. They fear the organization of the people in the factories, towns, neighborhoods, colleges, universities, of the combination of the political struggle with the military, of the people’s mobilization under the leadership of General Perón.
Going beyond the hope of all the compañeros who shouted the slogan “They’re leaving, they’re leaving, and they’ll never return” on May 25 when the military camarilla retired from the Casa de Gobierno, we state here our unshakeable determination to not have stolen from us what we have already won.
It’s in order to prevent their return that we must organize, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, house by house in order to entrench ourselves on the day when imperialism and its local allies want to take a swipe at us.
This desire of 18 years of struggle will materialize today as the result of the struggle of the entire Argentine people. Perón as president synthesizes national unity, the unity of 80% of the country, as opposed to Yankee imperialist project incarnated in South America by Brazil, and in our Fatherland by the usual cowards: finance, and industrial and agro-bovine capital.
All of the sectors that are for liberation and against dependency must unite with us in this struggle against Yankee imperialism, which has already shown its claws in Uruguay and Chile, closing a fence around our Fatherland.
No public functionary issued from the ranks of the Peronist Movement has the right to betray the popular mandate with impunity. Our force will be ever ready to apply public justice to traitors. Our force will be ever ready to actively support all revolutionary initiatives.
Smashing all the barriers of the oligarchic-imperialist conspiracy, General Perón is definitively returning to the Fatherland to place himself at the head, in the front ranks of the Peronist Movement. Six million votes on March 11, the gigantic mobilization of May 25 ratified the force of the leadership and the revolutionary capacity of the Movement. “Peron returns,” the slogan that burst forth in the first moments of the resistance has triumphed through the actions and working class and the Peronist people.
PERON OR DEATH! LONG LIVE THE FATHERLAND!