The January 1989 Attack
On 23 January 1989, a group of approximatively 40 members of the Movimiento Todos por la Patria (All for the Motherland Movement, "MTP", founded in 1986 by former ERP leader Enrique Gorriarán Merlo) attacked the Third Mechanized Infantry Regiment barracks in La Tablada (Regimiento de Infantería Mecanizada Nº 3, RIM3). They broke into the barracks by ramming a stolen truck into the main gate. Several other vehicles followed it.
According to Clarín newspaper, three different versions about the attack exist. Ten days before the assault, lawyer Jorge Baños and MTP member had declared in a conference that the Carapintadas were planning a coup for the end of January. The Carapintadas were members of the Armed Forces that had rebelled against the national government three times in 1987 and 1988, protesting the investigations on human rights abuses during the "National Reorganization Process" (1976–1983). This has remained to this day the MTP's version, held in particular by the late Gorriarán Merlo who claimed that the MTP was fulfilling the constitutional obligation of "bear arms in defense of the fatherland and of Constitution".
The official report on the attack by head of the Army Francisco Gassino claimed in contrary that it was the MTP, formed of several former ERP members, that had planned a coup. A last version claims that the MTP was victim of a manipulation by intelligence services. A sociologist and professor who published an investigation into the attack believes the MTP had wider aims: "They weren’t planning to put down a coup. They were creating the false image of a coup, to set the scene, but were planning to take the barracks and from there start a revolution."
The Argentine Army, assisted by the Policía Bonaerense (a total of 3,600 personnel) was called on to counterattack, and undiscriminately used white phosphorus (WP) in the zone, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which in civil wars are only binding with the consent of both parties, and not at all in police actions. The use of WP in combat is forbidden by international law. In this case, it had the effect of completely burning the barracks and of carbonizing corpses. 39 people were killed and sixty injured during the attack (the majority by conventional weapons). Nine were military personnel, two were police officers and the 28 remaining were members of the MTP. In addition, 53 soldiers and police were wounded in the fighting.
The following day President Raúl Alfonsín (UCR, 1983–89) visited the site, protected by Argentine army commandos, along with federal judge of Morón, Gerardo Larrambebere, who is today member of the court judging the 1994 AMIA bombing.
Read more about this topic: 1989 Attack On La Tablada Regiment
Famous quotes containing the words january and/or attack:
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)