Cuban Involvement With The Guerrillas
During the height of Argentine left-wing terrorism, the Cubans used their embassy in Buenos Aires to maintain direct contact with Argentine guerrillas. In 1973, the Montoneros merged with the Cuban-backed FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias or Armed Revolutionary Forces) that in 1972 had planted a bomb in the Sheraton hotel in Buenos Aires that killed a Canadian tourist. On 13 February 1974, a clandestine meeting was held in Mendoza, Argentina, and the Junta de Coordinacion Revolucionaria (JCR or Junta of Revolutionary Coordination) was formed. The JCR consisted of four guerrilla groups: the Uruguayan Tupamaros (MLN-T), the Chilean Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) and the Bolivian Revolutionary Army (ELN). The ERP guerrillas maintained a guerrilla warfare training school, an arms factory, and a false documentation center in Argentina. These were all closed down in 1975 by Argentine security forces. In 1976, ERP guerrillas started receiving training in Cuba on an 1800 hectare (7 square miles) estate near Guanabo as well as at another site in Pinar del Rio. The course lasted at least three months and included the use of explosives, weapons tactics, survival in rugged terrain, tank warfare, and the techniques of clandestine warfare. Members of the ERP and Montoneros also received training from Iraq and Libya. In 1976 there had been plans to send great part of the Uruguayan, Chilean and Bolivian guerrillas to fight alongside the ERP and Montoneros in Argentina, but the plans failed to materialize because of the military coup. In 1978 Castro permitted the Montonero command to relocate to Cuba and supplied them with false documentation and funds from Cuban diplomatic circles. Following their relocation to Cuba, the Montoneros leadership made repeated attempts to infiltrate commando units to Argentina after these guerrillas had received special forces training in the Middle East as part of a combined effort between Palestinian PLO and Cuba.
Read more about this topic: Maria Eugenia Sampallo
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