Peron - Mausoleum and Legacy

Mausoleum and Legacy

Also see Hands of Perón.

Perón was buried in La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. On June 10, 1987, his tomb was desecrated, and his hands and some personal effects, including his sword, were stolen. Perón's hands were cut off with a chainsaw. A ransom letter asking for US$8 million was sent to some Peronist members of Congress. This profanation was a ritualistic act to condemn Perón's spirit to eternal unrest, according to journalists David Cox and Damian Nabot in their book La segunda muerte (Peron's Second Death), who connected it to Licio Gelli and military officers involved during Argentina's Dirty War. The bizarre incident remains unresolved.

On October 17, 2006, his body was moved to a mausoleum at his former summer residence, rebuilt as a museum, in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Vicente. A few people were injured in incidents as Peronist trade unions fought over access to the ceremony, although police were able to contain the violence enough for the procession to complete its route to the mausoleum. The relocation of Perón's body offered his self-proclaimed illegitimate daughter, Martha Holgado, the opportunity to obtain a DNA sample from his corpse. She had attempted to have this DNA analysis performed for 15 years, and the test in November 2006 ultimately proved she was not his daughter. Holgado died of liver cancer on June 7, 2007. Before her death, she vowed to continue the legal battle to prove she was Peron's biological child.

His namesake Peronist movement, to the present day a struggle of ideologically diverse and competing interests, remains the central political development of Argentina since 1945.