Everything about The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance totally explained
The
Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Spanish:
, usually known as
Triple A or AAA) was a
far-right death squad active in
Argentina during the mid-
1970s, particularly active under
Isabel Perón's rule (1974-1976). It later became linked to the
military junta led by
Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1983) and played a prominent role in the "
Dirty War".
According to a 1983
New York Times article, at the time of the group's founding, Argentina saw a growing number of
terrorist attacks by
left-wing groups, and harsh repression of dissidence on the part of the military, paramilitary and police forces. However, according to the 1985
Juicio a las Juntas trial, by 1976 both the
EPR and the
Montoneros had been dismantled, and no real insurgency could legitimize the so-called "Dirty War."
Clandestinely led by
José López Rega, Minister of Social Welfare and personal secretary of
Juan Domingo Perón, it enforced the repression against the
Peronist left-wing.
Rodolfo Almirón, arrested in Spain in 2006, was also an important figure of the Triple A in charge of López Rega and Isabel Perón's personal security.
SIDE agent
Anibal Gordon was allegedly also another important member of the Triple A, although he always denied it .
Creation
The
Triple A was organized by
José López Rega and Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine federal police, during the brief interim presidency of
Raúl Lastiri in 1973. López Rega, a devotee of
occultism and self-styled
divinator, had come to exert a
Rasputin-like influence over
Perón's wife at the time,
Isabel Martínez de Perón, who assumed the presidency upon Perón's sudden death on
1 July 1974. To support the group, López Rega drew on funds from the Ministry of Social Welfare, which he controlled. Some of the members of the Triple A had taken part in the
1973 Ezeiza massacre, when snipers shot on left-wing peronists on the day Perón came back from exile, thus leading to the definitive separation between left and right-wing peronists.
Judge
Baltazar Garzón's investigations demonstrated that Italian neofascist
Stefano Delle Chiaie had also worked with the Triple A, and was present on the day of Peron's return to Argentina — Delle Chiaie also worked with the Chilean
DINA and with Bolivian dictator
Hugo Banzer.
Victims
The group first came to national attention on
21 November 1973 when it unsuccessfully tried to murder Argentine
Senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen by means of a car bomb. The AAA went on to target 1,122 victims according to an appendix to the 1983
CONADEP report, including suspected
Montoneros and
ERP leftist
guerrillas and their sympathizers, as well as judges, police chiefs, and social activists. In total, it's suspected of having targeted more than 1500 individuals.
The group is also strongly suspected in the 1974 murder of Jesuit
Carlos Mugica, a friend of
Mario Firmenich, Montoneros's founder. One of the most often cited estimates count 220 terrorist attacks from July to September 1974, which killed 60 and heavily injured 44, as well as 20 kidnappings Federal judge Norberto Oyarbide, who signed the extradition demand against former leader of the AAA
Rodolfo Almirón, qualified in December 2006 the Triple A's crimes as
human rights violations and the "beginning of the systematic process directed by the state apparatus" during the dictatorship.
The AAA was known to have strong backing from the military and Army
Commander-in-Chief Jorge Rafael Videla, who came to power as
President following the 1976
coup d'état.
