As officially reported by the Ministry of National Security, the central event of the Argentine Federal Police Week on the 204th anniversary of its founding was held on Friday, October 31. On this occasion, the Regional Secretary, Patricia Bullrich, announced the change of name of the Cadet School, which will once again become Coronel Falcon, while the Non-Commissioned Officers School will be called Commissario General Alberto Villar.
By the way, the characters Falcon and Villar are controversial due to the nature of the events in which they participated. But given the close proximity at the time of the performance of the second (whose name recalls a dark time in the country), we will focus in this note on his character. Although his involvement in illegal repression in the 1970s is known, we understand that there is a certain degree of confusion about this topic (even among his critics). Therefore, we will not refer here only to Villar, but we will define his role within the general framework of the repression carried out in the period 1973-1976, because we understand that in order to truly understand any social phenomenon, it is always necessary to know the context in which it develops.
As is usual for Villar to be associated with Triple A, it is worth clarifying from the beginning that the aforementioned organization was not the only one carrying out illegal repressive actions in the period mentioned above. Due to the bad reputation it achieved, many people tended to consider it the only one in existence, and it has different branches in different parts of the country. However, according to various and recent investigations, it must be considered that Triple A was, in fact, part of a network of groups of very diverse types which were expressed in different ways.
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According to various investigations, in the period 1973-1976, the triad should be seen as part of a heterogeneous group of social actors, which included state forces, civilian cadres of the Peronist right and other parastatal forces. For this reason, according to López de la Torre in his work aimed at analyzing the organization’s trajectory, the actions of the triad must be understood within what some have called the “counterinsurgency complex.”
According to the above-mentioned author, the course of the trilogy can be divided into three periods. The first of these phases will be the formative phase of the organization, from mid-1973 to mid-1974. In this regard, it should be noted that in the presidential elections that took place on March 11, 1973, the candidate of the Justice Party, Hector Campora, was elected by a large majority, who took office on May 25 of that year. But for various reasons, he was forced to resign soon after, on July 13. Then, while a new call for presidential elections was organized, Raúl Lasterre, president of the Chamber of Deputies (and López Rega’s son-in-law), was temporarily in charge of the presidency. Later, in the new presidential elections held in September 1973, Juan Perón was elected, who took office on October 12 of that year.
According to López de la Torre: “The Tripartite was founded at the end of 1973 by order of José López Rega, head of the Ministry of Social Welfare (MBS). Originally it was a parastatal group organized and financed with resources from the Ministry, but without contacts with the headquarters of the security forces, which prevented it from following the repressive methodology typical of death squads.”
In other words, its business and funding sources were limited in its beginnings. Moreover, it should be noted that its activism in its infancy targeted a heterogeneous group of social actors who could be considered “enemies.” In fact, the first fact recognized by the organization was the attack that took place on November 21, 1973 against the radical senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen, who opposed the draft trade union law (the law that sought to strengthen the power of the so-called “union bureaucracy”).
In this first period, Triple A revolved around the custody of the Ministry of Social Welfare and López Rega, with active or retired federal police officers intervening. Likewise, the organization included civilians associated with the most reactionary sector of the Peronist right at the time, such as Julio Yesi, president of the JPRA (Young Peronists of the Argentine Republic), and Felipe Romeo, director of the magazine El Caudillo de la Tercera Posición (known simply as El Caudillo). In this regard, it should be noted that this publication, funded by the Ministry’s resources, carried the slogan “The best enemy is a dead enemy.”
In relation to this first period of the Triple A, it is also important to consider the position of the then head of the PFA (Argentine Federal Police), retired General Miguel Ángel Iniguez. He understood that the issue of supposed left-wing “infiltrators” within Peronism had to be resolved by civil groups of the Peronist right, without the police establishment being implicated in illegal actions. However, some events changed this situation and shortly afterwards the figure of Commissioner Alberto Vilar emerged.
Regarding Villar, according to López de la Torre, it should be taken into account that he was one of the federal police officers best trained for “counterinsurgency warfare,” who learned his doctrine and methods in France in the 1960s. At the beginning of the next decade, he created the Mobile Suppression Unit Corps, known as the Anti-Guerrilla Brigade, a specialized urban riot control force that suppressed the popular uprisings in Tocumanzo (1970) and Viborazo (1971).
Regarding the changes that occurred at that time, it must be remembered that in January 1974 there was an attack by the ERP (People’s Revolutionary Army) guerrilla group on the Azul Regiment which caused a hardening of Perón’s position regarding guerrilla actions. As Juan Besocchi recalls in his work on the relationship between the leader Al-Adili and the Trio-A, one example of Perón’s change of heart is the meeting of deputies associated with Perón who had left with him at the Olivos residence shortly after the aforementioned attack. According to Bisuki, “MPs opposed two articles, referring to illegal organization, of the penal code reform proposed by the executive branch. They feared that this would be a legal tool to persecute armed organizations.” Thus Perón clearly told them that if the law was not passed, the guerrillas would be fought by other means to crush them. By the way, the aforementioned law was approved and the representatives resigned.
With the change in Peron’s position, Commissioner Alberto Villar began to occupy a very prominent position. The President returns him to active duty as Vice-Chairman of the PFA, and at the same time, does the same with Commissioner Louis Margarid, as Head of Federal Security Oversight. Moreover, soon after, on April 10, 1974, when General Iñiguez resigned from his position, the aforementioned would gain more power, and would serve as President and Vice President of the Philippine Football Federation respectively.
These changes in the police institution influenced the actions of Triple A. As López de la Torre points out: “This expression transformed the minister’s group into a quasi-police death squad, equipped with the necessary infrastructure to organize its repressive actions. The structural core of the squad consisted of the two-headed leadership of the MBS (Ministry of Social Welfare) and the PFA, each with independent operational commands.”
This represented the second phase of the trilogy, which would last from July 1974 to July 1975. Although Perón had hardened his stance against armed groups, he still believed in the idea of using limited violence. However, after his death on July 1, 1974, illegal parastatal violence reached unprecedented levels.
When the Aladíl leader died, a power vacuum occurred due to the political inexperience of the person who succeeded him in office, Isabel Martínez de Peron, and in these circumstances López Rega’s influence increased. An example of the rapid and violent turn events took occurred shortly after Perón’s death, since the first murder alleged by Triple A, that of attorney Rodolfo Ortega Peña, occurred on July 31 of that year.
Regarding the increase in violence after Peron’s disappearance, what is important is what was pointed out by Inés Izaguirre, who, based on the data she collected, prepared a table counting the victims of the Popular Camp (dead, missing, and released detainees) during the period 1973-1976. Thus, under the Peron government, there were 52 deaths and 14 imprisoned or kidnapped. However, between Peron’s death and the coup of March 24, 1976, a significant increase can be observed, with the number of people killed reaching 979 and kidnapped 737. In other words, before the military dictatorship, we had already witnessed a sudden escalation of political violence.
As for Villar, it is worth noting that he was killed in an operation organized by the Montoneros guerrilla group on November 1, 1974. However, this killing did not stop the repressive activities of the triad, as they continued until the fall of López Rega, in July 1975. It is worth noting that, in his ambition to concentrate power, the then Minister of Social Welfare had confrontations with the leaders of the unions and the armed forces, which ultimately led to his downfall.
Finally, regarding the third period of Triple A’s existence considered by López de la Torre, it extends from mid-1975 to early 1976 and represents its disintegration. With López Rega gone, Isabel Peron’s government began to collapse and the army gained greater power. In October 1975, when Italo Lauder was interim president, decrees were signed giving the armed forces responsibility for internal security at the national level (known as the “Annihilation Decrees”). In this way, the army gradually reorganized the “counterinsurgency complex” to centralize repression. This meant dismantling the various death squads that had existed until now, many of whose members joined the illegal repression groups that would later operate during the military dictatorship.
In short, Triple A existed before and after the intervention of Commissioner Alberto Vilar. However, thanks to the senior positions it held in 1974 within the Palestinian Football Association, this death squad was able to reconcile parastatal activity with state activity, thus achieving the strength and dimensions that it had lacked until then.
*PhD in Social Sciences (UBA).
AG @carloscampora01.
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