"A STORY" "This begins when I was 16." "Same age as my daughter!" "In San Jorge a little town in Santa Fe, where I was born." "Paula was preparing for a history exam a school she had to sit for it and she asked me;" ""What happened in the 70's?"" "They're kids of the 90's." ""What happened?"" "And when was that terrible shoot-out, all those photos?" "If Perón liked you so much, why did he then re ject you?" "And on the same day of my daughter's exam, I got a call from someone I hadn't ever seen again from back then." "I was stunned." "I thought he was missing." "When I hung up, I felt it was crazy, but I felt that this person might be with Paula's fahter." "Who couldn't speak directly to us." "When I calmed down, I realized it was a crazy idea." "But that's what I imagined." "This was the assembly hall when we were in the first grade." "It still is." "Not first form, Kindergarden." "A tuft of your hair I would still worship..." "I can't remember any more!" "When I call you up you won't answer." "I wait for you after school and your Dad comes!" "I don't want half a girlfriend!" "I want a full-time girlfriend!" "And the nun got mad at me and kicked me out of class for being so irreverent as to ask about Church secrets." "So, between that nun and this priest who opened up the world and answered every question there was an abyss." "I met Father Mujica in Tartagal." "In Santa Fé, in 1966." "He organized these camps." "There I also met Firmenich, Abal Medina, Ramus, Daleo." "It was a group of young Catholic militants from Buenos Aires who went to these camps, on this mission in the summer." "We were all practising Catholics" "The soul-searching was terrible!" "When I was eating, I was given a piece of meat and we barely had meat, and I thought;..." "Did I take advantage and eat more meat than the others?" "Could I have shared it?" "From small things to big." "We also discussed the armed struggle." "What action to take?" "How mass actions related to organized violence..." "And I would cry every night." "I never cried so much again!" "And the guy who'd come when I was in that state was Firmenich." "He would talk common sense." "He was charming, but very ugly!" "The ugly duckling of the group." "And he had common sense." "He'd sing with Carlos Ramus..." "formed a duette." "And he also wrote poems." "I came from the Christian group" ""The duty of every Christian is to be a revolutionary and the duty of the revolutionary is to make the revolution"" "We were a very small group from Córdoba and Buenos Aires." "We were the original group that later became the Montoneros." "During my 10 years of exile I always dreamed of having home, children, a dog and TV." "For the Romans, your address is where they expect your return." "I was deeply influenced by a nationalist idology symbolized by the flag and the fatherland." "It was hard to embarace violence." "Very hard." "At dawn today, 3 vehicles belonging to the organization appeared on this street." "In our firt real shoot-out the first time I shot a gun" "I felt horror at possibly wounding a homan being." "Once they were in the Church there was a fierce shoot-out an here are the consequences" "Here are some bullet holes from this morning's attack." "We were inside, we had rescued some weapons and we'd put... the three cops in a cell so that they wouldn't raise the alarm." "And one of them kept shouting." "until one of us realized that in the uniforms we were taking this man's wedding ring!" "How could We!" "So we started looking everywhere for the ring until we found it and hurried back to return it to him" "If you stop to think, we were desperate to escape we were expecting patrols to get there any minute." "It was a crazy thing to do and our life was on the line." "One of the assailants tried to get away and sheltered behind this shed but he was surrounded and captured by the police." "We felt we had to shout out." "We wanted to shout out that we were alive." "We wanted to dream and fight for a better Argentina and we risked our lives." "But then it all got distorted." "The Montoneros became known in 1970 by abducting a former military president, General Aramburu." "We were discussing and analyzing the possibility of abducting Aramburu." "Then Emilio Maza said; that if we abducted Aramburu ...it would be to submit him to a people's trial." "I guess we all believed the people had already tried him." "General Aramburu has been detained in order to be tried." "HOW ARAMBURU DIED" "THE TRIAL BEGINS" ""General, you have been sentenced to death..."" ""General, Fernando said, we are going to proceed, Proceed." "To the people; the Montoneros announce that today at 7 AM..." "P.E. Aramburu was executed." "May God have pity on his soul." "Perón or Death." "Long live the Fatherland." "Montoneros." "During sleepless nights with feelings of guilt like many others..." "I've asked myself... what happened in this process that look the lives of so many dear comrades and others too?" "Pardoned 5l25l73 And we've often wondered..." "Was it the right thing to do?" "Was it fair?" "Were we wrong from the start?" "There was one that went..." "With Aramburu's bones we will make a ladder..." "With Aramburu's bones we will make a ladder..." "So that the slum kids may climb to heaven?" "With Aramburu's bones we will make a ladder so that Evita Montonera may climb to Heaven!" "We held Aramburu responsible for many deaths... not only for the material deaths, murders ordered by him;" "...but also, for the savage dictatorship." "Aramburu's period had been dreadful." "When I was caught and imprisoned some comrades tell me about a woman coming in." "She was an old woman, a Peronist..." "She embraced me and said;" ""Before I die, with all that... we Peronists have suffered since 1955 military coup ...and all the pain we'be gone through in the name of all Peronists"." "Today one can't believe killing was well looked-on." "Or killing a cop on the street." "That was really..." "I could never agree to that." "It was monstrous and I stopped sympathizing." "To kill a cop on the street is an abominable crime." "The word Montoneros had a ring; who are they?" "Where are they?" "I want to meet them!" "As an arme organization and political expression ...they did everything right, they took towns did banks..." "We were young then and we saw them as our ideal." "We thought; who are these guys that get everything right?" "We were getting into politics and the Montoneros were the symbol of the struggle against the dictatorship." "The repression was bad and people were jailed for having a picture of Perón and the police took away everything they had." "I met some of these people." "FOUNDER OF THE MOVEMENT PERONIST YOUTH, 1956." "Our violence was a response to the violence of the system." "But it gave birth to many monsters..." "If we look up what Montoneros means..." "We might explain something..." ""Montón" means "a bunch"" "The Montoneros were groups of armed horsemen during last century's civil wars..." "Gauchos that took part of the provincial forces..." "Also, a guerrilla movement." "And "They who fight in a bunch"" "In the first place killing is serious." "And the armed struggle involved killing." "Firmenich charges $15,000 for TV interviews" "But the main risk we faced, before God and History was being mistaken." "How old in Firmenich?" "40?" "Maybe 45." "He's seven years older." "So when I was 20 he was 27 or 28 years old and he led a generation." "Thousands of young people." "Who knows!" "He headed the original group... after the death of Abal Medina." "The likes of Firmenich remained while the best died on the way." "Firmenich and Galimberti." "And not far from here in 1972 ...we joined the leadership of the Montoneros." "He's absolutely sinister." "At this stage, characters like Perdía or Firmenich force me to believe that the devil is not just... the bad part in each one of us as Western Man now believes." "I believe the devil exists." "Today it's possible to believe everything about Firmenich..." "There's a new book where a former FBI agent says..." "Firmenich was a double agent who collaborated with the Army" "I don't really care now whether he was a CIA agent or not..." "Since he was here I think that just like he invented the Montoneros he could have invented the concentration camps." "Not all of them but..." "Firmenich really could have." "Her father said; she won't go to Córdoba, too much trouble." "I'll go to Rosario, she said." "No, there's trouble there too." "You're going to El Chaco." "There was trouble in all the universities, but not in Chaco." "There won't be trouble in Chaco, he said." "No trouble, uh?" "So Ana went to study in Chaco." "My daughter asked me why..." "I could have all those ideas at 17 and she couldn't." "I told her at 17 I had the same ideas she may have now but the difference is that I had a beautiful world in which to believe." "And if I joined the Montoneros it was because they were better looking than the communists who were alll fat and full of pimples!" "Ana came to the University..." "She was, and is, very pretty and became like the girl." "Love and politics were all mixed together." "I felt I had fallen in love with the most handsome guy" "He was dark and handsome, and he was to be Paula's dad." "That day, it was love at first sight, he was making a speech" "And I was among the crowd... but in the crowd I stood out!" "He saw me and I saw him!" "He was a no good Negro and he had the best girl." "All of us Peronist Negroes felt vindicated by him!" "It's hard to see him through the years..." "It took me a long time to bury him inside of me." "It was only after 10 years he'd been missing... that he started to melt away in my memory." "He had been a very strong influence." "I was only 19 when we met." "Juan was Paula's father." "You know, I have 3 children." "My last child is Cecilia." "If she had been a boy her name would be Juan." "Juan would've been the name." "Missing" "That's Héctor!" "What a coincidence." " How are you?" " Fine." "At the film club we showed off-beat films..." "Enough for it to be suspected of communism!" "That's why we don't know our enemy." "'Cause after all they barely know each other." "To know them is to kill them." "At the film club I saw The Battle of Algiers." "I was very impressed." "I still remember the officer drawing a graph of the revolutionary organization." "La habana celebrates the triumph of Fidel Castro" "In Cuba 12 guys landed and made a revolution..." "Buenos Aires." "The people greet Fidel Castro the admired hero of the Cuban revolution." "I, Juan Carlos Onganía, swear to serve loyally and patriotically as President of the Nation..." "We had a militay dictatorship and the Peronists were banned." "In 1971 a poll carried out by the military government... showed that 49º/o of the people sympathized with the guerrillas" "Even Rolando Rivas, the hero of the most popular soup opera had a brother in the guerrillas who in the end got killed." "I confess I believed the world could be changed with arms." "I believed violence should be opposed with violence." "I was positive about that." "If someone was starving, that was also violence." "And we had to respond." "This is a photo of myself, 1979 ...training for the special agitational task force... of the Montoneros organization." "We knew something more epic was taking place at night..." "When we slept like idiots... and sometimes it did wake us up ...and we wanted to be there in the front line." "We really did." "The Falcon that carried a military officer of high rank was cut off by a pick-up just 40 mts." "Away from his house." "Inside we can still see the body of Coronel Iribarren... who was violently assassinated." "They didn't scare us any more." "They were vulnerable too." "This changed our attitude and we began to screw them." "Being a guerrilla was also an adventure." "It freed you from a routine life and we didn't know such a savage punishment would come later." "The preachers of destruction have come to Argentina." "Strange acronyms dirty the classroom walls..." "Angry faces and fists." "That's the way disturbances started in Argentina with serious damage and innocent victims." "No one likes to talk about violence." "Violence is very hard to put in practice." "One thing is defending yourself if attacked but if I say "Break a bottle over his head", that's hard." "I think that road was dreadfully wrong at least in this country and with these people." "It was completely wrong." "It would be absurd to claim that the execution of ViIlar was not planned or the abduction of Bunge  Born or the death of Gen. Cardozo" "Thay were all planned." "They were planned in an absolutely normal way though it sounds odd now to say "normal"." "Each operation was a political decision." "Both, the political and military coup." "And then they decided which group would do it." "These were actions that the organization said had to be done whether you agreed or not." "One thing was if they said you had to put a bomb." "Where does the guy live, his movements, regularity..." "But a lot of the things we did were decided on the spot." "If we were on a corner and we saw a big fish go by... we couldn't afford to hesitate, we'd come round the next day ...and Boom!" "It was like that." "We didn't ask Firmenich then." "Our gratitude to them too." "Because we know full well that with their courage in facing the police killers and those who torture citizens they have earned their honors." "To them, my deepest appreciation" "Perón vindicated all our actions" "He defended all ways of fighting the dictatorship." "He called it integral way, in all forms and places." "We were in total accord." "It's as if we all belonged to the same soccer team." "Together we'll shout from the heart;" "Long live Perón!" "We accomplished our goal and Perón his own;..." "To return home after 17 years of exile." "There's Juan Domingo Perón coming down the steps wearing an overcoat." "There he is, in a dark suit." "He chose the other exit." "With him is his private secretary, López Rega..." "Also Rucci and Abal Medina of the Peronist Youth..." "We still believed our goal and Perón's was the same;..." "The Socialist Revolution." "The dictatorship gave in but the military managed to exclude Perón from the elections." "Perón named an emissary." "Héctor Cámpora, and he won" "The Montoneros made up the campaign slogan..." "The government to Campora, The Power to Perón!" "The General received us in the hotel he was staying at." "We talked for an hour and only then did he let in Campora who had come to offer him his victory at the polls." "We were surprised and thought it was one of Perón's ploys to put the pressure on Cámpora." "Like saying "here are the boys who will be watching you"." "Campora then, would refer to us giving explanations about what his government would be like..." "So we seemed to be the ones who were behind that victory." "Saint Joseph was a Radical" "And Mary was a Socialist" "And they had a little son..." "A Peronist Montonero!" "On may 25, 1973 the Montoneros felt the sky was the limit." "We felt the government was almost ours." "Uncle Cámpora president, 6 governors, 2 ministers." "How many of us were there?" "I don't know." "But in the Peronist Youth, which was the surface organization... there were over 100.000 of us." "Being part of The Montoneros... five or six thousand comrades." "So half of them died." "No." "Well, they were replaced." "As they died they were replaced." " But out of the total..." " Out of the total, yes." "Things happened very quickly and I get the dates mixed up." "But one month later Perón came back to take over in person." "We came down from Chaco to welcome him back home." "Around Ezeiza airport there were two million people... headed by the Montoneros." "But what was meant as a fiesta ended as a massacre." "Right-wing provocateurs began shooting at people." "Perón blamed the Montoneros." "We couldn't believe it." "I guess now that Perón was in power, the Montoneros... had become a menace and no longer entered his plans." "Up to what an extent did Perón's plans interfere with the Monteros?" "The Montoneros plan to lead from their military apparatus the whole Peronist movement was in competiton with Perón..." "That's how it ended up an it couldn't have been otherwise." "They ended up fighting over the plaza with Perón." "In that mood the Montoneros decided to execute Rucci." "From the back, you can see a broken glass it is there where Rucci falls down assassinated." "Lots of blood spots in the car as well as on the sidewalk." "Rucci was the leader of the main Peronist union." "He was a "traitor"." "One of Peron's allies in the plan... that excluded the Montoneros." "They said a body had to be thrown over the table to force Perón to negotiate." "Rucci's death... yes." "Rucci's death made many people happy." "Me too." "And I think that's terrible." "To be happy because a man... has been riddled with so many bullets they called him Traviata" "The creacker with 23 holes!" "A crime is a crime no matter... what the thoughts, feelings... or oven the passion behind it is" "If those are your interests you can take off the Peronist shirt and leave." "We won't be sad at losing one vote." "Perón knew that they could play a role and he could use them." "His plan was to use them." "I'm afraid." "That was Perón's ugly side." "After a life leading men he only trusted his dogs." "That was his bad side." "In that sense the Montoneros were as Peronist as Perón." "They betrayed him too but the betrayal was mutual." "Now some stupid youngters claim more merit than is due." "In this opportunity..." "I want to ask you each... to become a policeman and watch over ...who's provoking all this." "And to act accordingly." "Perón's secretary talked abour Gardel's guitarists." "Gardel had two guitarists." "He even gave the names." "One was a good guitarist the other one, wasn't." "The good guitarist died with Gardel when his plane crashed." "The bad guitarist remained... and becuase he played with Gardel... he became Gardel's guitarist and acted as if he was Gardel." "Well, the General has no sons." "I am Gardel's bad guitarist." "I will be left in charge when Perón in no longer with us." "Perón's wife won't be able to, so I will continue his work." "We laughed at the absurdities Lópes Rega was saying but only a few months later we learned he realy meant that then and put it into practice." "I am grieved to announce the death of an apostle of peace." "I assume the Presidency." "The government went to Perón's widow and his minister López Rega took over the reins of power." "He created the Argentine Anti-Communist alliance and began exterminating the Peronist left-wing." "Hundreds of comrades were murdered in a few months." "The Montonero leadership replied by going underground ...and openly declaring the return of armed struggle." " How old were they?" " Young, 20 to 24, I guess." "When you say, these youngsters came up to the car shot the Admiral, then they escaped... 10 min." "Must have gone by!" "No." "It was all over very fast." "I came out and saw the body." "He had one shot in this head, his nose bled badly and two shots on his chest." "One night Juan had to leave but couldn't tell me where." "Just like that." "He told me to turn on the radio in the morning to find out." "As for our troops we have two dead officers and ten soldiers." "And as for the extremists?" "As for them... in the attack on the garrison fourteen extremists died during the attack." "Ana's in trouble but she's OK." "What's the problem?" "The University has been raided." "Many students were arrested but others managed to escape." "The person that lent us his house was detained." "He spent 8 years in prison." "And he knew my real name." "She was in hiding but I could no leave without seeing Ana." "And so it was." "We spent an afternoon and she told me she was expecting a child." "I felt very scared." "Very much afraid." "COMMUNIQUE NRO. 1" "The Military Junta announces that as from today the country ...is under the operational control of the Armed Forces" "Over there." "Must be..." "Things in Chaco became hard and I went clandestine..." "I came to Santa Fé and here I was to be given new papers." "This was the corner I came to." "I can't remember the street name" "The national rendez-vouz was where you went when you came from another province and had to meet." "In the clandestine network it was the meeting point." "But you weren't caught." "I got here 48 hours beforehand." "Juan's brother, Antonio got here 48 hours later to get some papers done." "He had to bring or take something." "I don't know." "And he was rounded up, never to be seen again." "Here is the hospital where Paula was born." "I can see myself, with my belly and all the pains..." "I was reckless!" "Being 8 months pregnant I had carried a weapon under my belly but as soon as I gave birth I had a crisis." "The birth of this baby made me ask; what am I doing?" "Death was an everyday thing." "When you met a comrade..." "All the talk was of who died, who was kidnapped, etc." "Death was there at breakfast, lunch, and everywhere." "We were trembling, but we had wait for them to decide." "We'd asked for the little girl but they wanted be with them." "I said; it'II be easier for you to escape without the girl." "If you have to run away and go without food for 3 days, that's OK." "But what about the baby?" "children had to be raised by other comrades if we were to be killed, or went missing or whatever." "So they'raised with the revolutionary values." "With revolutionary values in a family of revolutionaries." "That's the way we thought." "We discussed this with Paula's father he wanted her with us." "But I decided Paula had to go with my parents, like it or not." "In this little house lived a couple, in their thirties..." "He was called Cacho and worked as a mechanic..." "SiIvia gave private lessons to the neighborhood kids." "They had a 9 month-old baby, called Carlitos." "Here, a subversive hideout has been discovered..." "There was an arms cache and a place for hiding kidnapees." "This is the backyard of a workshop called "Nortebis"" "Here lived some people who collaborated hold on, let me see..." "These people gave us shelter." "One night, at about 3 AM, the Army caught up on us." "They surrounded the place and went in by the front." "We heard them and started jumping over these walls." "We climbed over this house and went on the roof there..." "I can't remember any more but we came out over there." "We had to climb another wall..." "I can't remember very well..." "Juan dragged me up by the arms..." "My knees were bleeding badly..." "I had scraped them on the wall" "We had to jump once again... and I said "Juan, I'm giving up"" "Juan pointed his gun at me and said; "If you do, I'll kill you"" "If seems a tough thing to say... and he really did point his gun." ""If you give in I'll kill you", he said while holding me." "But I remember it as a token of love, because otherwise..." "I think, I wouldn't be alive today." "I couldn't take it any more I really did want to give in." "The party was over." "The joy of revolution was lost we had touched the sky with our own hands." "Now, more and more comrades were being killed every day." "The brutal repression pushed the Montoneros into a process of military escalation in which we were bound to lose." "During the fighting the Army was in charge." "As of now, the police have taken over." "The Argentine people have once again been attacked by terrorism." "Those who speak so glibly of Human Rights... let's see what they have to say now." "I coudn't take it anymore." "That time in Santa Fé, when we were with Juan in that house surrounded by the military." "I thought if was the end." "We went up onto the roof jumped over some walls until we got to that street corner." "They were coming from this corner and from ZuviriaSt." "We ran across." "All this was a garbage dump." "We crossed the dump and went onto the railway tracks." "All through the night there was the sound of gunshots ...all over the city of Santa Fé." "That night, there must have been 10 or 12 military operations going on at the same time." "They came in masses from one house to another." "There seems to be an armed person." "We received the message by a two-way radio." "A person on a bicycle is being searched by police." "I was pregnant, it was my 2nd child, and the worst thing was ...that started hemorrhaging very badly." "I remember I was wearing black stockings and a black skirt and a burgundy sweater, I think, I can't remember." "The hemorrhaging wouldn't stop." "I was pregnant again and I was having a miscarriage." "We waited under a bridge until daylight." "until around 8:00, 8:30AM, when Juan went to his 1st rendez-vous" "There was no one there." "By then there was nowhere to go absolutely nowhere." "Juan was six or seven years older than I was." "At night time..." "I remember sleeping, holding each other in a fetal position." "We were so scared of what was happening." "We would sleep holding each other like children." "That was how helpless we felt." "Apparently an arms cache of some importance has been found." "The assistant commissioner is trying to find ...possible suspects." "We identified with them, and they took our problems and tried to help us solve them together." "As the leaders started leaving the country, they were replaced by the neighborhood militants, who till then had other tasks." "Specific activities in the neighborhood, not armed fighting" "The ones who ended up paying for everything... were the comrades from the lowest ranks." "They had nowhere to sleep." "They would get detained when travelling on bus or train." "They had nowhere to go so they would buy a ticket on a bus or a train and travel from one end to the other and sleep." "They were the ones that were being persecuted." "Meanwhile, the leaders where in Paris." "Those of us in exile, one way or another ...went in and out of the country." "Many of the comrades who were coming in and out eventually got caught." "That is the story of our leadership." "If not, just see how many of the leaders are still alive." "How many of us are left?" "Firmenich, Vaca Narvaja, myself and that's about it." "Comrade Olmedo died in Cordoba in 1971, I think." "Navarro in 71, Hoverth 76." "Yagger died in Córdoba in 83." "Pereira Rossi 83." "This comrade was kidnapped and died in the Navy camp." "Campiglia was kidnapped in brazil en 1978 and Berger 1980." "Western civilization is not lost" "In Argentina, as we can show you, the people and the Armed Forces are united and indestructible." "The West should follow our example, and the sinister enemy ...of Marxism-Leninism will be defeated for ever." "This will be the victory of Western Civilization." "The word "defeat" did not exist." "It wasn't in the dictionary" "But inside you knew it was just a matter of time, in 2 years nothing would be left" "After that we look a train and came to Buenos Aires." "Totally disconnected, lost." "We couldn't even make contact." "This was in 1977." "The next day I went out to find a job." "Juan who was a great guy." "Who was a great partner and whom I loved very much began to have a crisis because he was a professional." "On the other hand I could do anything." "I said; we have to work, we've got a month's rent." "Then what?" "He had organized his life to be an activist that's all the thought of even in his sleep." "For exemple if he wanted to relax he played chess by himself" "He studied difficult moves." "He really did!" "He would do this to relax." "We were a little different!" "Al some point i asked myself... what kind or record would remain of all this?" "I was told that a historian had hoarded some incredible stuff" "Documents from the "organization"." "Memorandums, things I thought were lost forever." "From comrade A to comrade N." "Responsible for reporting on what happened the 7th" "At 4AM they surround the house and they order us to surrender." "I ordered my comrade to go get some hand granades." "The comrade, sub-lieutenant, obeys..." "From comrade she quickly became sub-lieutenant and then "she obeys"!" "From wife to sub-lieutenant!" "She obeys quickly and returns." "We throw ourselves on the ground." "They shoot at us from the trees." "We kept moving, we had no choice." "At this time sub-lieutenant Cristina is shot down." "I hear that they are shooting at me from the rooftops but I'm not hit." "I am able to get away." "The strength, courage, integrity..." "She gave me strength at the moment when I was in doubt." "This battle has been won." "It is clear that war is the confrontation of two wills..." "The stronger will triumphs." "Comrade, sub-lieutenant Cristina, together till the final victory!" "Age, 21 years old." "This reminds me of..." "Are you cold, or is it goose bumps?" "The organization was destroyed by the military in a few months." "Some of the comrades were killed in combat but most of them..." "thousands... were kidnapped from their home and murdered in concentration camps." "The military government hand two priorites... to fight terrorism and put an end to corruption." "The terrorists withdrew in defeat." "Their main leaders cowardly fled to western Europe while ordering their few accomplices left in Argentina... to commit suicide by taking a cyanide capsule if captured." "The legal forces with the support of the people defeated the enemy on all fronts." "And in June 1978 the most explosive mass demonstration in the history of Argentina takes place." "The victory of the soccer World Cup, held in Buenos Aires." "People took the streets with a single victorious cry "Argentina" and a single flag; the blue and white flag." "By that time I didn't want to be involved any more." "I had broken away completely." "I wanted to live like a normal human being." "I thought I'd never live like that ever again." "There was no way Juan would even discuss it." "For a year and a half, he tried to make contact with the organization." "until he finally did it." "When he came back he told me that we couldn't live together any more." ""We have to live in separate homes, for security reasons..." "Since you are no longer a militant..."" "I couldn't understand it, I was still madly in love with him." "So was he." "But well... he left in 1979 and after that I never saw him again." "On Fathers'Day in 1979, was when he left when I last saw him." "I presented my resignation in 1977." "I didn't agree any more." "They refused to accept that I wanted to leave, becuase..." "I had a lot of information and knew a lot of people." "Since they could not guarantee my safety." "I could not be left alone." "They said; either you stay with us or you're dead." "Those were more or less their terms." "I was alone and unarmed, I just had to get out." "Once out the streets, I could look after myself." "It would be just one more gang that was after my ass." "In this type of confrontation there are always two concerns;" "To defend the rights of the individual and to defend the interests of the group." "There is always a conflict between the two interests." "We were very severe with certain comrades, when we confirmed... they had given information that was used to kill other comrades." "The military would capture, torture to get information and capture others, using that information." "For example, in Resistencia and Santa Fe there was a comrade... who was executed in 76." "He was named "El Tigre"." "He was one of the founders of the Monotoneros." "I don't know." "They said he was some kind of spy." "They tried him an then they shot him." "Obviously we were very strict with our former comrades if they caused deaths, it doesn't pain me to say that they would get the death penalty." "I was living by myself and mother came to visit me en B.A." "She brought my daughter, Paulita, who was living with my parents." "...for her own safety." "I took her to get a hair cut just across the street." "My mother had gone to run some errands." "She went to get her hair cut and I went on my business." "When I get back I find a piece of paper that said..." "Mom why don't you make something to eat." "I star cooking and the door bell rings." ""Who is it?" Enrique, a friend of hers. "Come in"." "And all of a sudden the house was full." "They started asking all kinds of questions." "I didn't undestand a thing, they said it was a drug bust." "I told them "there are no drugs here"." "They said "yes, there are drugs here", and this and that." "They wanted to know who I lived with." "I wouldn't talk, or say anything." "All I could think of was that Ana was in the beauty parlor." "I was hoping she wouldn't come back." "When I came out of the beauty parlor there were millions of them all over the place." "People sent by them." "There were 2, 3, 5, 10 cars," "I started to scream an held Paula in my arms." "I yelled;" "You wont take her!" "They are trying to kidnap me!" "There was a struggle." "They took her away from me." "They threw me in the back of a car." "A guy got in and he stepped on me..." "We still didn't have a grasp of how people disappeared." "We knew disappearing meant abduction, torture and death." "That is what the missing people meant." "I don't know, it was like the earth had swallowed you." "I came to understand it when the earth actually swallowed me." "My first week at the Navy camp I didn't understand a thing." "I remember two or three voices, and two guys." "One called Geronimo and another Juan "The Hatchet"." "They were the bad guys." "One guy would pat my head and say "everything wil be all right."" "The other one would call me a bitch and a liar and beat me with a stick, and use an electric prod on my mouth, my eyes, my ears, etc., etc." "The first few days I was tortured badly because... they couldn't undestand I had been informed on by the contact person for someone who was in exile." "I had to be in the know, and yet I knew nothing." "Ana was captured by a Navy squad." "The next day, Tuesday 13th, they picked me up too." "In time I found out it was Ana who informed on my whereabouts." "I feel that it's important to say we are still good friends." "At first they tortured me without interruption." "I had scars for years on my wrists and ankles." "I thought it was the electric prod." "Actually they were caused by the ropes they used to tie me down to the bed." "I would try to free myself, and I'd scream like crazy." "After ten minutes of being tortured..." "I shit and peed all over myself." "This made those guys go crazy." "How could anyone say whether they would talk or not in a situation like this?" "Being tortured with a prod." "It's a very difficult situation." "You are all by yourself." "You are in no-man's land." "Nobody can judge what you had to do to survive." "So it was that approximately three thousand comrades were captured and brought to the Navy concentration camp." "Many of them belonged to the organization." "Others didn't belong to anything." "Almost all fo them were murdered." "They dropped them from a plane in the middle of the river." "There were few survivors, less than a hundred." "Shortly after being there I discovered that not all of us where in the same situation." "The first girl that they sent to talk to me was this girl Sarmiento, who wasn't very bright she would say to me..." ""Here in this school I learned how to be a woman because... when I was with the Montoneros I was a nobody."" ""Everyone was considered the same." "She had a peculiar way of speaking, poor thing." "This was the first girl they sent." "Then they sent Lucy." "Lucy had been a leader in the Montoneros organization a high ranking militant." "They kidnapped her in October'76." "Two months later, a Navy squad killed her husband." "He had resisted but they got him and took him to the Navy camp." "until that time Lucy had been the paradigm... of the all-resistant guerrilla militant." "She was a brilliant girl, full of talent and full of contradictions." "Lucy started to change and her change was so drastic... that she ended up with Pernia who was the one who led the squad that had killed her husband." "She was in a peculiar spot, she had to negotiate in order to save herself." "That was what she had to negotiate." "I knew it wasn't the case, but I wanted to believe that this girl didn't know that this guy had headed that mission to kill her husband." "I couldn't understand how she could love him." "She said she was in love with him." "It wasn't that she went to bed to save her life." "No, she was in love with him!" "I really don't know why I survived." "It could be that the few of us who survived the Navy camp were part of an experiment." "The military weren't content with defeating and killing us." "They also wanted to win another battle." "They wanted to turn us inside out, like a glove." "I know of some people that are still involved in this." "They mostly work for military intelligence." "I personally know of 2 people..." "for sure." "No, 3 people." "There are probably more." "When we knew they wanted to turn us inside out... we decided to act as if we were the way they wanted us to be." "They thought the women were militants becuase... they were ugly and guys would ignore them." "Or that they were incapable of doing domestic chores." "One way of showing them that we were changing... was to take care of our physical appearence." "There, you were walking on a tight rope." "You had to prove that you were smart." "If you acted too dumb they'd think you had somthing to hide." "The other great risk that the prisioners ran was going mad." "That is; "Who am I really and who is the one pretending?"" "Am I acting or is it really me the way I am now?" "Have I turned into the one I pretended to be?" "Argentina, a land with peace and enormous resources." "Argentina, a lure for international terrorism." "They tried to dominate her, so they could weaken her." "Those were sad times, until we said "enough"..." "Enough ot the abuse and the shame." "Today our land has peace once again and this peace challenges us to unite as brothers... to make the effort to build the Argentina that we dream of." "My job was to repair a pump, fix a radio, unclog a sink." "That kind of thing." "By doing this I would solve problems for them." "That is to say;" "I was helping to make the camp work." "In a way, I was collaborating." "I was also trying to stay alive!" "When you first got caught, you'd say;" "I won't turn off the lights." "Cause turning them off means collaborating." "Then you'd find yourself turning off the lights." "So are collaborating or are you not?" "One of the tortures came to me." "Colores was his name" "He brings me the electric prod, which belonged to him." "He never let anyone borrow it because he cared for it poor thing!" "He tells me it's broken." ""Fix it for me"." "I tell him that I can't." "He says it's nonsense... that I can fix this in a snap." "I say I can't, I just can't." "Then he says, OK." "At that moment I took a big risk." "I was taking the risk that if I didn't do it, they might think that I couldn't be trusted any more and that would be it." "He said." "It's OK, don't worry." "After that they started using a "variac" for the torture." "When they used that, I saw that those being tortured came out almost in a coma, burned all over and some ended up dead." "I couldn't stop... thinking about it." "If they continued to use the "variac"... they'd end up killing many more than before, with the prod." "So I said to Colores bring me the prod and I'll fix it." "You are just waiting to die, when you are taken in there." "You want it to happen as soon as possible." "The first day you want to die, the second day you want to die, and on the third day when you see you haven't died you find out that dying is not that simple." "You start to search for a reason to live and to defend what you believe in." "I repaired the prod." "I repaired an instrument of torture so they could keep on torturing." "I had a dilemma." "If didn't repair it they'd keep using the "variac" which was much worse than using the prod." "You are just waiting to die, when you are taken in there." "I couldn't take it ane more, seeing people in a coma." "So let's go back to the prod!" "At least that way I wouldn't suffer so much!" "Selfish maybe, but it's a situation that..." "For me, that was the worst moment, once I had decided that I would be useful to them." "The recuperation process gave you some hope... 'cause it eventually allowed you to make contact with the outside" "One day they let me call my mother." "I could imagine Ana talking with 3 guys standing around her." "But at least I could hear her." ""Yes Mom, I'm here." "I'm fine."" "At least I knew that she was somewhere." "A short time after this, a guy called Marcelo turned up." "He was the one who would bring her along." "We thought the worst." "Marcelo was an officer." "In fact, here in my notebook..." "I should have his rank and real name." "He was a very young officer..." "I think this guy was a complete wreck." "He was too young when be became part of this story." "If he would jus look at the outside world... he wouldn't even know where he was standing." "He didn't have any friends, or anything." "He didn't have a girl friend." "Other 27-year-old guys had a family, children." "They would leave and take off their masks, and hug their kids." "They would use the prod here and go home and check... their kids'exercise book and ask them how was shcool today." "But this guy had nobody, nothing, he actually lived there." "When he came over, Marcelo would say to me..." ""If they are there very long, you try and help people recuperate." "For example, Ana is part of the "recuperation plan"." "Others didn't recuperate..."" "But they never told me that they were killing people there." "...or that had killed one, two, or 3 thousand." "No!" "According to Marcelo the ones who went there would talk." "They would confess... and were led down the right path." "I don't know what Marcelo did but it wouldn't surprise me..." "I'm sure torture." "I'm sure he killed people." "He thought that he did it because it was his duty and felt remorse at all." "Prisioners who'd been there for long... would say that he had been terrible." "When I met him, he was begining to break away from this role." "He would put up a completely human appearence." "I don't know if it was just an appearance, I believed him." "We would talk." "He would tell me he didn't know what he would do ...once this was all over." "You had to be careful how you evaluated this people." "When I said that they were human beings..." "Yes, but it was a very fine line that was very sharp and you could cut yourself." "Yes, he was a human being." "But he was also a torturer." "I think that deep down the bond between the tortured and the torturer between the kidnapper and kidnapped is such a perverse bond that you look for compensation." "You feel that the same guy who can kill you can also protect you." "One day they showed up here." "On the telephone they told us... to leave the gate open, that nobody be there, except family." "That they were coming over." "That's how it was." "The gate was open, a car with 4 people came." "They brought Ana wearing a blindfold." "I felt like running away, they were armed to the teeth you had to put up with them being in your house and keep quiet." "You know what that was like... having to cook for them a great meal in their honor." ""Do you have any home-made salami?" " Yes!" ""Do you have good wine?" " Yes!" "Whatever you want." "One day he wanted to go buy clothes... so we took him along to buy his clothes." "Marcelo would sleep here, he would have lunch with us" "He would even tell us things about his family." "One time he said to me; "If my mother only knew where I am"" ""All my mother wanted was for me to have a career in the Navy"" "At one point, he fell in love with Ana, he told me himself." " With me?" " Yes, he was in love with you." "And I just hoped Ana would say "yes"!" "That way he'd bring her back here." "You had no guarantee in there." "Many of the ones who collaborated or pretended to... were killed all the same." "I was in one of the last groups to be released." "Inside, there were still a few prisioners left." "I have an image in my mind there was a door that separated us it was made of wood and glass." "Ana was with ber back turned, we would look at each other and then she was gone..." "And I didn't know what would happen with me." "I had the feeling I wouldn't see her again." "I remained there alone..." "so I was going to die." "I had that feeling..." "But on he other hand, I told myself that I'd see her again ...the comrades that had been released... or other comrades that I didn't know what had become of them." "That we would one day meet some place and talk and see how we were getting along." "The Navy guys asked me to give Juan in." "And..." "I sometimes wonder whether I did the right thing or not." "Aftewards..." "One day I went to Buenos Aires to meet Marcelo." "Every time I came to Buenos Aires..." "I had to call... and tell him I was coming." "On one of those trips..." "Marcelo says to me "if you had brought your husband here he would still be alive."" "But your husband was taken in by the Army." "It's just a doubt in my mind..." "I had no guarantee..." "What if..." "I don't know." "I wouldn't have been able to live with it." "Who could have guaranteed life or death in there?" "With the return of democracy, Juan's father and I contacted a girl who had accompanied Juan... to the bus station in Retiro." "She had had a long talk with Juan and Juan learned that I was out." "We are talking about the end of 1980." "When I was already out." "Juan knew that I was out." "I went to visit some friends we had in common." "Who had nothing to do with any of this." "They had just had a daughter, in Lanús." "Juan did not want to meet me." "I was already out of the camp." "Because for Juan I..." "Juan died believing that I was a traitor." "There was this word;" ""The Lepers" that were the survivors." "Why "The Lepers"?" "Once they were out, no one would go near them." "Why?" "Because they could have turned into spies 'cause he must have done "something" to get out." "That was very craffy..." "very..." "I can assure you that many of the comrades that were set free ...were very much up to the circumstances and of the utmost integrity." "In spite of this, nobody trusted them, not even now." "He says to Gabriela I could have met with Ana..." "but I didn't want to because... she is a traitor now." "Ana... came out of that place alive what else could Ana be?"