Operation Massacre

by Rodolfo Walsh

  In the meantime, on the twenty-first, I had my first encounter with Livraga in his lawyer von Kotsch’s study. I talked to him for a long while, gathering information that I would later use for the story that came out in Revolución Nacional.

  What I first noticed about Livraga, naturally, were the two bullet wound scars on his face (entry and exit wounds). This was also a fact. The circumstances under which he received these injuries could be discussed, but the fact that he had received them could not. Nonetheless, there was an official version that went so far as to claim, absurdly, that “no shots of any kind had been fired on him.”

  What also came to mind immediately was the fundamental question of Livraga’s innocence or guilt vis-à-vis the June 9 uprising. If he had been guilty, even in his intentions, was it normal, psychologically speaking, for him to appear before the judges and demand compensation? Wouldn’t it have made much more sense for him to keep quiet, to thank God for making it out alive and gaining back his freedom? I believe a man has to feel innocent in order to present such a report against a Power as great as the Police Department of the Province. Of course, one could argue that everything is possible in abnormal psychology. But if there is something remarkable about Livraga, it is how normal he is and how reserved, how able he is to reason and observe.

  Moreover, as I have already said, he was set free. This was also a fact. How could they let someone who was directly involved in the June incidents, a “revolutionary,” an executed man, be free? The only explanation was the innocence hypothesis. We were already getting further and further away from the “serialized novel,” which would from now on be perpetuated solely in official versions of the story.

  I won’t say here how the skein came untangled; how, starting with the first thread, we were able to stitch together a nearly definitive overview of what happened; how, starting from just one character in the drama, we were able to find almost all the rest. I would rather share the results we have obtained.

  Over the course of the four months that this search has already lasted, I have spoken with the three survivors of the tragedy who are still at large in the country. I was the first journalist to reach all of them. I found and interviewed the third one even before anyone in the justice system did. I have figured out the names of three more survivors who are now in Bolivia, and the name of a seventh who is locked up in Olmos. I have stated and proven that a man who was recorded as dead in the official list of those executed (Reinaldo Benavídez), whose death certificate even exists, is perfectly safe and unharmed. Inversely, I was sorry to ascertain that another man (Mario Brión), who did not appear on that list and whom I harbored the hope of finding alive at one point, was killed by the firing squad.

  I have spoken to witnesses who were there at every one of the stages that ended in the massacre. Some of the physical evidence in my possession has not yet reached its rightful recipient. I have obtained stenographic transcriptions of the Province Advisory Board’s secret sessions in which the issue was discussed. I have spoken to the families of the victims and I have cultivated direct or indirect relationships with conspirators, political refugees and fugitives, alleged informers, and anonymous heroes. I can also say with confidence that I have always taken the greatest precautions to protect my informants, insofar as my obligation as a journalist has allowed. Throughout this entire process, I have benefited from the invaluable help of the person to whom this book is dedicated.

  Of course, I am not trying to suggest that I was the first to arrive everywhere. I know that a legal investigation was carried out, and although I was not entirely privy to its conclusions, I have every reason to believe that it was very serous, efficient, and expeditious, up until the jurisdictional conflict got in the way. I hope that when the results of the case are made public—if they ever are—they can fill the unavoidable gaps in my story.

  Some of the material gathered here appeared in the weekly publication Revolución Nacional, which was run by Dr. Cerruti Costa. I hope Dr. Cerruti will not think me ungrateful if I say that my having brought this material to him does not imply a preference or sympathy for his particular brand of politics. As a journalist, I am not that interested in politics. For me, it was a decision I was forced to make, which is not to say that I regret it. My first story about Juan Carlos Livraga had already been rejected by the various weeklies I had approached when Dr. Cerruti found the courage to publish it and use it as a launch pad for the series of stories and coverage about the executions that followed.

  The suspicions that I anticipate raising oblige me to state that I am not a Peronist, have never been one, and do not have the intention of becoming one. If I were a Peronist, I would say so. I don’t think that saying it would jeopardize my comfort or peace of mind more than this publication already does.

  I am also no longer a supporter of the revolution that, like so many others, I believed was going to Liberate us.

  I know perfectly well, however, that under Peronism I would not have been able to publish a book like this or the news articles that preceded it, or to even attempt to investigate police killings that were also taking place at the time. That’s the little we have gained.

  Most of us journalists and writers have come to consider Peronism our enemy in the last decade. And with very good reason. But there is something we should have realized: you cannot conquer the enemy without first understanding it.

  In recent months, I’ve had to arrange first contact with these terrible beings—Peronists—who stir up newspaper headlines. And I have come to the conclusion (so banal that I am shocked more people don’t share it) that, as mistaken as they may be, they are human beings and ought to be treated as such. Mainly, they should not be given reasons to keep following the wrong path. Executions, persecutions, and torture are reasons powerful enough to turn the wrong path into the right one at a certain point.

  Most of all, I fear the moment when, humiliated and offended, they begin to be right. Right in a dogmatic way—in addition to being right in the sentimental or humane way that is already working in their favor and is, ultimately, where their dogmatism comes from in the first place. This moment is imminent; it will be unavoidable if this misguided politics of revenge, directed more at the working class than at anyone else, continues. Until now, every act of repression against Peronism has only worked to strengthen the case for it. That is not just regrettable: it is idiotic.

  I will say again that this book does not have a political agenda, and its intention is certainly not to stir up completely futile hatreds. It is one among many other books that has a social agenda: to do away—in the short- or long-term—with murderers who have gone unpunished, with torturers, with picana “technicians” who remain in their posts despite changes in the government, with this posse of armed criminals dressed in uniform.

  If people ask me why I have decided to speak now after keeping quiet as a journalist when others reported on government crimes under Peronism—though I never wrote a single signed or unsigned word in praise of Peronism, I was also never confronted with this level of atrocity—I will say with complete honesty: I have learned my lesson. But now my teachers are the ones keeping quiet. I have witnessed the willful silence of all the “serious press” in the face of this heinous massacre for many months, and I have felt ashamed.

  People will also say that the José León Suárez execution was an isolated affair of rather minor importance. I believe the opposite. It was the perfect culmination of an entire system. It was one case among many; the clearest, not the most barbaric. I have learned things that are difficult to keep quiet about, but that would be unbearable to say right now. An excess of truth can madden and annihilate the moral conscience of a people. One day the complete, tragic story of the June killings will be written. That’s when the shock will travel beyond our national borders.

  Meanwhile, the Chief of Police who gave the order for this particular massacre is still in office.

&n
bsp; This means that the battle against what he represents is ongoing. And I have the strong conviction that the final outcome of this battle will have an influence on the nature of our repressive systems in years to come; it will decide whether we live like civilized individuals or like Hottentots.

  I know the Chief of the Police Department of the Province of Buenos Aires has expressed great curiosity—which I presume remains unsatisfied—about the author of the articles allegedly attacking him. The truth, I must say, is that I had no intention of attacking him personally; I was attacking him only to the extent that he constitutes one of the two faces of Civilization and Barbarism as articulated by a great Argentine one century ago.44 It is precisely this face that needs to disappear, whose disappearance we all need to fight for.

  When this book is published with my name on it, the Chief of Police will have no more doubts. I am not revealing my identity like this out of some foolish sense of bravado or defiance. I know perfectly well that in this country a chief of police is powerful, while a journalist—an obscure one to boot—is hardly anything. But I happen to believe, with complete earnestness and conviction, in the right of every citizen to share any truth that he comes to know, however dangerous that truth may be. And I believe in this book, in the impact it can have.

  I hope I am not criticized for believing in a book—even if it does happen to be written by me—when there are so many more people believing in machine guns.

  Footnotes:

  43Baltasar Gracián was a seventeenth-century Spanish and Jesuit writer and philosopher.

  44Walsh is referring here to the work of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a nineteenth-century writer and political activist whose most well-known work was Facundo: Civilización y barbarie (1845) (Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism). Written while he was in exile in Chile, Facundo was Sarmiento’s attempt to capture the complexity of Argentina as he saw it through the literary biography of an early nineteenth-century military leader and landowner, Juan Facundo Quiroga. Sarmiento himself was opposed to everything that Quiroga represented. Within the book, Sarmiento provides a survey of the geography, history, and culture of Argentina as well as his own version of what the country ought to look like.

  Obligatory Appendix

  (to the first edition, March 1957)

  Lying as a Profession

  The article that I published in Mayoría on July 15, 1957, served as a provisional epilogue to my book. The “provisional” part was not an accident. There were many things I still wanted to say. I preferred to leave them for another time because, first of all, I didn’t want to abuse the space that the magazine had given me; secondly, I didn’t want people to think I gained any pleasure from reporting on the moral wretchedness that prevails over some parts of this country; and thirdly, I hoped that the people whose duty it is to react against this kind of misery would be the ones to do so. This kind of hope, which I held onto for so long, is proof that I am one of the most naïve men ever to set foot on this soil.

  Because the reaction came from somewhere else. The Chief of Police of the Province of Buenos Aires, Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez, decided at last to acknowledge receipt of the charges that I made against him. He did so in the most skillful yet clumsy way possible. I will explain the clumsiness later.

  First note the skill. The Chief of Police of the Province learns of the decidedly real existence of a band of terrorists. In fulfillment of his duties, he arrests them. He selects a certain “Marcelo” from among them (one of the secondary witnesses I mention in Operation Massacre). Then he chooses a judge, Judge Viglione, who is known as a man of integrity, and grants him the immediate authority to establish whether the prisoners are being treated correctly. And I am completely certain that this, this particular act, was one of the most measured, exemplary, even kind procedures that have ever been carried out in the struggle against terrorism. Judge Viglione agrees to hold a press conference—which is not objectionable in any way—where he offers some details regarding the terrorist plot. But that’s when the ace in the hole is revealed, the key to everything, the bait to hook the gullible. Under the auspices of the esteemed judge, anointed by the presence of the esteemed judge, Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez intervenes and addresses my colleagues, journalists from the big newspapers who believe they have come to hear a story about terrorism. But in fact they have come, without knowing it, so that Fernández Suárez can publicly “lift” the charges that I have brought against him and that are really weighing down on him. And my colleagues, journalists from the big newspapers, they write it all down. They diligently write down what Fernández Suárez has dictated without any one of them thinking to ask any questions or raise any doubts. Let’s take a look at what they write.

  From La Razón:

  The Chief of Police, in turn, gave more background regarding the conspiracy plot in question, noting specifically that among the main characters involved was Marcelo Rizzoni, the same person who managed to escape on June 9 of last year, just before the raid in Florida that saw the arrest of men who were involved in the rebellion that same night. He added that Rizzoni is the person who, under the pseudonym M, went to opposition newspapers with the information about the executions, which was then used as the basis for a campaign against Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez that included fabricated details about the incident.

  From La Nación:

  The Chief of Police, Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez, then added that this Marcelo is the one who, under the pseudonym M, provided some press publications with information, unsubstantiated of course, for a campaign against the police department on account of the executions.

  From El Plata, of La Plata:

  This individual Rizzoni is the one who was providing the newspaper Revolución Nacional with information for its vitriolic campaign against the Chief of Police.

  From El Argentino, of La Plata:

  Afterward, the Chief of Police stated that a terrorist—who has been detained and whose name, as it turns out, is Marcelo Rizzoni—was the one responsible for assembling the bombs, and was responsible for supplying false information regarding the executions to the newspaper Revolución Nacional, which is publishing several articles entitled “Operation Massacre,” wherein the Chief of Police is put at fault. All of the information offered by the aforementioned periodical is false because it has been supplied by a person like Rizzoni, whose only goal is to confuse.

  From El Día, of La Plata:

  Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez stepped in to note that one of the detainees, Marcelo Rizzoni—who played a central role in the terrorist group, signs his contributions to a newspaper where he has reported on alleged cases of torture “Mr. M,” and is the leader of “Operation Massacre”—has made statements apologizing for his behavior . . .

  There are times when the lies get so intricate that you need just the right method to untangle them. For lack of a better one, and even at the risk of boring you, I will use one that I have used before. The five reported versions, which I have mentioned in order of increasing stupidity, contain the following facts that are clearly false, partially false, or unproven, namely:

  1. “Marcelo Rizzoni, the same person who managed to escape on June 9 of last year, just before the raid in Florida . . .” False. Marcelo did not “escape.” He came to the house in Florida three times, and on the third time he left quietly without suspecting anything or thinking to himself that he was “escaping.” The man who escaped when the raid took place was named Juan Carlos Torres.

  2. “. . . the raid in Florida that saw the arrest of men who were involved in the rebellion that same night . . .” Partially false. Among those arrested, only one had been involved, and that was Norberto Gavino; otherwise, there were two or three suspects, and nine or ten innocents. And from the point of view of the Martial Law that was applied to them, they were all innocent, including Gavino.

  3. �
��Rizzoni is the person who, under the pseudonym M, went to all the opposition newspapers with the information about the executions . . .” False. Marcelo did not go to them with the information, just one piece of information.

  4. “. . . information about the executions, which was then used as the basis for a campaign against Lieutenant Colonel Fernández Suárez . . .” False. Not only was Marcelo’s information not used as a basis for the “campaign”; the moment he brought it forth, the Chief of Police’s position was significantly improved, as we will see later on.

  5. “. . . that included fabricated details about the incident . . .” False. The information provided by Marcelo, like all of the information I have used, is correct. I have verified it and can prove it before any civil or military court.

  6. “. . . some press publications with information, unsubstantiated of course . . .” There is no proof that it was unsubstantiated.

  7. “This individual Rizzoni is the one who was providing the newspaper . . . with information . . .” Partially false, see subheading 3.

  8. “. . . to the newspaper Revolución Nacional, which is publishing . . .” False. Revolución Nacional stopped being printed a while ago, and is therefore not publishing anything at all. Published.

  9. “. . . which is publishing several articles entitled ‘Operation Massacre’ . . .” False. Revolución Nacional never published articles entitled “Operation Massacre.”

  10. “Marcelo Rizzoni—who . . . signs his contributions to a newspaper . . . ‘Mr. M’ . . .” False, and also stupid. Marcelo is a witness, not a journalist. A witness whom I have called M. and not “Mr. M.” A witness who neither writes nor signs contributions to any newspaper of any kind.