Editing Montoneros (section)

==Under Jorge Videla's junta==
On 24 March 1976, [[Isabel Perón]] was ousted and a [[National Reorganization Process|military junta]] installed, led by General [[Jorge Rafael Videla]]. On 4 April 1976, Montoneros assassinated a naval commander (José Guillermo Burgos) and a Chrysler executive (Jorge Ricardo Kenny) and ambushed and killed three policemen in a patrol car.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rSBOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cu0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3659,5743522&dq=chrysler+argentina&hl=en |title=Argentine gunmen slay five persons. ''The Spokesman-Review'', 15 April 1976 |access-date=16 March 2016 |archive-date=3 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160403131021/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rSBOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cu0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3659,5743522&dq=chrysler+argentina&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref> On 26 April 1976, Montoneros guerrillas killed Colonel Abel Héctor Elías Cavagnaro outside his home in Tucumán province. <ref>Redacción, Issues 35-46, Editorial Réplica, 1976</ref> On 27 June 1976, Montoneros guerrillas operating in the city of Rosario ambushed and destroyed two police cars, killing three police officers<ref>La memoria de los de abajo 1945-2007: hombres y mujeres del peronismo revolucionario, perseguidos, asesinados, desaparecidos, caídos en combate, Roberto Baschetti, Página 263, De la campana, 2007</ref> During the first three months of the military government, more than 70 policemen were killed in leftist guerrilla attacks.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914276,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050116103037/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914276,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 January 2005 |title=ARGENTINA: Battling Against Subversion TIME MAGAZINE U.S.Monday, July 12, 1976 |magazine=Time  |date=12 July 1976 |access-date=12 November 2011}}</ref> On 11 August 1976, urban guerrillas dressed like police officers intercepted and killed army corporal Jorge Antonio Bulacio, with two shots to the head and set fire to his military lorry belonging to the 141st Headquarters Communications Battalion with a Molotov cocktail bomb.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/arg/causa13/casos/caso526.html|title=Equipo Nizkor - Causa 13: Caso Claudio Luis Román Méndez.|access-date=5 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006155854/http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/arg/causa13/casos/caso526.html|archive-date=6 October 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> On 3 November 1976, a Chrysler executive, Carlos Roberto Souto, was killed in Buenos Aires by Montoneros.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/14/archives/argentina-steps-up-war-against-leftists-security-sources-are.html ARGENTINA STEPS UP WAR AGAINST LEFTISTS]</ref>

On 4 January 1977, a female guerrilla (Ana María González) from the Montoneros movement shot and killed Private Guillermo Félix Dimitri of the 10th Mechanized Infantry Brigade while he was on roadblock duty outside the Chrysler factory in the San Justo suburb of Buenos Aires.
<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.robertobaschetti.com/biografia/g/179.html |title=militantes del peronismo revolucionario uno por uno |access-date=4 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328192941/http://www.robertobaschetti.com/biografia/g/179.html |archive-date=28 March 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref> On 27 January, a Montoneros bomb explodes outside a police station in the city of Rosario in Santa Fe Province, killing a policeman (Miguel Angel Bracamonte) and a 15-year-old girl (María Leonor Berardi), an innocent bystander.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://psicolog.org/la-organizacin-montoneros-se-dio-a-conocer-como-tal-en-1970-en.html?page=50 |title=La Organización Montoneros se dio a conocer como tal en 1970; en años posteriores se fusionó con el Ejército Nacional Revolucionario (enr) |access-date=4 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904224103/https://psicolog.org/la-organizacin-montoneros-se-dio-a-conocer-como-tal-en-1970-en.html%3Fpage%3D50 |archive-date=4 September 2019 |url-status=dead }}</ref> On 28 January, a female Montoneros guerrilla (22-year-old Juana Silvia Charura) placed a bomb inside the 2nd Police Station in the suburb of Cuidadela, destroying the building and killing three policemen: Commissioner Carlos A. Benítez, Sub-Commissioner Lorenzo Bonnani and Agent César Landeria.<ref name="El Senado y Cámara de Diputados"/>

On 10 February, two police officers (Roque Alipio Farías and Ernesto Olivera) from an anti-explosives unit were fatally wounded trying to deactivate a bomb rigged to a motorbike in Rosario.<ref>In Memoriam, Volumen 2, p. 573, Círculo Militar, República Argentina, 1998</ref> On 15 February 1977, army corporal Osvaldo Ramón Ríos was killed after his patrol came under fire from three Montoneros gun-men that had barricaded themselves inside a house in the Ezpeleta suburb of Buenos Aires.<ref>[https://www.elcohetealaluna.com/lugar-comun-la-muerte/ LUGAR COMÚN LA MUERTE]</ref>
On 17 February 1977 around 06.30 local time, Ireneo Garnica and Alejandro Díaz, both railway workers who had refused to participate in a strike, were killed when Montoneros threw a bomb at them from a car in the suburb of Quilmes in Buenos Aires. <ref>Crónica Edición De La Mañana, miercoles 18 de enero de 1976</ref> On 19 March 1977, 45-year-old Sergeant Martín A. Novau from the Federal Police was shot and killed while he was repairing a police car in a work shop in Buenos Aires.<ref name="El Senado y Cámara de Diputados"/>

On 23 May 1977, the urban guerrillas in Buenos Aires killed two police officers and a retired inspector as he entered his home.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QjkVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6663,609661&dq=|title=St. Petersburg Times - Google News Archive Search|access-date=5 May 2015}}</ref>

The junta redoubled the [[Dirty War]] anti-guerrilla campaign. During 1977, in just Buenos Aires alone, 36 police were reported killed in actions involving the remaining urban guerrillas.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3V8zAAAAIBAJ&pg=2624,506767&dq=|title=Bangor Daily News - Google News Archive Search|access-date=5 May 2015|archive-date=28 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228115223/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3V8zAAAAIBAJ&pg=2624,506767&dq=|url-status=live}}</ref>

On 1 August 1978, a powerful bomb meant to kill Rear Admiral Armando Lambruschini (chairman of the Joint Chiefs) ripped through a nine-story apartment building, killing three civilians and trapping scores beneath the debris.<ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zOkLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QVoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6472,487048&dq=a "Admiral's child killed by bomb in Buenos Aires"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320164205/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zOkLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QVoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6472,487048&dq=a |date=20 March 2017 }}, ''St. Petersburg Times''. 2 August 1976</ref>

On 14 August 1977, Susana Leonor Siver and her partner Marcelo Carlos Reinhold, both Montoneros fighters, were kidnapped from Reinold's mother's home along with a friend by a fifteen-strong naval intelligence team and taken to the ESMA naval detention camp. After a brutal torture session in front of his wife, Marcelo was supposedly "transferred" to another camp but nothing was heard of him since. In February 1978, Susana was disappeared by the military authorities soon after giving birth to a blonde girl.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://noticias.univision.com/america-latina/argentina/article/2011-08-08/abuelas-plaza-de-mayo-hallaron-nieto-105 |title=Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo encontraron al nieto 105 The Associated Press 08/08/201 |publisher=Noticias.univision.com |access-date=12 November 2011}}</ref>

Adriana and Gaspar Tasca, both identified as Montoneros, were taken into custody between 7 and 10 December 1977 and remain unaccounted for. On 16 December 1977, a Montoneros hit-squad operating in Buenos Aires, killed Andre Gasparoux, a top executive of the Peugeot Motor Company and seriously wounded his bodyguard. The seven MPM guerrillas involved, including two women, ambushed the 55-year-old French national in the suburb of Ranelagh after using a truck to block his route before spraying his car with a hail of submachinegun fire before making good their escape.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/17/archives/world-news-briefs-courts-ruling-is-accepted-by-filipino-military.html World News Briefs, The New York Times, December 17, 1977]</ref>

On 6 October 1978, José Pérez Rojo and Patricia Roisinblit, both Montoneros members, were made to disappear. According to different sources, 8,000 to 30,000 people<ref>The lower estimate is from the CONADEP (''Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas'', ''National Commission on People Disappeared'') in their official report ''Nunca Más'' (''Never Again''). Estimates by human rights organisations estimate up to 30,000</ref> are estimated to have disappeared and died during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Some 12,000 of the missing known as the ''[[Detenido desaparecido|detenidos-desaparecidos]]'', survived detention<ref name="elortiba.org"/> and were later compensated for their ordeal. On the other hand, according to an NGO dedicated to defending "victims of terrorism", 1,355 people, including members of the police and military, were killed by Montoneros and other left-wing armed movements.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.es/20111228/internacional/abci-victoria-villarruel-entrevista-201112280343.html|title=Las víctimas del terror montonero no cuentan en Argentina|work=ABC.es|access-date=5 May 2015|date=28 December 2011|archive-date=7 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150507074050/http://www.abc.es/20111228/internacional/abci-victoria-villarruel-entrevista-201112280343.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Mario Eduardo Firmenich.png|thumb|left|200px|Mario Firmenich. Photo by [[Eduardo Montes-Bradley]]]]The commander of the Montoneros, Mario Firmenich, in a radio interview in late 2000 from Spain later stated that ''"In a country that has experienced a civil war, everybody has blood on their hands."''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.larepublica.com.uy/mundo/51817-firmenich-dijo-que-no-mato-a-nadie-inutilmente |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120629050047/http://www.larepublica.com.uy/mundo/51817-firmenich-dijo-que-no-mato-a-nadie-inutilmente |url-status=dead |archive-date=29 June 2012 |title=Firmenich dijo que no mató "a nadie inútilmente" LR21.com, 7 August 2001 |publisher=Larepublica.com.uy |access-date=12 November 2011 |date=7 August 2001 }}</ref> The junta relied on mass illegal arrests, torture, and executions without trial to stifle any political opposition. Some victims were thrown from transport planes into the Atlantic Ocean on what have become infamously known as [[death flights]]. Others had their corpses left on streets as intimidation of others. The Montoneros admit 5,000 of their guerrillas were killed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.elmundo.es/papel/hemeroteca/1995/05/04/mundo/40472.html#prof |title=''El Mundo'', 4 de mayo 1995 |publisher=Elmundo.es |access-date=12 November 2011 |archive-date=23 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090223183945/http://www.elmundo.es/papel/hemeroteca/1995/05/04/mundo/40472.html#prof |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Montoneros were effectively finished off by 1977, although their "Special Forces" did fight on until 1981. The Montoneros tried to disrupt the World Cup Football Tournament being hosted in Argentina in 1978 by launching a number of bomb attacks.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAvw-YXm4TsC&q=the+montoneros+tried+to+disrupt+the+world+cup&pg=PA221 |title=Authoritarian regimes in Latin America: Dictators, Despots, and Tyrants, Paul H. Lewis, p. 221, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005 |access-date=12 November 2011|isbn=9780742537392 |last1=Lewis |first1=Paul H. |year=2006 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}</ref> In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a "strategic counteroffensive" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBzJPtLs6KIC&dq=montoneros+launched+a+counteroffensive&pg=PA317 |title=When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror, Cecilia Menjívar & Néstor Rodriguez, p. 317, University of Texas Press, 2005 |access-date=12 November 2011|isbn=9780292778504 |publisher=University of Texas Press |date=21 July 2009 }}</ref> after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-9327-2002-08-25.html |title=Lo que sabía el 601 |publisher=Pagina12.com.ar |access-date=12 November 2011 |archive-date=5 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605084534/http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-9327-2002-08-25.html |url-status=live }}</ref> On 14 June 1980, eight Argentine army officers (in cooperation with Peruvian military authorities), kidnapped Noemí Esther Giannetti de Molfino (an active Montoneros collaborator) along with eight Argentine nationals in the Peruvian capital and had them forcefully disappear.<ref name="chacodiapordia.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.chacodiapordia.com/noticia/91416/impondran-el-nombre-noemi-esther-giannotti-de-molfino-a-esquina-de-resistencia|title=Impondrán el nombre Noemí Esther Giannetti de Molfino a esquina de Resistencia|work=CHACO DIA POR DIA|access-date=5 May 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923202148/http://www.chacodiapordia.com/noticia/91416/impondran-el-nombre-noemi-esther-giannotti-de-molfino-a-esquina-de-resistencia|archive-date=23 September 2015}}</ref> In October 2014, the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner would rename a street in the city of Resistencia, Chaco Province in her memory. Her daughter Marcela along with her partner, Guillermo Amarilla, had both disappeared in 1979 while re-entering Argentina as part of the Montoneros "strategic counteroffensive".<ref name="chacodiapordia.com"/>

Among the Montoneros killed in this operation were Luis Francisco Goya and María Lourdes Martínez Aranda who after crossing the Chilean border into Argentina were abducted in the city of Mendoza in 1980 and never seen again, with their son Jorge Guillermo being adopted and raised by an army NCO, Luis Alberto Tejada and his wife Raquel Quinteros.<ref>http://mendozaopina.com/politica/86-mendoza/17365-radio-nacional-mendoza-acto-homenaje-a-los-30000-desaparecidos- {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425230419/http://mendozaopina.com/politica/86-mendoza/17365-radio-nacional-mendoza-acto-homenaje-a-los-30000-desaparecidos- |date=25 April 2012 }}  Radio Nacional Mendoza: Acto Homenaje a los 30.000 desaparecidos, 13/11/11</ref> During the 1980s a captured [[Sandinista]] commando revealed that Montoneros "Special Forces" were training Sandinista frogmen and conducting gun runs across the [[Gulf of Fonseca]] to the Sandinista allies in El Salvador, [[FMLN]] guerrillas.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TSYc5r0HfBwC&q=members+of+the+GEC+would+continue+their+activities&pg=PA134 |title=From Vietnam to El Salvador: The Saga of the FMLN Sappers and other Guerrilla Special Forces in Latin America, David E. Spencer, p. 134, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996 |date=30 October 1996 |access-date=12 November 2011|isbn=9780275955144 |last1=Spencer |first1=David E. |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref>

In 1977, the Montoneros regrouped in Cuba, where the bulk of the remaining group's money had been transferred as well. Exiled Montoneros expanded their networks to gradually diminish the influence of far-right Orthodox Peronism on the Peronist movement. According to Montoneros, Peronism can be reformed by simply "correcting the reason" of Isabel Perón and José López Rega and committing to a platform centred around labour corporatism, Catholic socialism and anti-imperialism. Near the end of the 1970s, exiled Montoneros participated in the [[Nicaraguan Revolution]] and were allied with the [[Sandinista National Liberation Front]], a fellow Christian socialist movement. Montoneros fought directly for the Sandinista revolution, and a special Montonero medical unit was founded by Sandinistas.<ref name="katz">{{cite book |title=Information in Counterrevolution: State Torture and the Armed Left in Southern South America in the 1970s |first=Paul R. |last=Katz |year=2021 |publisher=Columbia University Press |pages=268–269}}</ref>

During the [[Falklands War]] against Great Britain, the Argentine military conceived the aborted [[Operation Algeciras]], a covert plan to support and convince some commando-trained Montoneros, by appealing to their patriotism, to sabotage [[British Forces Gibraltar|British military facilities]] in [[Gibraltar]]. Argentina's defeat led to the fall of the junta, and [[Raúl Alfonsín]] became president in December 1983, thus initiating the [[democratic transition]].