Operation Massacre (17 page)

Signed Hueyo, Rodríguez Moreno, secretary Paladino, page
58
and following in criminal case number
3702
tried before the Eighth Criminal Court of First Instance in the city of La Plata.

This, then, is the document that the Liberating Revolution needs to answer to, and never will.

It proves everything that I claimed in my articles for
Mayoría
and in the first edition of this book: that a group of men were arrested before martial law was instated; that they were not given due process; that their identities were not verified; that they were not told what their crime was; and that they were massacred in an open field.

Judge Hueyo dives right into this gaping hole in the State's disavowal. The ink of Rodríguez Moreno's signature is still fresh when the court gives its orders:

1
) To summon the second-in-command at the Mar del Plata District Police Department, Commissioner Benedicto Cuello, to offer a statement on Monday the
21
st at
10
:
00
a.m.;
2
) To summon the medic of the Moreno Police Precinct, Doctor Chiesa, to offer a statement that same Monday at
9
:
30
a.m.;
3
) To establish the court on Tuesday the
2
2
nd in the San Martín District Police Department to collect statements from the department staff;
4
) To appear at the polyclinic of said city immediately to collect statements from the doctors, nurses, and other personnel, and to proceed to examine the institution's books;
5
) To authorize non-working days and non-working hours in order to continue with this investigation from the
22
nd of the month onwards.

The judge's urgency was justified. Fernández Suárez, feeling cornered because of Rodríguez Moreno's confession and the rumor (which took La Plata by storm) that his preemptive incarceration was imminent, went looking for help at the highest echelons of the Liberating Revolution. On the morning of Monday, January
21
,
1957
, accompanied by Colonel Bonnecarrere—the Province authority appointed by the Liberating Revolution—he requested a hearing with General Aramburu and was received in the presence of General Quaranta. Once there, he asked for and received assistance from the President of the Nation.

That same night, Bonnecarrere called an emergency meeting, which Fernández Suárez attended. A special airplane was chartered to bring the president of the Supreme Court of the Province, Judge Amílcar Mercader, from the town of Ayacucho, which is where he was at that time. Discussed at length during this meeting were: the José León Suárez executions, the danger that the judge's obvious determination to establish the truth posed to the Liberating Revolution, and the means that the Executive Power had at its disposal to avoid it.

The following information about these desperate maneuvers leaked to the papers:

Upon returning from our city, after interviewing the provisional president of the Nation in the early hours of the morning, State authority Colonel Bonnecarrere . . . is said to have met with his ministers and the Chief of Police around
8
:
30
p.m. in the Government House . . . 

This coincided with a visit from the head of the Supreme Court of the Province, Judge Amílcar A. Mercader.

In both instances there was allegedly discussion of . . . issues connected to the workings of the Police Department of the Province of Buenos Aires, regarding recent events that are public knowledge, were discussed. (
El Argentino
from La Plata, January
22
,
1957
.)

The Buenos Aires periodical
La Razón
also alluded to the proceedings in a text box with the heading “A Meeting,” reporting a discussion of “the events that took place last year in the region of San Martín.” These euphemisms were the extent of the freedom of the press that the country so enjoyed: the public was never informed about the existence of the Livraga file.

It's possible that the way things are going influences the tone of Commissioner Cuello, the ex-second-in-command of the San Martín District Police Department, when he gives his statement on Monday the twenty-first. His gives a defiant, at times furious testimony. It begins with a lie that, albeit easily disproven, shows that Fernández Suárez and his henchmen now understand what the core of the issue is: Cuello says that “at approximately
2300
hours on June
9
, he was informed that the establishment of martial law had been broadcast over the radio.”

This is false. State Radio played music by Bach at
10
:
31
p.m.; Ravel at
10
:
59
p.m.; Stravinsky at
11
:
30
p.m., and ended its programming at
12
:
00
a.m. with a marching song as usual. At
12
:
1
1
a.m. on June
10
it resumed its broadcast unexpectedly on all State Radio stations at once, aired light music for twenty-one minutes, and at precisely
12
:
32
a.m. began to read the text of the martial law.

Cuello goes on:

that at approximately
0030
hours on the
10
th, or rather closer to midnight, a group of individuals was driven to the District Police Department. It was said that they were being held incommunicado and under the command of the Chief of Police, who had allegedly carried out the procedure of apprehending them . . . Asked by Your Honor if the intake of these prisoners was recorded in the department's books, he states: that it was not done because they were being held incommunicado and under the Chief of Police's command, so it was understood that they were stopping there briefly and would then be driven to headquarters. Asked by Your Honor if the regulation is not that prisoners are to be registered as soon as they arrive at the station, he responds: that the San Martín District Police Department does not have stations designated for holding prisoners, and when a few do come through, they stay only temporarily . . . Asked by Your Honor if the prisoners were questioned, the witness states: that he cannot quite recall if they were questioned, that they might have been asked a question or two because the reason for their arrest was unknown, but he does not remember if this was recorded in writing . . . Asked by Your Honor if he can provide the names of those who were arrested, he remembers Rodríguez and thinks he remembers a last name like Brión. Actually he thinks the last name was Lizazo, and he also remembers distinctly that Giunta was there; as for Juan Carlos Livraga, he does not remember him . . . Asked by Your Honor what happened next, he states: that at approximately five o'clock in the morning his chief, Rodríguez Moreno, stated that he had received, via direct communication over the police radio between himself and the Chief of Police, an order to execute the group that the Chief of Police had arrested in Florida, that in compliance with said order he made all the prisoners get into an assault car, each prisoner with his respective guard. Asked by Your Honor whether it was covered with the appropriate curtains, the witness states: that he is almost certain that it was; that said vehicle set out followed by the Department van, which was being directed by the chief of the District Department, who was accompanied by the declarant and perhaps another officer or another person, he does not recall; that they arrived at an open field, the precise location of which the declarant cannot affirm. He can only say that it was in the jurisdiction of San Martín, that the assault car came to a stop there and was lit up by the headlights of the van. They then proceeded with the execution of the prisoners and, upon completion, or rather upon establishing how many individuals had been executed, they realized that there were only five instead of the twelve or thirteen who had been driven there, and at that moment they realized that some of the prisoners had escaped.

—When was that? —asked the judge.

Cuello doesn't know. He participated only “as a witness and as moral support [sic] for the chief, who had taken command of the execution.”

It seems obvious that, when giving oneself to a moral task of this caliber, you cannot get too hung up on the details. But the escape, Cuello explains, “happened before the execution.”

the judge
. —How many were left dead?

cuello
. —Five.

the judge
. —Is it possible that, of those who faced the firing squad, some were left unharmed?

cuello
. —I don't believe so.

the judge
. —How were these five executed?

cuello
. —I don't recall, I think it was done in two groups.

At this point, the commissioner takes a polemical turn that the judge records on the back of page
62
:

“At this moment the witness says he considers it necessary to explain that he does not see the reason for the investigation that is being conducted regarding these executions, that they had been ordered in compliance with martial law, that he seems to recall that it was instated on the night of the ninth between
10
:
30
p.m. and
11
:
00
p.m., and is almost certain that all the prisoners knew it had been put into effect, because he even seems to recall that the District Police Department acquired knowledge of these circumstances based on statements made by the prisoners themselves.”

It's funny what this commissioner “seems to recall” considering how forgetful he is about other things (including the testimony he gave half an hour prior). First he says that “at approximately
2300
hours on June
9
, he was informed that the instatement of martial law had been broadcast over the radio.” Then he said that the prisoners arrived “at approximately
0030
hours on the tenth, or rather closer to midnight.” And now he is saying that it's these same prisoners who gave the news to the District Police Department, and therefore to him. But if they arrived at midnight, how could they have told him the news at eleven?

Asked by the judge what they did with the bodies, Cuello says “that he does not know if it was immediately or by way of a subsequent order that they were driven to the morgue at the San Martín polyclinic.”

Judge Hueyo shows him Livraga's receipt and asks him if he recognizes it. Cuello admits it is “possible that this form was filled out at the District Police Department.”

Does he recognize the signatures?

He does not recognize them.

Does he know that Livraga was subsequently arrested at the Department?

He does not.

Does he know that Livraga was in Moreno?

He has no idea.

Does he know if the executed men received a coup de grâce?

He can't say for sure.

Does he know if the men who were executed were told what their crime was?

He doesn't know.

His testimony is a web of inaccuracies and evasions. As opposed to Rodríguez Moreno, this officer believes that the dead are completely dead and that there is no reason to go around asking so many questions.

On Tuesday, January
22
, the judge goes to Florida in search of the “third man,” Horacio di Chiano. He doesn't find him. He is in hiding and will only appear twenty days later when Enriqueta Muñiz and I manage to speak with him. Judge Hueyo questions Di Chiano's wife, who confirms Giunta's testimony and provides a new description of Fernández Suárez, “a large person who was wearing a military jacket with sand-colored gabardine pants, a person with dark hair and a mustache.”

The judge asks what's become of her husband. She responds that “the declarant has not seen her husband since the night in question either; she suspects that he is still alive, but he has not been home since.”

On page
69
and following, two guards from the Florida precinct state that they participated in the raid. Their testimonies add nothing to the case.

From Florida, the judge headed to the San Martín District Police Department, where he intended to establish the court. Waiting for him there was an urgent radio message from Police Headquarters, informing him that the judge's presence was needed in the capital of the Province. Once he arrives in La Plata, the judge sits down to talk with the president of the Supreme Court of the Province.

What was said during that meeting was never reported, but the game being played was plain to see. Advised by the best in the business, Bonnecarrere and Fernández Suárez figured out the magic formula for saving themselves: to get a military court to claim jurisdiction over the case.

On that same day, January
22
, Fernández Suárez deigns to respond to the judge's requests for the first time. His response appears on page
71
and is stamped “Confidential.” It reads as follows:

In response to His Honor's official requests dated the
24
th and
31
st of December,
1956
, and the
10
th and
11
th of the current month of January, related to Case Number
3702
entitled “Livraga, Juan Carlos – report,” I have the pleasure of addressing the judge and informing him of the following:

1
) Juan Carlos Livraga was condemned to death by the June
9
,
1956
Decree
10
.
364
of the National Executive Power, the punishment to be carried out at the site of the events, in the district of San Martín, in accordance with martial law; it was not possible to complete the sentence regarding the person in question due to his having escaped moments before the execution.