Had assumed he was a decent President as he came after the dictatorship, or did he? Confusing.
Looks as if killing young people became an addiction for the military during the dictatorship, for sure.
Just found a Wikipedia report on the 1989 attack on La Tablada barracks:
The 1989 attack on La Tablada barracks was an assault on the military barracks located in La Tablada, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by 40 members of Movimiento Todos por la Patria (MTP), commanded by former ERP leader Enrique Gorriarán Merlo. 39 people were killed and 60 injured by the time the Argentine army retook the barracks. The MTP carried out the assault under the alleged pretense of preventing a military coup supposedly planned for the end of January 1989 by the Carapintadas, a group of far-right military officers who opposed the investigations and trials concerning Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983).
The Argentine president of the time, Raúl Alfonsín declared that the attack, which carried the ultimate goal of sparking a massive popular uprising, could have led to a civil war.[1] Given a life sentence and imprisoned, as his comrades, in high security quarters, Gorriarán Merlo was eventually freed in 2003.[2][3] He died on 22 September 2006 while awaiting surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
. . .
According to Clarín newspaper, three different versions about the attack exist.[4] Ten days before the assault, lawyer and MTP member Jorge Baños had declared in a conference that the Carapintadas were planning a coup for the end of January. The Carapintadas were members of the Armed Forces that had rebelled against the national government three times in 1987 and 1988, protesting the investigations on human rights abuses during the "National Reorganization Process" (1976–1983). This has remained to this day the MTP's version, held in particular by the late Gorriarán Merlo who claimed that the MTP was fulfilling the constitutional obligation of "bear[ing] arms in defense of the fatherland and of [the] Constitution".[5][6]
The official report on the attack by head of the Army Francisco Gassino claimed in contrary that it was the MTP, formed of several former ERP members, that had planned a coup. A last version claims that the MTP was victim of a manipulation by intelligence services. A sociologist and professor who published an investigation into the attack believes the MTP had wider aims: "They weren’t planning to put down a coup. They were creating the false image of a coup, to set the scene, but were planning to take the barracks and from there start a revolution."[7]
. . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_attack_on_La_Tablada_barracks
At no point reading this report did I grasp what happened! Very confusing.
I do know that a poster here I had known since 2000, on the CNN message board system they had back then, in a forum on Cuba, a man who as time went by revealed he had been a journalist with UPI at some point in his life, after getting his university education in South America, and marrying an Argentine woman, and living in Chile, and Argentina during the dictatorships, and traveling throughout the Americas with his job, who also died, unfortunately, a few years ago, did mention many years back the Carapintadas as a formidable, violent military group who continued, after the dictatorship, to involve itself in covert ops throughout the whole of the Americas training violent tactics to local militaries. His tone referring to them was mysterious, hard to penetrate, and he didn't speak freely of them, but he left the impression they were intensely violent and focused.
This paragraph is especially monstrous:
The Argentine Army, assisted by the Buenos Aires Police (a total of 3,600 personnel) was called on to counterattack, and indiscriminately used white phosphorus (WP) in the zone, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which in civil wars are only binding with the consent of both parties, and not at all in police actions. The use of WP in combat is forbidden by international law. In this case, it had the effect of completely burning the barracks and of carbonizing corpses.[4][8][9] 39 people were killed and 60 injured during the attack (the majority by conventional weapons). Nine were military personnel, two were police officers and the 28 remaining were members of the MTP. Lawyer Jorge Baños was among the dead.[10] In addition, 53 soldiers and police were wounded in the fighting.[11]
Unbelievable.
Learning this happened is real food for thought, a realization this whole era was far, FAR worse than our own corporate media even ever hinted in the most distant, passing sense. We were surely bamboozled right here, and kept completely unaware how constant US support was, as in Kissinger's direct support, throughout.
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