1975, Formosa: When "El Negro" Luna and his little soldiers defeated Montoneros
Soldier Luna's sister, Jovina, managed to get the State to open its files to find out if the guerrillas who killed Hermindo received compensation. What was the attack called “Operation Scoop” like?
By Ceferino Reato -
Infobae
Soldier Hermindo Luna (left of the photo) with two companions
Hermindo Luna is considered the hero of the resistance with glory of the 21-year-old Formosa soldiers who on October 5, 1975, in the midst of the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón, rejected the attempt to take over an Army barracks by Montoneros, one of the two most powerful guerrilla groups of the seventies.
Now, Jovina Luna, one of his sisters, has just gotten the government to open all its files and indicate the names of those who have been compensated as Victims of State Terrorism, political prisoners and exiles. A historic decision, as Infobae anticipated. A request that was systematically denied by Kirchnerism with the argument that this data had to be protected.
The attack left 24 casualties: 12 guerrillas and 12 defenders of the barracks (10 conscripts, a second lieutenant and a sergeant)
The scene seems straight out of a movie: "El Negro" Luna, a Creole born in the countryside of Formosa, was sitting in an armchair with his rifle on his legs; He had the mission of guarding the bedroom where his classmates were taking a nap that hot Sunday.
They were all in custody; that is, in reserve, ready to act in an unforeseen event, for example if the guerrillas decided to attack them, something unlikely because they were fulfilling their mandatory military service in the forgotten periphery of the country, in a barracks in the suburbs of the capital of the province.
Drafted Hermindo Luna
However, at four thirty in the afternoon Luna saw that two young men like him, dressed in blue, also armed with FAL, entered kicking the gate and shouted at him: "Surrender, give me the weapon, the thing is not with you." ". That was when Luna uttered a phrase destined to last: "Nobody gives up here, shit!" He jumped to the side and prepared his rifle. He didn't manage to use it: some FAL shots split him in two. His gesture, however, served to alert the rest of his companions, who woke up from the sound of those gunshots and were able to flee to the back of the block, where the bathrooms and showers were.
“No one gives up here, shit!” Luna managed to shout before being fatally wounded by a FAL shot.
Luna was left lying on the ground, his body cut in two, his viscera draining through the bullet holes. He died little by little, screaming in pain to be killed once and for all. Surely, he had time to think about his parents, those poor peasants from Las Lomitas, who were "Peronists of Perón and Evita," as his conscript son said.
All this occurred during the so-called "Operation Primicia" [Primicia means Scoop in English], the most spectacular attack by the guerrilla of Peronist origin and the baptism of fire of the Montonero Army.
It was the first attack by Montoneros on an Army barracks, whose head was already General Jorge Rafael Videla. There were, in total, twenty-eight deaths, which is why the operation caused a nationwide commotion.
About seventy guerrillas participated directly in "Operation Primicia" in five stages, some of which were simultaneous:
- Hijacking of Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 706, with one hundred and two passengers and six crew members, which was headed from Buenos Aires Airport to Corrientes but was diverted to Formosa, 1,190 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
- Taking over the "El Pucú" international airport, at the entrance to the capital of Formosa. There was a police officer, Argentino Alegre, wounded and finished off on the ground, unarmed, by a guerrilla.
- Attack on the 29th Monte Infantry Regiment, the second in firepower in the entire country. The Montoneros were convinced that the soldiers were going to surrender easily. They were wrong: in just half an hour of combat, there were twenty-four casualties, twelve guerrillas and twelve defenders of the barracks (ten conscripts or "colimbas", a 21-year-old second lieutenant and a 31-year-old sergeant). The soldier who opened the doors of the barracks, Roberto Mayol, a man from Santa Fe who was studying law and was a "second officer" of Montoneros, also died.
- Escape of the guerrillas who survived the attack in the very modern Boeing 737-200 of Aerolíneas and in a four-seater Cessna 182 that served to confuse the pursuers in the air.
- Landing of the Airlines plane 700 kilometers from Formosa, on a runway prepared for the occasion in a ranch near Rafaela, the "Pearl of the West" of Santa Fe. The Cessna landed in a rice field on the outskirts of Corrientes.
The Aerolíneas Argentinas aircraft that the guerrillas hijacked
"Operación Primicia" (Scoop) was designed and directed by the "senior officer" Raúl Yaguer, better known as "El Gringo", "Roque" or "Mario", a methodical and caustic chemical engineer from Santa Fe who was number four in the national leadership of Montoneros. The first three in the hierarchy, Mario Firmenich, Roberto Perdía and Roberto Quieto, approved the takeover.
After the attack, Army patrols left the barracks and killed three neighbors—among them a 15-year-old high school student—who had nothing to do with the guerrilla.
One of the political consequences of "Operation Primicia" was that Videla and the head of the Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera, set March 24, 1976 as the date of the coup that they had been organizing for three months. I explain all this in my book "Operación Primicia", whose first edition was published in 2010.
The dead soldiers were all Peronists; almost all came from the interior of Formosa
Furthermore, the day after the attack, the Peronist government signed three memorable decrees that delegated the fight against the guerrillas to the Armed Forces. From that moment on, the disappearances began.
Over time, the relatives of the dead guerrillas were compensated as if they had been Victims of State Terrorism with the equivalent of one hundred times the highest salary of the national public administration, about 5 million pesos today.
The mother of Marcelino Torales, one of the conscripts killed
At the time of publication of my book, the relatives of eight of the twelve dead guerrillas had received payment. Two other compensation payments were pending. At that time, I tried to interview the sister of Mayol, the soldier/guerrilla who is considered a traitor by the soldiers and military, and a hero by the former guerrillas and their sympathizers. She did not want to be interviewed for the book, but she told me, informally, that, although they had the best of memories of her brother, her family did not plan to ever collect that compensation.
Meanwhile, the parents of the dead colimbas receive a very low pension, which in 2010 was 842 pesos per month. That year, compensation for Victims of State Terrorism amounted to 620,919 pesos.
Boero and Briggiler died in the attack on the barracks, but they appear in the Monument to the Victims of State Terrorism, on the Buenos Aires Coast
There was not only gold but also bronze for the attackers: the dead guerrillas are remembered as heroes and martyrs in their towns and cities, and appear in the Monument to the Victims of State Terrorism located on the Buenos Aires waterfront.
The dead conscripts were part of an unfortunate group made up of the "Sunday afternoon soldiers", that is, the poorest, who did not have money to visit their families in the interior of the province and used to exchange their francs for a small sum of money, like Luna, and the most generous, like Edmundo Sosa, a fatherless boy who, first, postponed his discharge so that a companion who was poorer than him and had two children to feed could come in his place, and Then, that Sunday, October 5, he had given his franc to another colleague so that he could go to Clorinda to earn a few pesos hauling bags of smuggled flour to Paraguay.
A simple calculation indicated that Sosa's mother, for example, should have collected that pension of 842 pesos every month for 61 and a half years of her life to reach the sum already received by the relatives of each of the guerrillas. And without inflation.
With the exception of Formosa, national-level soldiers typically do not receive tributes or recognition anywhere else. However, there is a possibility that their relatives may soon be eligible for compensation equivalent to what the families of deceased guerrillas have already received. The Defense Commission of the Chamber of Deputies is currently reviewing two bills. One has been proposed by Martín Hernández, a Formoseño deputy from the radical party, while the other is presented by Carlos Kunkel, a Kirchnerist deputy with a past affiliation to the "Montonero Army." Kunkel is now seeking to somehow rectify what he calls "the mistakes we made."
Three years ago, Ricardo Buryaile, another radical representative from Formosa who is currently the Minister of Agriculture, introduced a bill aimed at equalizing subsidies. However, despite numerous discussions, the project was not approved due to opposition from Kirchnerist deputies associated with La Cámpora and various human rights organizations.
Surviving soldiers, many of whom remain in precarious financial situations, have requested a subsidy, but both the Army and the national government have denied their request. Meanwhile, Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio is conducting an investigation to determine whether any wrongdoing occurred in the payment of compensation to the families of deceased guerrillas.
The Formosian little soldiers resist to be forgotten and keep making noise.
*Excecutive editor of Fortuna magazine and author of Operación Primicia.
