Rebels’ identity baffles experts

Press, 25 January 1989, Page 10

Rebels’ identity baffles experts

NZPA-Reuter Buenos Aires Argentinian troops cleaned up pockets of resistance yesterday after commandos seized a military base outside Buenos Aires, leaving military and political experts baffled over the rebels’ identity and aims. Five hours of fierce fighting as troops and the police recaptured La Tablita base, 30km west of the capital, left at least nine dead. Some news agencies put the death toll at between 20 and 30. When the incident began, it was thought that the armed group comprised Government soldiers who had been in hiding since a military uprising in early December, the third such mutiny in less than two years. That assumption was quickly questioned, as some officials speculated that the commandos formed a splinter Rightwing group or were Leftist guerrillas whose raid went awry. More than 12 hours after the group

rammed the gates of La Tablita regimental base in a stolen lorry neither the Government nor security forces had positively identified the insurgents or what they hoped to achieve. “It is impossible to identify in a responsible and serious way the ideological leaning of the armed group,” the director of the State Information Department, Facundo Suarez, said. The commandos, including several women, scattered pamphlets saying they were part of the "New Argentine Army” which would combat Marxist subversion within the Government and expressing support for leaders of the three earlier rebellions.

Those mutinies arose largely from military discontent over prosecution of former officers on human rights abuse charges. But sources close to rebels involved in those mutinies said they knew nothing of the “New Argentine Army”