Alianza Anticomunista Argentina
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The Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was a far-right death squad active in Argentina during the mid-1970s, linked to the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla. This period was characterized by frequent terrorist attacks by radical left-wing subversive groups, and harsh repression of dissidence on the part of the military, paramilitary and police forces.
The Triple A was organized by José López Rega — who was also a member of P2 freemasonry lodge, involved in Italy's strategy of tension along with Gladio, NATO's paramilitary group — and Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine federal police, during the brief presidency (1973-1974) of Juan Perón after his return from exile. López Rega, an occult philosopher and self-styled divinator, had come to exert Rasputin-like influence over Perón's wife at the time, Isabel Martínez de Perón, who assumed the presidency upon Perón's sudden death on 1 July 1974. To support the group, López Rega drew on funds from the Ministry of Social Welfare, which he controlled. Some of the members of the Triple A had taken part in the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, when snipers shot on left-wing peronists on the day Perón came back from exile, thus leading to the definitive separation between left and right-wing peronists.
The group first came to national attention on 21 November 1973 when it unsuccessfully tried to murder Argentine Senator Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen by means of a car bomb. The AAA went on to target more than five hundred individuals, including suspected Montoneros and ERP leftist guerrillas and their sympathizers, as well as judges, police chiefs, and social activists. In 1974, it murdered Jesuit Carlos Mugica, a friend of Mario Firmenich, Montoneros's founder.
The AAA was known to have strong backing from the military and Army Commander-in-Chief Jorge Rafael Videla, who came to power as President following the 1976 coup d'état. However, the violence directed toward suspected leftists during the 1976-1983 period (the Dirty War) came directly from the military.
Some AAA members participated in Montejurra 1976 shooting of two left-wing Carlists members in Spain.
[edit] See also
- 601 Intelligence Battalion
- Dirty War
- Propaganda Due (P2)
- Montejurra
- Manuel Sadosky and Héctor Alterio both were threatened by the AAA.
[edit] External link
- "El Debut del Terror: La Triple A", Pablo Mendelevich (in Spanish)
