The events that I recount in this book were systematically denied or distorted by the government of the Liberating Revolution.
The first official version of the story appears in the form of a telegram addressed to Livraga’s father on June 12, 1956, from the head of the Presidential Military House, Captain Manrique. It states that Juan Carlos was “wounded during a shooting.”
We have already seen what that shooting was like.
Fernández Suárez falsely claimed that Livraga had not even been wounded, let alone executed.
In the indictment that was fabricated against Doglia, Esq., the Governance Ministry of the Province claimed that Livraga fled “moments before his execution” and added with true candor that “it was unclear whether shots of any kind had been fired at him.”
The same indictment then admits that Livraga “exhibited injuries,” but considers them to be “evidence of his active participation in the revolutionary movement.”
It was a charming way of flipping the evidence on its head: Livraga’s injuries proved not that he had been executed, but that he was a revolutionary . . .
There were other sophisms, denials, and communiqués. I tore them apart one by one in my articles. Examining them at this point is unnecessary.
The evidence I collected over the course of many months of investigation allowed me to accuse Fernández Suárez of murder, which I did to the point of monotony without his ever deigning to sue me.
Still, there was something missing from this evidence: the document based on Livraga’s formal accusation that was prepared by Judge Belisario Hueyo in La Plata.
I knew the basic contents of this document, but I only held a photocopy of it in my hands when the first edition of this book had already been published (1957).
I was then able to compare the two investigations, the judge’s and mine. The two are practically identical and round each other out. In some ways, mine was more detailed: it included signed statements from the survivors. Judge Hueyo could not take statements from Troxler, Benavídez, and Gavino because they were in Bolivia. I had records of interviews with Horacio di Chiano, Torres, “Marcelo,” and dozens of minor witnesses who did not go through an official intake of any kind. And I had a photostatic copy of the State Radio registry book of announcers, which established the time at which martial law was instated.
In other ways, the Livraga file goes beyond what I could have imagined. In addition to being the official account of the case, it contains confessions from the executioners themselves.
It is therefore this file that, as of the second edition of this book (1964), I call upon as evidence.
My personal experience with judges, as a journalist, has not been encouraging. I could name a dozen whom I know to be factious, inept, or simply corrupt. I choose instead to offer, as a model of determination, speed, and efficiency, the actions of Judge Hueyo throughout this case.
The way he carried out his investigation was truly exemplary. He does the justice system of this country an honor.
The Livraga file begins on December 14, 1956, with the report he gave to Judge Viglione who, for reasons of jurisdictional competence, remits it to Judge Hueyo five days later.
It is a detailed account of his arrest, transfer to the San Martín District Police Department, failed execution, brief stay at the San Martín polyclinic, imprisonment in Moreno, and recovery in Olmos. It includes a piece of physical evidence: a small square of paper dated June 10, 1956 at the San Martín District Police Department, with signatures from three officers confirming that “a White Star watch, a key ring, ten pesos and a handkerchief” were confiscated from Livraga that night.
There are three mistakes in the report that would make the judge’s investigation (and my own) more difficult. It says there were five men arrested in the back apartment of the house in Florida when there were at least eight. It says there were ten of them taken out in the assault car to be executed when there were at least twelve. It claims there were two survivors (he and Giunta) when in reality there were seven. Of all of them, he only knew Vicente Rodríguez, who was dead. And as for the executioners, he only knows that they were policemen from the Province.
The places and events, on the other hand, are described with photographic precision.
On December 24, Judge Hueyo issues the first orders: to ask the head of the Presidential Military House, by way of an subpoena, to identify “which reports were used to draft the telegram” where it is stated that Livraga was injured during a shooting; to send an official letter to the Chief of Police requesting that he report whether Livraga was detained in mid-June at the San Martín District Police Department and at Moreno, then at Olmos, and to identify “the judge who was in charge of his case”; to solicit the same reports from the head of the San Martín District Police Department, the commissioner in Moreno, and the director of the penitentiary in Olmos; and finally, to ask the San Martín polyclinic if Livraga received treatment there (page 26).
The head of the Presidential Military House, Captain Manrique, was a busy man: he never responded. Fernández Suárez will only respond one month later, when the complicity of the central government has already been ascertained.
The San Martín District Police Department, on the other hand, replies immediately: “On the requested date I report no record exists detention Juan Carlos Livraga.” The telegram (p. 27) is signed by O. de Bellis, who has replaced Rodríguez Moreno as chief of the department.
The new commissioner of Moreno, in turn, responds with a cryptic dispatch: “Regarding report 3702 made by Juan Carlos Livraga I inform you Your Honor these premises no record books exist marking detention of aforementioned.” Signed F. Ferrairone.
The judge’s reply:
As the police commissioner of Moreno has failed to report on whether prisoner Juan Carlos Livraga stayed or did not stay in that precinct, I am issuing a new letter to ask as a matter of urgency that you report specifically on whether the aforementioned Juan Carlos Livraga was detained on the premises in the middle of last June, if affirmative, then dates of intake and release and the name of the judge who was in charge of his case.
The Moreno precinct insists on its ignorance: “Regarding detention Juan Carlos Livraga I inform Your Honor these premises no record books exist his detention. Ferrairone.”
Was the allegedly executed man’s story then false? Doubt begins to dissipate on page 29 when Doctor Marcelo Méndez Casariego, from the San Martín polyclinic, responds with a note:
In reference to your telegram dated the 24th of this month requesting records of Mr. Juan Carlos Livraga, this administration communicates to Your Honor that the aforementioned man was brought to the emergency room on June 10 of this year, at 7:45 a.m., under the custody of the San Martín District Police Department of the Province of Buenos Aires, who took him away at 9:00 p.m. on the same day.
But De Bellis and Ferrairone weren’t lying either. The arrest of Livraga and the others did not appear in the San Martín and Moreno books for the simple reason that the formality of recording their intake was not carried out. Without a record, an arrest becomes a simple abduction. So the entire operation bore the indelible stamp of secrecy.
On behalf of Aramburu and in response to one of the desperate letters that Livraga’s father sent when he didn’t know the whereabouts of his son, the general secretary of the presidency, Colonel Víctor Arribau, had informed him by telegram on June 29, 1956 that: “The investigation is being taken up with urgency.” Now Judge Hueyo, on page 32, orders that a subpoena be issued to Colonel Arribau to report on “the result of the investigation that he refers to in the telegram that appears on page 8 and, if possible, to remit a summary so that the Court may see it.”
The reply, of course, never came. But in the meantime, the press campaign that I had just set in motion produced its first results. Livraga’s accusation had landed in my hands on December 20. I submitted it to Leónidas Barletta, who published it in Propósitos on the twenty-third. The governing authority of the Province, newly appointed by the Liberating Revolution, and the Chief of Police considered themselves obligated to issue an explosive press release that was published in the papers on the twenty-seventh and the twenty-eighth. Judge Hueyo would not let the opportunity pass him by. On page 33 he stipulates: “In response to the declaration made by the Chief of Police, as it appears in the December 28 edition of the newspaper El Plata, wherein he claims that the man himself (Juan Carlos Livraga) was arrested in San Martín for his participation in the subversive acts of June 9 and that it was proven that he was part of the group of people who were receiving orders from ex-General Tanco, and who were subjected to martial law regulations; the Chief of Police is requested to make known which judge oversaw the investigation in question.”
Fernández Suárez did not reply. There had been no other judge than him.
On page 35, for the first time, the police of the Province respond to a request made by the court. The Documents Division releases Livraga’s file, which states that he was arrested on June 9, 1956, one day before martial law was instated.
Meanwhile, Colonel Aniceto Casco, the general manager of penal institutions, provides new confirmation of Livraga’s story by reporting that “he entered Unit 1 (the penitentiary in Olmos) on July 3, 1956.”
On January 8, 1957, Commissioner Ovidio R. de Bellis appears before the court. As successor to Rodríguez Moreno for the San Martín District Police Department, he states that he knows nothing about what happened because he was not there on that date, and reasserts that Livraga’s arrest is not listed in the Department’s books.
The judge shows him the receipt. De Bellis claims that the form “is not the one usually used as a receipt for prisoners’ personal items” and that “he cannot explain who the undersigned autographs belong to.” When questioned about the executions, he replies: “the person who was chief of the District Police Department at the time, Mister Rodríguez Moreno, will be in a better position to report to the court on the matter.”
Upon leaving the judge’s office, de Bellis comes across someone who is in the best possible position to confirm or deny Livraga’s formal accusation. It is Miguel Ángel Giunta, the second survivor, who finally decides to talk.
Giunta’s story is even more precise than Livraga’s. He explains both the circumstances that led him to Horacio di Chiano’s apartment, as well as the raid, which he says took place at 11:15 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. on June 9. Without naming him, he describes Fernández Suárez: “a large man, that is to say strong, with a mustache and a good amount of hair, who was wearing sand-colored pants and a short, olive green, military jacket; this person was carrying a .45 caliber pistol in his hand and, having told everyone to put their hands up, placed the barrel of the gun on the declarant’s throat, saying to him again: ‘Put your hands up, don’t be smart with me.’” First there are blows to his stomach and to his hip, then there’s the transfer to the Department, where the officer who interrogates him is “under thirty years old, chubby, curly-haired, with a handlebar mustache.” The one overseeing the interrogations is the second-in-command, last name Cuello, “a person of short stature who walks with a stoop and with his hands behind his back.” Giunta also identifies Rodríguez Moreno, and among the prisoners he naturally remembers Mr. Horacio, Vicente Rodríguez, Livraga, and “a person with the last name Brión or Drión.” He recounts the story of the trip all the way to the garbage dump, getting off the truck in the night, the preparations for execution:
. . . they walked like that for twenty or thirty meters and then the guards stayed back and ordered them to keep on in the same direction . . . that was when everyone knew for sure that they would be killed . . . once the truck’s headlights were shining on them . . . they realized what was happening and everyone panicked, some getting on their knees and begging for mercy not to be killed . . .
He gives an account of his getaway amidst the bullets, of the way he saved himself, and of how they arrested him again. Then he describes in detail the places he had been: the precinct in Munro, the District Police Department and San Martín’s First Precinct, the cell where they locked him up, even the dog that they were training in the prison block.
On page 42, Navy Lieutenant Jorge R. Dillon who, until very recently had run the policemen’s health and welfare program, shows up voluntarily to make a statement. Here is his account:
That at daybreak on June 10, at approximately 0045 hours, the declarant was in his home, which is located opposite the police department; that upon hearing the shooting which sparked the assault on said department, the declarant, armed, entered the Department and, from there, aided in its defense . . .; that thus he was present during the assault he has made reference to and participated in its suppression; that when the movement had already been stifled with respect to the attack on Headquarters, some time after four o’clock in the morning, the Chief of Police arrived together with the Vucetich Academy cadets and other personnel; that those who had been defending the building came down the stairs where they were met with those who had recently arrived; that they shared impressions and accounts of the events that had transpired . . . and that in that instance the declarant heard Chief of Police Lieutenant Colonel Desiderio Fernández Suárez say, addressing either Mr. Gesteira or another officer, the declarant does not recall which, the following words verbatim: “Send the order to the San Martín District Police Department to execute the group of individuals that I arrested immediately”; the order was sent via radio.
Lieutenant Dillon then adds:
Hours later, at the main office of Headquarters, the declarant heard someone say that the order had been carried out, but that it had been done inadequately because a group of prisoners had been taken out to an open field where some had managed to escape, and the police had felt obligated to shoot at them as they ran away, having failed to make them stand in line in front of the firing squad, as is protocol; according to the same source, that’s how it had all turned into a “bloodbath” and, upon gaining knowledge of said event, the Chief of Police expressed indignation regarding the incompetence displayed and, a few days later, the then-chief of the department, Rodríguez Moreno, was suspended.
Pursuant to this statement, the judge considered it an opportune moment to communicate to Fernández Suárez “the reason why the present case is being tried in this court, asking at the same time for you to please make known by way of a written report as much information as you deem appropriate.”
Fernández Suárez, who had proffered thirty thousand words in his defense before the Advisory Board, now cannot muster one sentence in response.
The judge: “As no response has been received from the Chief of Police, let the official letter sent on p. 26 be reissued.”
Silence.
On page 51, the aforementioned new commissioner of Moreno, Francisco Ferrairone, appears before the court on January 11, 1957. He confirms that Livraga’s arrest does not appear in his precinct’s books, but that “given the requests that were sent and resent from the Court, as well as similar requests for a response that came in from Police Headquarters, he asked among the department’s staff to find out whether the books were a faithful reflection of the truth, and was able to ascertain that this was not the case. He was told that one Juan Carlos Livraga had indeed been detained in that station, or at least had stayed there, and neither his intake nor his release had been recorded in the books . . .”
The police front begins to crumble. “The witness received this unofficial information,” Commissioner Ferrairone cautiously clarifies, “after submitting his answers in response to the request for information issued by the Court; had it been any other way he would have reported the information not in the way that he did, but otherwise.”
—Who was in Moreno in the month of June? —asks Judge Hueyo.
—Commissioner Gregorio de Paula —Ferrairone says.
On page 53, Principal Officer Boris Vucetich of the Moreno precinct gives a statement. The judge asks him if he saw Livraga there:
—Yes —the officer says.— He had two gunshot wounds, one with an entry wound beneath his jaw and an exit wound in his cheek, and the other in his arm.
The story that Livraga told Vucetich is the same one he will tell months later: “[T]hat he was at his friend’s house listening to the Lausse match when they were caught off-guard by the police, dressed in civilian clothes, and taken to the San Martín District Police Department, that after being interrogated, he and other arrested individuals were loaded onto a vehicle and relocated to a place he cannot identify, that they made them get off there, ordered them to walk, he felt a few shots, threw himself to the ground, and then lost consciousness . . .”
Regarding other details, Vucetich seems to differ from Livraga. He says that the police medic Doctor Carlos Chiesa tended to him daily. It is a rare doctor, you have to admit, who lets a man with a serious gunshot wound recover in a prison cell.
Next in line to give his statement is Deputy Inspector Antonio Barbieri of the Moreno precinct. His testimony is a repeat of the last. The basic idea is that Livraga was very well attended in Moreno, that he was given a special diet and so many blankets to cover himself with that he couldn’t move. The surviving executed man kept insisting that they had him in the cell half-naked and that his bandage was falling off in pieces . . .
Commissioner Gregorio de Paula, on page 55 and following, admits that Livraga was held prisoner in Moreno, that he arrived wounded, and that his intake was not recorded in the books.
—Is that normal? —asks the judge.
The commissioner acknowledges that it is not normal, but that in “this exceptional case,” he understood that his intake had already been recorded at the San Martín District Police Department.
Was Livraga well cared for? Splendidly, says the commissioner. They even gave him “food that didn’t need to be chewed.”
Did Livraga experience any cold? No, says the commissioner, “in his memory he sees him wrapped in something warm, but he cannot say exactly what kind of garment it was.”
—Did you take his statement?
—No.
—Did you tell him the charges?
—No.
—Did anyone come to visit him?
—No.
January 17. A sullen and dejected man comes to give his statement. He is forty-eight years old, a chief inspector by the name of Rodolfo Rodríguez Moreno. His testimony practically brings the case to a close. Here it is:
Asked by Your Honor whether he was head of the San Martín District Police Department last June, he responds: that indeed, he was appointed to that position in February of 1956 and held it until approximately June 15 of that same year. Asked by Your Honor whether, under his command as Head of the District Police Department, an operation took place in which police officers arrested Juan Carlos Livraga, Miguel Ángel Giunta, and other individuals, the declarant responds: that he himself did not carry out that operation but remembers a radio communication that came in from Police Headquarters calling for a group of twenty men to be gathered at the Florida precinct and put under the command of the Buenos Aires Province Police Chief himself. The commissioner of the Florida police station, last name Pena, had received word that this group would be under the command of the aforementioned Police Chief and other military officers, among them a captain with the last name San Emeterio and a major. Asked by Your Honor whether the individuals arrested during this operation were held in the San Martín District Police Department, the declarant responds: that indeed at 2400 hours or perhaps a bit later, on June 9, approximately twelve people were transferred on a bus to the San Martín District Police Department, and that then two or three more arrived who had been arrested on the street where the operation took place. Asked by Your Honor whether he remembers the names of those individuals, he responds that he cannot say exactly because he did not make a mental note of them, and to another question he responds: that indeed among them were Livraga, Giunta, and a person with a foreign last name who later on was staying at an embassy—the declarant thinks the last name sounded something like Carnevali. Asked by Your Honor whether the intake of these prisoners was recorded in the department’s books, the declarant responds that the police officers on duty may have done it, that the prisoners actually found themselves in a special situation because, according to the Florida precinct, they were all being held incommunicado, by order of the Chief of Police. Asked whether they were questioned by the declarant, he states that he did not do so, that he does not believe a formal statement was taken from them, but that he ordered the second-in-command of the department, Commissioner-Inspector Benedicto Cuello, to question them about the events because, according to information that the declarant had been provided, said individuals had allegedly been arrested for taking part in a meeting connected to the subversive acts that transpired that night. Asked by Your Honor if the declarant received an order to execute all of the prisoners, the declarant states: that of his own accord, he ordered the release of the three people who were brought in later, having been arrested in the street, as there were no grounds for their arrest. He recalled that one was a local driver whom the Boulogne precinct knows well, another was a fifty-six-year-old Italian night watchman who worked in a factory near the site of the operation, and the third he cannot recall. As for the rest, he did indeed receive the strict order by radio, dispatched by the Chief of Police himself, to proceed immediately with the execution of all the individuals who had been arrested; this order as stated was sent directly by radio transmission from the Chief of Police himself to the declarant himself. Asked by Your Honor if he also received instructions as to where the execution was to take place, he responds: that he did not receive exact orders to that effect, only to look for an appropriate open field to do it. Asked by Your Honor what time he received the order, he states that it was approximately 4:30 in the morning. Asked by Your Honor if the declarant was personally leading the operation with which he had been charged, he states: that indeed the police officers in charge of the execution were under his direct and immediate command. Asked by Your Honor how it was carried out, he states: that the prisoners were loaded onto an assault car, each one matched with a guard, and that following behind them in a van were the declarant, the second-in-command, and an officer whose last name he thinks is Cáceres. That they moved to a wasteland that was twenty blocks from Route 8, on the road that links said route to the town of Boulogne, and stopped the vehicles there. The declarant got off to look for an appropriate place, which he had trouble doing due to the lack of light, and noticing a cluster of eucalyptus trees there, he decided that the place would be efficacious for the desired action, and at that point told four or five officers to form a firing squad. With the police force thus diminished and the individuals in question suspecting the reason they had been taken to the site, all of them started to run except for the five who stayed in the vehicle. Asked by Your Honor whether Livraga and Giunta were among these five, the declarant states that it is not possible because, had they been, they would have been thoroughly executed and the declarant is certain that only five corpses were left on site. He goes on to say that after the escape he has already mentioned, he made the five individuals in question get out and submitted them in pairs to execution32, leaving their bodies on site. Subsequently, the declarant requested instructions regarding what destination to assign these bodies, was told to deliver them to the nearest Polyclinic, and since the closest one was in San Martín, the five bodies of the individuals in question were sent to that location. The declarant had been given the final deadline of six o’clock that morning to execute the order, and approximately at that hour the declarant communicated to headquarters by radio that the order for execution had been carried out, without specifying whether all of them had been executed, or only five, as was the case. The declarant adds that the task with which he had been charged was horribly unpleasant, and went far beyond the stipulated duties of the police, but since the declarant understands that in an emergency the police stops taking its orders from headquarters and takes its orders directly from the Army, he was entirely certain that, were he to disobey such an order, the declarant himself would be the one executed. Asked by Your Honor at what time he reported to headquarters the incomplete way in which the order had been carried out, the declarant says that at approximately six o’clock in the morning, when he communicated that the order had been carried out, he does not know who received his communication because he was informed that the chief had already left. Subsequently he was instructed to send the list of executed men and in response he sent the names of the five individuals who had been killed; as a result, he was called to headquarters to explain and the declarant faithfully recounted how the events had occurred and assumed personal responsibility for the escape of the other seven prisoners, as he did not think it fitting to delegate that responsibility to the officers who were serving as guards for the prisoners. He was therefore treated severely by the Chief of Police, who took this opportunity to call for his immediate replacement, which resulted in his being suspended from work for more than twenty days. The version that appears in Livraga’s formal accusation and Giunta’s statement is promptly explained in general terms to the declarant, who states that what he has declared in this hearing is the absolute truth, that it is not possible for Livraga to have been wounded in this instance because the gun used on him was a Mauser and its bullet would have completely destroyed Livraga’s jaw;33 moreover, he repeats again, there were five individuals who stayed and did not escape, and the declarant can categorically affirm that there were five bodies sent to the San Martín polyclinic. Asked by Your Honor whether the executed men received a coup de grâce, the declarant states that out of a sense of humanity and according to protocol, he gave the order for it to be done; it was carried out using a .45 caliber pistol, which is currently the only weapon that the police have in their possession. Asked by Your Honor at what time the removal of the bodies took place, the declarant responds that, on his way back from the execution—he believes this was at approximately six o’clock in the morning—he contacted headquarters by radio and relayed that the order had been carried out. He requested instructions regarding the destination of the bodies and an individual from the headquarters office informed him that the chief’s order was to take them to the nearest polyclinic so the declarant gave the order right away to return to the site with the assault car, load up the bodies, and deliver them to the San Martín polyclinic, which was the closest. Asked by Your Honor whether after the previously mentioned episode, he had given the order for Juan Carlos Livraga to be arrested again, he responds: that indeed this is what happened, that he was told that the man in question was at the San Martín polyclinic and, when he went to this establishment in search of him, was informed that the man was allowed to travel in his condition. The declarant ordered for him to be held at the Moreno precinct because the District Police Department does not hold prisoners in custody and there was no room available at the other San Martín precincts. Asked by Your Honor how he explains the absence of any record of the two arrests in the San Martín District Police Department books, the declarant states: that he has no explanation to give because normally every prisoner’s intake is properly recorded in the books. Asked by Your Honor if he received an express order in this case not to follow regulations in this respect, the declarant states: that at no point was he given the order or instructions not to record the intake of the individuals in question as prisoners. Asked by Your Honor whether he was at all involved in the second arrest that Giunta claims he was subjected to and in transferring him to the San Martín District Police Department the following Monday, the declarant states: that he does not remember Giunta being arrested for a second time at the District Police Department, but this does not mean he would rule out the possibility. The declarant is then shown a photocopy34 that appears on page 1 and asked to state whether it is authentic. He replies that, since the Department does not usually keep prisoners in custody, it lacks the forms that are generally given to detained individuals as a receipt for their personal items, and it is possible that he is being shown a photocopy of the form that is used for these purposes. As for the undersigning signatures, he does not recognize them, but believes that the one at the bottom belongs to an officer with the last name Albarello. With no further questions to ask, the hearing is considered concluded. Having read the present document and verified its contents, the declarant signed in consent after Your Honor and before me, in witness thereof.
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 21st 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 22nd 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 22nd 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 12:11 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 10th, 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 24th and 31st of December, 1956, and the 10th and 11th 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.
2) The corresponding records of this decree can be found in the Decree Office Archives of the President of the Nation.
3) Due to the escape of the condemned, the execution could not be carried out at the time, and it was even less possible to complete it subsequently, after arresting him, as martial law had been lifted.
4) As a result, since there had been a definitive ruling on the case, it was then also impossible to have any other authority intervene, given that he had already been tried for these charges.
5) Instead, by Decree Number 11.219, he was put under the command of the National Executive Power and held in custody at the Olmos jail.
Furthermore, I would like to inform Your Honor that martial law was instated by Decree-Law 10.362, of June 9, 1956, and put into effect by Decree 10.363, also on June 9, 1956.
This latter decree establishes the following, in short:
1) While martial law is in effect, the stipulations of Law 13.234 regarding the governance of the Nation during times of war will be applied.
2) Every active officer of the armed forces carrying out his military duties will be able to call for a summary trial and have the power to apply a death sentence by execution to any disturber of the peace.
3) Any person carrying weapons, disobeying police orders, or exhibiting suspicious behavior of any kind is considered a disturber of the peace.
Since the case seems to originate with an alleged execution under abnormal circumstances, I think it fitting to note, as far as legality is concerned, that in every instance the application of these decrees requires only an oral order (Art. 138 of the Military Justice Code).
In any event, given the press scandal that, with rather unclear motives, has been unleashed regarding this issue, it is appropriate to stress that the accountability of the authorities or of those in charge of applying a military decree can only be decided effectively by military courts and not by civil magistrates (Art. 136 of the Military Code of Justice).
Remaining very sincerely yours, Your Honor.
D. A. Fernández Suárez
Lieutenant Colonel Chief of Police.
So everything was legal. Livraga had been executed in compliance with a decree. There is just one tiny detail: the decree does not exist. Or rather, it exists, but it does not affect him at all, because it is a list of military personnel condemned to death, and it does not include Livraga.
Fernández Suárez’s argument is one more blatant lie to add to all the previous ones.
As for the “press scandal”: it was an exaggeration to give such a label to the articles I had printed out on a little sheet of paper that was hardly even circulated—articles which constituted the only reference to the matter that could be found in the press at the time.
Judge Hueyo understood that the issue of jurisdictional competence had already been established by F. Suárez’s note, but he did not pass up the opportunity to tear apart the latest fabrication of this cornered military man. On page 74, he orders the following:
With the purpose of resolving the issue of jurisdictional competence that has been established, to send an official letter to the judge currently presiding over the criminal court of the Capital asking him to demand from wherever necessary, and as a matter of urgency, authenticated copies of decree numbers 10.362, 10.363 and 10.364, as well as the date and exact time that they were in effect.
The June 14, 1956, Official Bulletin with the three decrees appears as page 82 of the file. 10.362 and 10.363, which establish and stipulate regulations for martial law, are dated June 9, without any mention of the time, and support Fernández Suárez’s version of the events. But 10.364, dated June 10, says that considering “their involvement in the military uprising that occurred one day prior . . . the following individuals are sentenced to death by execution: (RET) Colonel Alcibíades Eduardo Cortínez, (RET) Colonel Ricardo Salomón Ibazeta . . .” and goes on to list five more men from the military. Of course neither Livraga’s name, nor those of the other executed men, appear among them.
As a result, the court rules on January 28:
To add issue number 18.171 of the Official Bulletin, published June 14, to the investigation and, based on this document, to conclude that the National Executive Power ordering the execution of Juan Carlos Livraga does not fit the facts, as the Chief of Police asserts in his note dated the 22nd; to inform the aforementioned civil servant of said circumstance, and to request, in the event that such a decree does exist, that he report its exact number . . .
. . . To resend the official letters cited on page 74 and to let it be known that the original text of the decrees is not of interest but rather, as a supremely urgent matter, the date and exact time of their enactment and announcement.
From Judge Hueyo to Fernández Suárez, page 83:
I have the pleasure of writing to you, Dear Sir, regarding the report offered by Juan Carlos Livraga. I am hereby making it known to you that your note dated the 22nd of this month states “that Juan Carlos Livraga was condemned to the death penalty by the National Executive Power’s decree number 10.364 dated June 9, 1956,” and informing the undersigned that in the aforementioned decree-law, published in Official Bulletin Number 18.171 on the 14th of last June, the name of the declarant, Livraga, does not appear; I have addressed this letter to you, Dear Sir, to inform you of the erroneous information, and request that, in the event that such a decree does exist, you report its exact number.
Fernández Suárez does not respond. But on January 30 he sends a copy of the note that he has just presented to the Minister of the Army, General Ossorio Arana, with the purpose, he says, of having “the military justice system hear the case that is being tried, which falls exclusively under its jurisdiction.” The note to Ossorio Arana reviews the background for the case (without mentioning decree number 10.364) and requests:
a) that the military justice system hear the case that is being tried; b) that the relevant issue of the judge’s withdrawal for lack of jurisdictional competence (Art. 150, paragraph 1 of the Military Justice Code) therefore be brought forward.
That same day, the military judge, Colonel Abraham González, took up the case as follows:
I have the pleasure of writing to Your Honor regarding the higher-order investigation that I am conducting concerning alleged infractions of the application of martial law as it was ordered by higher decree numbers 10.362 and 10.363. I request that you kindly report to this military court of justice number 27 . . . on whether a case is being tried before your court . . . that was initiated based on a report or complaint lodged by Mister Juan Carlos Livraga, which is tied to the same event that the undersigned is investigating. If affirmative, since the event in question falls within military jurisdiction either by ratione materiae or likewise by ratione personae (based on the assumption that it deals with whether military personnel acted in compliance with what Article 2 of the aforementioned higher decree number 10.363 stipulates), and considering that such a case calls for the strict application of Article 108, paragraph 1, of the Military Justice Code . . . I hereby leave Your Honor with the motion to contest jurisdiction, which is delineated in articles 150 (paragraph 1) and 151 of the aforementioned legal code.
Consequently, I ask that Your Honor desist from continuing to hear the referenced case and submit the matter at hand to this military court of justice, or, should the motion that has been made not be accepted, that the decisions be left to the National Supreme Court such that the matter in question be resolved conclusively.
On February 1, 1957, the La Plata judge resolves to retain jurisdiction, claiming the following: that ratione personae, it is premature to make a motion for recusal because, as it stands, the case does not directly charge any one person and the event to date does not involve “military personnel on active duty”; and that ratione materiae, there are similarly insufficient reasons to relinquish the case. He adds that, when the same matter was brought forth by the Chief of Police, he expressed his resolve to retain jurisdiction,
even though said person bringing forth the issue was not involved in the case and, to that end, on January 23, he ordered the release of an official letter to the judge currently presiding over the criminal court of the capital to demand, from wherever necessary, an original copy of decree 10.362 and 10.363, as well as the date and exact time they were enacted. Said official letter was resent on the 28th, and was met no reply.
Judge Hueyo has understood from the beginning that the crux of his investigation is this: the hour at which the law was announced. He did not have enough time to obtain the evidence that I would obtain months later, once the State Radio registry book of announcers had been photocopied and published. But the following analysis seems irrefutable to me:
The goal of the requested information —he says— was to determine whether the detention of the declarant, which occurred between 2315 and 2330 on June 9, took place after or before the instatement of martial law.
In the former case, the investigation and penalty pertain to whether an infraction occurred, either regarding the application of said martial law or regarding pertinent regulations of the military code of justice. In this case, the matter does not fall under the jurisdiction of civil authorities and, with the necessary information, the undersigned would have stated as much.
But in the latter case, that is, that the detention of these individuals took place prior to the instatement of martial law: even if the execution was ordered after the law had come into effect, the law would not have applied to said individuals as no criminal law can have retroactive effect and, in that case, those in question, whatever their connection to the subversive movement may have been, were not given the opportunity to desist and lay down their weapons because they had already been seized.
Given this hypothesis, the detention in question, the subsequent execution of several of these individuals, the attempt to execute others and the repeated detention of the declarant that ultimately placed him under the jurisdiction of the National Executive Power, are events that are not within the scope of military law or its interpretation, but rather, should they be duly proven, are classified as crimes under the penal code, which the undersigned is qualified to apply. For the above reasons, it is resolved to inform the solicitor that the undersigned retains jurisdiction.
Footnotes:
32 On this point, Rodríguez Moreno’s version differs from the one that I provide in the text, which is based on the testimony of six of the seven survivors.
33 R. Moreno is mistaken. The bullet did in fact destroy Livraga’s jaw, but more than that, Julio Troxler saw him walking wounded, eight blocks away from the garbage dump, at the José León Suárez rail crossing. He saw a police officer pick him up there. Di Chiano and Benavídez saw him get off at the site of the execution. Troxler even remembers exactly where he was sitting in the assault car and also saw him get off. It’s not plausible that Livraga, having saved himself, would have run off somewhere to shoot himself, as R. Moreno seems to suggest, and as F. Suárez has alleged.
34 The receipt they gave to Livraga.