Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

40 • ARGENTINE ANTI-COMMUNIST ALLIANCEARGENTINE ANTI-COMMUNIST ALLIANCE (AAA). TheAlianza Anti-Communista Argentina (also known as Triple A) consistedof police and security forces that began in 1973 to take the lawinto their own hands in intimidating and killing leftist politicians,journalists, and intellectuals. The AAA may be considered a nonstatedeath squad precursor to the state-sanctioned death squad terror from1976 to 1983 known as the Dirty War. The AAA would publish noticessigned “AAA” listing targeted people who were warned to leavethe country. Victims included not only Argentine Communists andleft-wing Peronistas but also people of moderate political opinionswhose statements or actions incurred the ire of AAA members. TheAAA was the creation of José López Rega, an Argentinean astrologerwho became an influential confident of Juan and Isabel Perón beforeJuan Perón returned to Argentina from Spain in 1973. Rega, alsoknown as El Brujo (the Sorcerer) due to his fascination with the occult,was an ardent rightist who saw no role for the left wing of the Peronistamovement once Perón had returned to Argentina.When several thousand Montoneros arrived at Ezeiza airportamong an estimated one million who had turned up to greet Perón onhis return, they were fired upon by armed thugs recruited by Rega; 13people perished and over 100 were injured in the cross-fire betweenthe leftist Montoneros and rightist followers of Rega. Following theEzeiza massacre, the interim government of Dr. Hector Campora resignedon 13 July 1973 and Raul Lasitiri, Rega’s son-in-law, assumedthe interim presidency. Between this time and Perón’s reelection aspresident on 12 October 1973, Rega organized the AAA, which beganto attack Montoneros, as well as prominent writers, union members,and priests, whom Rega viewed as leftists. The most prominent victimof AAA was Jose Rucci, the head of the Congress of Workers, on 25September 1973, an action wrongly blamed on the Montoneros.Rega was appointed minister of welfare after Perón’s election in1973, and the AAA operated out of the Welfare Ministry buildingduring the brief presidency of Perón, which ended with his deathon 1 July 1974, and during the brief tenure of Isabel Perón, whichended with the military coup of 24 March 1976. Rega succeeded intotally alienating the Montonero movement from Perón, and duringthis time antigovernment terrorism both by the Montoneros and thePeople’s Revolutionary Army escalated to an unacceptable level.Due to pressure by the military and the remaining leftists within the