[The following article is reprinted from the April 26 issue of La Brèche, the French-language fortnightly of the Socialist Workers Party (PSO), the Swiss section of the Fourth International. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Raúl Alfonsín's government in Argentina Is selling arms to Honduras, which are in all likelihood destined for the Nicaraguan conterrevolutionary forces (contras) based in that country. This bombshell was revealed on March 26 by the Buenos Aires publication El Porteño. Let's look at the facts.
In a signed article by one of its editors in chief, Jorge Lanata, El Porteño reveals that in 1985 ships were regularly dispatched to deliver cargoes of light and medium weapons, spare parts, troop transport trucks, rockets, cannons, and ammunition for the Honduran army.
With the exception of the trucks built by the Argentine subsidiary of Mercedes Benz, the rest of the matériel comes from the factories of Fabricaciones Militares, a state company run by military officers appointed by the civilian government, which has a monopoly on producing weapons in Argentina.
Edén Pastora the client
The investigation conducted by El Porteño deals exclusively with Central America.*
On Dec. 15, 1985, the Punta Brava, an Argentine ship belonging to the Botacchi company, arrived at Puerto Cortés, on Honduras' Caribbean coast. The cargo that was unloaded and photographed by El Porteño included 50 Unimog troop transport trucks, 23 containers filled with light and medium weapons, as well as 40 boxes of spare parts.
During the unloading, which took three days, the workers openly stated that the weapons were destined for Edén Pastora (one of the contra chiefs), who was waiting for them in a neighboring city.
Officially they were designated for the Honduran army. On the upper portion of the containers were the words: "Commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Tegucigalpa, DC, Honduras."
In tracing the thread back to Argentina, El Porteño was able to learn that the Punta
*Another affair of a similar nature has also come to light: the sale of weapons destined for the movement in Ghana opposed to Jerry Rawlings' government. The cargo was accompanied by a dozen U.S. mercenaries recruited through the "specialist" magazine Soldier of Fortune. - La Breche 360
Brava, with a capacity of 7,000 tons, had left Dock B of the port of Buenos Aires on Nov. 18, 1985, under the command of Captain Caldi of the Argentine merchant marine, and his second-in-command Copello.
That day, the cargo was inspected on site by noncommissioned officers and soldiers of the Argentine army.
The ship's sailors were informed of the contents of the cargo because they got a wage premium for transporting dangerous material. Legal traffic
This was not the first trip of this type made by the Punta Brava, states El Porteño. In late 1983, shortly before the military left power in Argentina, the Radical Party trade unionist Horacio Tolosa, then secretary-general of the October 12 Grouping of Maritime Workers, pointed out that on Nov. 12, 1983, the Punta Brava had left Buenos Aires with 40 containers of weapons for Honduras. This news was reported by the newspaper La Voz. At that time the press in Buenos Aires also reported that other ships (Neuquén and Río Calingasta) were engaged in the same type of traffic.
The Punta Brava affair led El Porteño to dig deeper in its investigation. The journalist met with Captain Canestracchi, head of the Soles company, which organizes maritime shipments of military matériel. Canestracchi had until six months previously been associated with the Botacchi firm, which owns the Punta Brava.
In his office on Emeralda Street in downtown Buenos Aires, Canestracchi stated that in 1985 Botacchi had sent more than four ships to Puerto Cortés carrying weapons from the factories of Fabricaciones Militares. He stated:
*The shipment last November was not the only one to Honduras. Last year we initially sent 22 containers, then 29, with small and medium weapons, crates of rockets, and separately the equipment to launch them. Last January we also sent several containers of munitions.... We limit ourselves to transporting a cargo from one place to another. These operations are on the up-and-up and completely legal. What use is made of these weapons later is not our concern."
And Canestracchi told the journalist from El Porteño: "Delegations from various governments or private companies come to see us. They must show us an authorization furnished by the Argentine diplomatic authorities in the country the shipment is destined for. Once the sale is arranged with Fabricaciones Militares, we must also have the authorization of the minister of foreign affairs to proceed to transport it. All sales of war matériel also require the agreement of the minister of defense." Foreign policy aligned with U.S.
President Alfonsín had made a commitment to do everything possible to prevent the militarization of Central America. Several days after he came to power in December 1983, he solemnly ended all Argentine participation in the region, in terms of men as well as war matériel.
Today, he acknowledges having sent weapons to Honduras, which shows a change of attitude in his foreign policy.
In addition, Foreign Affairs Minister Dante Caputo stated with regard to Nicaragua: "That country cannot be a base of the East [and Argentina] cannot defend a Marxist-Leninist regime."
This position shows Buenos Aires' estrangement from the views of the Latin American countries that support the Contadora group, which is trying to find a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the Central American conflict. These countries have asked, as a priority, for an end to U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan contras.
Peruvian military detains 38,000 in three months
The Peruvian government reported May 8 that more than 38,000 people have been arrested for curfew violations in Lima since early February. War Minister Jorge Flores Torres also admitted in a newspaper interview that soldiers had shot and killed four people in the same period.
President Alan García imposed a state of emergency on Lima and the neighboring port of Callao on February 10. At that time he cited a weeklong "series of attacks, fires, kidnappings, blackouts, and assassinations" as justification for the crackdown, adding that "the state cannot remain impassive."
In addition to the 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. curfew, the emergency decree suspended the constitutional rights of assembly, movement, and habeas corpus and empowered the military to make arrests without cause. Nineteen provinces were already subject to emergency rule, but it was the first time since 1977 that a curfew had been imposed in the capital.
The war minister did not specify how many of the 38,111 detainees were still in jail, though he asserted that the "immense majority" had been released.