Word: peronist
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...faithful descamisados (shirtless ones) streamed toward the huge meadow near Buenos Aires' Ezeiza International Airport. They numbered in the millions, perhaps one. perhaps three-nobody could count how many. The orchestra and chorus of Buenos Aires' Colón Opera House were on hand to sing Peronist hymns; kites bearing Perón's image flew overhead, and from the massive crowd came the chant: "Wake up, be happy! Our general is coming home...
Hector Cámpora's first week as Argentina's new civilian President was marred by bloody rioting that left four dead and dozens wounded. Things have gone downhill since then. Despite his well-meaning efforts to chart a moderate direction for his new Peronist government, Cámpora now seems to be on a collision course with the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), 30,000 Trotskyite terrorists who are responsible for most of Argentina's recent wave of kidnapings and murders...
...mpora, whom Argentines have nicknamed "el Tío" (Uncle), is largely responsible for the confrontation. He made a fumbling attempt to laud right wing montonero (meaning bushfighter) guerrillas as a sort of Peronist resistance vanguard, calling them "a marvelous youth movement which knew how to meet violence with violence." Thus he managed in his inaugural speech to leave the impression that the terrorist acts of the ERP were justified...
That direct challenge was too much for the Cámpora government and its allies. A Peronist group called the Central Security Command of the Justicialist Movement announced that "for every Peronist who falls, ten [Trotskyites] will fall." Other Peronists, alarmed that the ending of their 18 years in the political wilderness might be jeopardized by ERP excesses, have discussed adopting South Vietnamese anti-guerrilla tactics. "The most effective way of stopping this," said one angry Peronist, "would be to take ten of the ERPS up in a plane, throw out eight, and let the two survivors tell their friends...
Meanwhile, the postinaugural uproar overshadowed Cámpora's efforts to establish a Peronist social system for his country. As first steps toward a new populist economic policy, Cámpora called for pay raises of between 10% and 50% for laborers and lower taxes on such consumer items as sugar, wine and tobacco, and warned that bank deposits would be nationalized to ensure "correct" investment policies...