Operations against the PVP in Argentina

Date
9/6/1976 - 7/10/1976

The Partido por la Victoria del Pueblo (Party for the Victory of the People) was founded by Uruguayan exiles in Argentina in 1975. The Party’s militants came from the Federación Anarquista del Uruguay (Anarchical Federation of Uruguay), the Resistencia Obrero Estudiantil (Workers’ and Students’ Resistance, ROE) and the Organización Popular Revolucionaria (Popular Revolutionary Organisation, OPR-33).

The PVP was founded at a conference in July 1975, which received the undercover participation of 50 people. The Party leadership was assumed by two Uruguayan trade union leaders, Gerardo Gatti and León Duarte, who were captured and disappeared in 1976.

On 28th March 1976, three people were detained at the port of the city of Colonia (Uruguay), while they were trying to bring anti-dictatorship propaganda across the border to Argentina in a motorhome.

In June 1976, numerous PVP militants were detained, including Gerardo Gatti, whose apartment was being used as an office for the organisation. The kidnapping operation was carried out by the Argentine Federal Police, who informed the Uruguayan officials.

Joint operations to capture and torture dozens of militants were conducted by agents from the Uruguayan Servicio de Información de Defensa (Defense Information Service, SID) and the Argentine Secretaría de Informaciones del Estado (State Information Secretariat, SIDE). The clandestine torture and detention centre known as Automotores Orletti functioned as the operational base.

The Argentine and Uruguayan agents’ interest in carrying out acts of coordinated repression against the PVP was partially due to the seven million dollars of Party funds that the PVP had obtained through the kidnapping and extortion of business people.

Media description
Photograph of Gerardo Gatti, together with Washington Pérez, taken by their captors at the Automotores Orletti clandestine centre. The PVP militants are holding the newspaper of the day in front of the camera.
Credits
Autoría desconocida