Montoneros 1970

Montonero Dispatch on the Combat in William Morris


Source: Montoneros, Documentos internos, resoluciones, comunicados y partes de Guerra. Cuadernos de la memoria.;
First Published: in “Militancia peronista para la liberación no. 13;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2008.


The deaths of Fernando Abal Medina and Carlo Ramus, which occurred in combat on September 7 were celebrated by the regime with the usual flood of slanders and falsified versions. Two days later the Montoneros answered with the following communiqué, aimed at the people:

“The leadership of the Montoneros, before the false and contradictory police versions, communicates:

1. For operational reasons, and not as part of an operation, on the seventh of this month at 8:05 PM the Compañeros Fernando Abal Medina and Luis Rodeiro entered the “La Rueda” bar in W.C. Morris, while Carlos Ramus remained behind the wheel of a Peugeot.

At 8:15 PM another compañero entered the bar, while a fifth remained in a Fiat 1500. At 8:20 PM a police patrol of three unformed effectives arrived and one in plainclothes arrived at the location, two of the former going to the Fiat, one to the Peugeot and the plainclothesman into the bar.

Simultaneously, in the Fiat a compañero was frisked who was found to be unarmed, while inside the bar the policeman asked for documents and, upon being shown police papers, he consequently left. Outside at this moment there was a gunfight between Compañero RAMUS and the policeman who approached him, a gun battle that became general, surrounding the compañeros and keeping them in the bar.

Compañero Ramus died inside the Peugeot. Abel Medina and the other compañero left through the bar’s only door, covering their retreat with their arms. The first was shot dead while the second, once he’d broken the police encirclement, being without ammunition and having verified that compañeros Abal Medina and Ramus were dead, left the zone on foot without having suffered any wound. The compañero in the Fiat, who had been wounded, retreated in the same way.

When the gunfight was finished Compañero Rodeiro, who bore no arms, was arrested by the police.

2. By virtue of our revolutionary honesty we affirm that the loss of the two combatants was due purely and exclusively to their own error in not establishing adequate control over the locale in which the compañeros met.

3. Whatever the case, we note that the compañeros acted like worthy soldiers, and both Abal Medina and Ramus heroically the instructions to resist until death.

We would also like to note that the fallen compañeros, despite being pursued by the repressive forces of the entire country, did not abandon the struggle begun years ago. Proof of this is the operation for the recuperation of money and arms carried out September 1 at 5:10 PM at the Banco de Galicia y Buenos Aires, where 13,750,000 pesos, an UZI machine pistol with one charger, two 9mm Browning pistols with 4 chargers and a 32 caliber revolver were recuperated.

4. We warn informers that those who for any reason betray the people by informing on its combatants will be executed, wherever they are found and without warning.

As for the police, we must recall that they are the “servants of the order run by those of sell the fatherland,” to whom it matters not if they sacrifice 100 or a thousand of them, as long as they eliminate some of ours. That our fight is not against them but against the gorilla regime, and so we will not vacillate about shooting to kill whenever they make it necessary, and we will execute any of them who are identified as torturers.

5. We know that this long struggle for national independence is harsh, and the people will suffer many losses. But this is not the moment to cry, but rather to take up the arms of the fallen to continue the ARMED RESISTANCE together with all our sister organizations for Peron’s Return to a FREE, JUST, AND SOVEREIGN FATHERLAND.”

PERON OR DEATH – LONG LIVE THE FATHERLAND
MONTONEROS