Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0017/00173.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 29KB | 470 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00173}
$Pretitle{273}
$Title{Argentina
Chapter 5A.   National Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Phyllis Greene Walker}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{army
argentine
forces
military
war
first
armed
national
rosas
buenos}
$Date{1987}
$Log{Soldier*0017301.scf
}
Country:     Argentina
Book:        Argentina, A Country Study
Author:      Phyllis Greene Walker
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 5A.   National Security

[See Soldier: Soldier of the Horse Grenadiers.]

     By mid-1985 the difficult issues that had dominated Argentine society
during the 1982-83 military government resurfaced as the popular exhilaration
generated by the 1983 election of President Raul Alfonsin waned. These issues
included finding a long-term solution to the country's continuing economic
problems; determining and punishing those responsible for the military's war
against subversion, or "dirty war," during which thousands of Argentines had
been murdered; and assigning blame for the armed forces' defeat by Britain in
the South Atlantic War. Under the civilian government of President Alfonsin,
civil-military relations continued to be redefined within the context of these
issues.

     The continuing financial problems provided Alfonsin the opportunity to
reorganize the armed forces not only according to Argentina's economic
realities but also according to his own precepts. Twice during his first 18
months in office the president made efforts to assert and maintain his
constitutional authority over the armed forces institution, leading to
shake-ups at the top. The first changes came in July 1984, and the second,
more extensive changes, in March 1985. The principal criticisms waged against
the president by the suddenly retired military officials related to drastic
cuts in the military budget, which they maintained had damaged the armed
forces' morale and operational capabilities, and the government's handling of
investigations and other matters related to the war against subversion.

     The role of the armed forces' former leadership in their defeat by the
British during the 74-day South Atlantic War in 1982 was an issue taken up
within the military itself. Even before the return of civilian government,
numerous studies-including the authoritative Rattenbach Report-were prepared
by the armed forces, which sought to assign blame, if not scapegoats, for
Argentina's ignominious defeat. The courts-martial of the war's leaders by
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military's highest tribunal,
continued to receive testimony in mid-1985.

     The legacy left by the dirty war of the late 1970s was perhaps the
greatest obstacle to the consolidation of democratic government in the 1980s.
In April 1985 the public civil trials of the leaders of the military juntas
that ruled between 1976 and 1982 opened with much fanfare. Several of those
tried by the civil court were also under judgment by the military's Supreme
Council for their actions in the South Atlantic War. Because the junta members
were not being tried by their peers, the civilian government made a special
effort to point out that it was the individual military leaders who were being
tried before the civil court and not the institution of the armed forces.

     Rumors of Alfonsin's imminent resignation, as well as military
conspiracies and coups d'etat, continued in 1985. A right-wing campaign to
"destabilize" the government through terrorism was revealed by the Alfonsin
administration shortly before the first arrests of paramilitary group members
were made in May and June. By August a precarious calm seemed to have settled
over the country as the Argentine press carried extensive accounts of the
trials and arrests and the average Argentine citizen got on with the daily
business of trying to earn a living.

Background and Traditions of the Armed Forces

The Armed Forces' Origins

     Although the modern Argentine military is generally recognized as having
become a consolidated national institution only around the turn of the
twentieth century, its origins and official traditions date back to the years
immediately preceding independence. At the time of the May 1810 revolt against
Spanish colonial rule, three military bodies already existed that provided the
foundation of the first Argentine army.

     The first of these, the Blandengues, traced its origins to the period
shortly before the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. During
the early 1750s these cavalry troops, then acting under order from the viceroy
of Peru, patrolled territory comprising modern Argentina and defended the
newly established frontier towns against attacks by hostile Indians. The
Blandengues-so named for the lack of enthusiasm with which they were said to
have received a visiting representative of the Spanish crown-helped expand the
territorial frontiers for settlement and trade by Spanish colonists. In many
cases, duty as a frontier guard served as the training ground for those who
later became the independence movement's military leaders.

     By 1800 a regular colonial army, consisting only of some 2,500 Spanish
soldiers, had been organized to guard Buenos Aires, the administrative seat of
the new viceroyalty. The colonial troops were divided among a regiment each of
infantrymen and dragoons and four companies of a Royal Artillery Corps. The
principal security concerns of the city's authorities were to protect
themselves against the loss of revenue to the ubiquitous British smugglers and
to defend themselves against incursions by Portuguese colonists who attempted
to settle as far south as the Rio de la Plata in an area that was then part of
the city of Buenos Aires.

     The third force, a popular militia, was hastily assembled in 1806 in
the wake of Britain's invasion and occupation of Buenos Aires. Even though
the viceroyalty was forewarned of the impending British invasion, it was
incapable of organizing the regular colonial army to defend the city (see
The Dawn of Independence, ch. 1). Instead, the armed citizens of Buenos
Aires-criollos as well as Spaniards-were largely responsible for the city's
recapture from the 1,500-man occupying army, an event known in Argentine
history as the Reconquest. When Britain surrendered in August after
controlling the city for nearly two months, the strength of the militia stood
at some 1,500 to 2,000 men. By the time of Britain's second attempt on
the port city in 1807, the loosely organized force already had its own elected
officer corps and was receiving two hours of military training daily. It had
grown to a size of some 8,000 men, roughly one-fifth of the total population
of Buenos Aires, and again proved crucial in repelling the British invaders.
In the Defense, as the action subsequently became known, almost two-thirds of
the militia were native-born criollos.

     After the second British defeat, support for the independence movement
among members of porteno (pl., portenos-residents of Buenos Aires) society
grew rapidly. At the same time, Spanish authorities recognized that they would
be unable to contain any insurrection. The peaceful May Revolution of
1810-in which the viceroy, forced to resign, was replaced by a criollo-led
junta-brought de facto independence, but only to the city of Buenos Aires.
The personnel belonging to the colonial army posted at the city, depending
on their loyalty to the Spanish crown, were either dismissed or were
reorganized into Buenos Aires' new military units, which were given such
patriotic names as the Dragoons of the Fatherland or the Artillerymen of the
Fatherland. The Blandengues were renamed the Mounted Volunteers of the
Fatherland. Many Blandengues, however, resisted formal organization and became
models for the later romanticized figure of the gaucho.

     The presence of royalist forces elsewhere in the region continued to
threaten the new government's independence and prompted the creation of
military units whose mission