Importance of the Ezeiza Massacre

The history Recent Argentina gives us a large number of facts and events that are complex and at the same time relevant to understanding the present. One of them is the Ezeiza Massacre, which is considered a foundational moment for the Peronist left in its confrontation with sectors of the right, both inside and outside Peronism. This confrontation would end up contributing to the repression of the following years and to the savage military dictatorship of 1976.

The return of Perón and the fight for the representation of his figure

In 1955, with the occurrence of a military coup that ended his mandate in advance, Juan Domingo Perón had to leave the country and remain abroad for almost twenty years. It was not until 1973, under the presidency of Héctor Cámpora, that he would consider that the conditions were right to return. Twenty years of exile and one society conflictive, with a Peronism that throughout those years had remained proscribed, were a breeding ground for one of the toughest confrontations of the last half of the 20th century.

Perón's arrival in the country was colored from the beginning by rumors, assertions, comings and goings. Everything ended up being planned between different wings of Peronism to take place within the framework of his return, which would be welcomed on his way from the Ezeiza airport. In the space where the highway makes a roundabout, near the Hogar Escuela and the Car Argentine Club, the different columns of Montoneros and other factions of popular Peronism would be located, which competed at that time to represent the figure of Perón. The event would end up being a trap in which 13 people would die and more than 300 would be injured.

A setback that led to the beginning of the end

The confrontation between the left and right sectors within Peronism became flesh in this event that supposedly It would have as its objective to receive Perón but that it was planned by the union bureaucracy and the right to annihilate the youth of left. The representatives of the unions Peronists felt that the leftist youth within the motion they were dirtying the essence of the party and therefore they had to learn to submit.

The confrontation involved shooting and shooting from different locations directly into the crowd. Historians and specialists who have studied the event point out that the armed confrontation really took place among the same sectors of the right that responded to the bullets without knowing that the same was on the other side side. People were left in the middle of that confusion and bullfights, fear and despair characterized the day.

The Ezeiza Massacre is remembered by many as the beginning of the end, since for the sectors of the left within Peronism (Montoneros) it meant an act of direct violence on the part of the right of the motion. Thus, the differences would become irreconcilable and from then on the interests would begin to operate independently as if they were two different movements.