2023-09-27 03:30:00
September seems to be a month marked by surprising and fleeting but memorable events, regarding the Argentine claim for sovereign rights over the Malvinas Islands…
On September 27, 1966, While General Onganía was governing the country, a group of 18 armed young people hijack an Aerolíneas Argentinas plane bound for Rio Gallegos, forcing the Commander to head towards the Malvinas and land there where they will raise seven Argentine flags… Among many other passengers on board, was the defacto Governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands, Ctte. José María Guzmán and the journalist and director of the Buenos Aires newspaper “Crónica”; Héctor Ricardo García which reveals the planning of the Act to be carried out, since he was invited to participate in it.
Denominated by its protagonists such as “Operativo Cóndor”, a group made up of students and political-youth activists with Dardo CABO, 25 years old, a metal worker and journalist at the helm. They belonged to the “New Argentina Movement”, Peronist youth branch, although the majority originally belonged to the Catholic-nationalist “Tacuara Group”. Only one woman was part of the group, Maria Cristina Verrier, daughter of a Supreme Court judge.
They forced the commander of the aircraft to land in the same stable field that Fitzgerald did, Only because of its size, the plane got stuck in the Malvinas mob. The action of the “Condors” was place the seven flags on fences and poles around the plane and then sing the Argentine National Anthem.
Over the plane’s radio at 9:57 AM they reported: “Operation Condor completed. Passengers, crew and equipment without incident. Puerto Rivero position. English authorities consider us detained. Chief of Police and Infantry taken hostage by us until the English governor annuls the arrest and recognizes that we are in Argentine territory.”
The passengers were accommodated in private homes. Cabo appeared at the governor’s house expressing that it was a peaceful and vindicatory act of our sovereign rights. English forces surrounded the plane, tense moments that must be calmed by the mediation of the Dutch Catholic parish priest, Rodolfo Roel, who after celebrating Mass on the plane managed to get the “Condors” to leave their weapons and stay in the local church until their return to the continent.
They spent almost 48 hours in the chapel. The English did not comply with the agreement and came to requisition the protagonists, but the “Condors” decided that they would defend the Argentine flags, In this way Dardo Cabo, Giovenco, Rodríguez and Navarro preserved them wrapped in their chests, under their clothes…
The Onganía government disqualified the act, stating that “the recovery of the Malvinas Islands cannot be an excuse for factions. It is the deep cause of the vocation for homeland of each Argentine.”
Eduardo Karasiewicz told Télam in Contacto Malvinas years ago: “At that time, Malvinas did not function as the NATO outpost that it is today, post-war… It was barely a minor colonial enclave, which had an ordinary garrison of British soldiers and mercenaries. We handed the weapons to the commander of the plane and not to the governor, whom we did not recognize, because he had gone with the English, and, after 36 hours , we free the hostages. One was the head of the Green Berets, a Belgian captain who had been in Biafra and the Congo. The Mayor and the Chief of Police were also there,” says the militant.
Andrés Castillo, Union Delegate and Deputy National Secretary of the Banking Association at the time, was one of the “condors” who recalled the event for the Filosofía Rock program, Thus, among other things, Castillo will say: “Well, the main objective was to claim sovereignty, which was something forgotten and hidden from official history. We diverted a plane, landed in Malvinas and renamed the port: “Puerto Rivero” as a tribute to the first popular fighter and defender of sovereignty. (The Bank)
That day Prince Philip, husband of the Queen of England and president of the International Equestrian Association, was visiting the country on the occasion of an International Polo Championship. Keep in mind that Onganía belonged to the Cavalry Arm…
They returned on October 1 aboard the ARA Bahía Buen Suceso, and were detained in the Federal Police of Ushuaia and Río Grande. Dardo Cabo, Alejandro Giovenco and Juan Carlos Rodríguez served three years in prison for pending cases during the Conintes Plan. Several were participants in the armed and internal struggle that plagued the country, many of them dying during the last military government.
In 1967, Cabo recovered the seven flags raised in Malvinas and today they are in the Basilica of Our Lady of Itatí, in Corrientes; in the Malvinas and South Atlantic Islands Museum, in the former ESMA; in the so-called Malvinas Argentinas patio of Casa Rosada; in the Chamber of Deputies; the Bicentennial Museum, at Balcarce 50; and in the Basilica of Luján.
*Diploma in NyC Heritage Preservation (UBP)
The Condors
Cape Dart (25) Alexander Armando Giovenco, 21; John Carlos Rodriguez, 31; Peter Tursi, 29; Aldo Omar Ramirez, 18; Edgar Jesus Salcedo, 24; Ramon Adolph Sanchez; Maria Cristina Verrier, 27; Edelmiro Ramon Navarro, 27; Andrew Ramon Castle, 23;
John Charles Bovo, 21; Victor Chazarreta, 32; Peter Bernardini, 28; Fernando Jose Aguirre, 20; Fernando Lisardo, 20; Luis Francisco Caprara, 20; Richard Alfred Ahe, 20; and Norberto Edward Karasiewicz, 20 years old.
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#Land #September #Puerto #Rivero