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Members of the Montoneros marched toward the Plaza de Mayo in May 1973. (Archivo
General de la Nación)
term used by the 19th-century elite to discredit the mounted followers
of the popular caudillos.
The fact that General Onganía finally relinquished power within
the military to a moderate faction of officers did not deter the guerrilla
groups; it emboldened them. They began a bombing campaign against
the showrooms of the foreign car companies and the stores of the food
chain Minimax (owned by American politician Nelson Rockefeller).
They assassinated labor leaders who were notorious collaborators and
military officers known for their hard-line attitudes. They kidnapped
foreign executives and exacted ransoms of millions of dollars for their
release. Some groups attacked military bases, while others occupied
small provincial towns as symbols of their audacity and the govern-
ment's weakness. The numerous guerrilla factions mounted 114 armed
operations in 1969, 434 in 1970, and 654 in 1971.
In concert with the resistance of the Peronist labor unions, the guer-
rillas made Argentina ungovernable. They left the military with only
one option: call another election in 1973 and allow Peronist candidates
to run. The junta also attempted to make peace with Perón by return-
ing Evita's body. Living in exile in Spain, Perón located the body in a
country cemetery in Italy, where Evita had been buried for 17 years
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