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238 9 M ariano Acosta B. De Astrada C a s t a ñ ó n Cóndor C o r r a l e s L. Correa Morales F. Pizarro C u l p i n a Ferre Itaqui Av. Lafuente José M artí P e d e r n e r a P e d e r n e r a Pergamino Portela C. M. Ramírez Av. F. Rabanal R o c a C n e l A v . A v . S a n P e d r i t o Av. San Pedrito T a b a r é A v . V a r e l a Est. Villa Soldati 185 FCGMB LOCATION: AV. FRANCISCO RABANAL BETWEEN LAFUENTE AND CASTANON TRANSPORTATION: BUSES: 6, 76, 91, 115. TRAIN STATION: VILLA SOLDATI (BELGRANO LINE). VILLA SOLDATI 185 . Major Bernardo Alberte Flowerbeds Remembered as the first victim of the military coup, Major Alberte was a Peronist political activist for more than thirty years . His son Bernardo remembers how he was murdered : “Just minutes after 2:00 a .m . on March 24, 1976, Federal Police and Army vehicles pulled onto Avenida Libertador between Callao and Ayacucho Streets . The soldiers were dressed in full combat gear . According to terrified neighbors who watched the scene unfold through the windows of their homes, the men swiftly blocked off the area and kept vehicles out of the avenue and the intersection of Schiaffino and Ayacucho Streets . They walked purposefully to the building where my father lived with my mother and my sister Lidia . They broke the lock on the front entrance and climbed the stairs to the sixth floor, accompanied by the building superintendent who, years later, described these events in vivid detail . They broke down the apartment’s back door with their bayonets and entered, screaming and hurling insults . My parents were startled and Lidia rushed to them . My father grabbed his gun but never had a chance to use it because, without offering any explanation beyond their verbal assaults, the men grabbed him and threw him out the window . My father’s body landed on the firstfloor patio . ” (Gurucharri, 2001) . On December 12, 2006, Buenos Aires city council decided to dedicate the central flowerbeds on Avenida Francisco Rabanal, between Lafuente and Castañon Streets, to Major Bernardo Alberte . On the same day, Alberte’s son formally presented Army Chief Lieutenant General Roberto Bendini with a copy of the letter his father had written to General Jorge Rafael Videla denouncing the escalating repression . He was murdered by a Special Task Group* within hours of writing that letter . 239 Many years earlier, on September 16, 1955, Major Alberte had held out inside the government house (Casa Rosada) against a Naval infantry attack from a position in the port . The Navy was working to overthrow President Juan Domingo Perón during his second term of office, and Major Alberte was one of Perón’s military aides . Alberte was taking the first steps in what would become known as the Peronist Resistance* (Resistencia Peronista) while the bombs were falling on the Plaza de Mayo (see p . 3) . On September 20, Perón decided to cede control of the government and go into exile . Four captains arrived at Alberte’s apartment to arrest him ten days later . Alberte was released months later when the charges against him were found to be without merit . He sought asylum in the Brazilian embassy when he discovered that the government of General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu planned to arrest him again . He lived in Rio de Janeiro until 1958, where he worked for the newspaper O Travalhista. Alberte set up a dry-cleaning business with another retired Peronist military officer when he returned to Buenos Aires . In the early 1960s he worked with other renowned Peronist activists such as Julio Troxler (see “Julio Troxler Street, ” p . 240) to build the Peronist Resistance, which confronted the different regimes that outlawed public support for Peronism . Appointed Secretary General of the Peronist National Coordination Board (Junta Coordinadora Nacional), Alberte served as Peronism’s “tactical” leader during Perón’s years of exile . He took a stand during the union conflicts that split the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) into two factions, siding with the more combative CGT de los Argentinos*, led by Raimundo Ongaro, against the CGT Azopardo led by Augusto Vandor, which favored dialogue and cooperation with the military government . Eduardo Gurucharri, Alberte’s biographer and editor of his correspondence, maintains that this involvement in internal...

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