One day Patricia Bullrich was very close to being another missing person. It was a sunny Tuesday in 1976, with spring just around the corner, and the military controlled the country with an iron fist. The current Minister of Security was heading to the intersection of Paraná and Maipú, in Olivos, to join some of her colleagues from the famous Northern Column, the Montoneros sector that Rodolfo Galimberti controlled and that would be one of those that would suffer the most casualties during the years of lead. They were planning the kidnapping of an American executive and some details had to be worked out. Minutes before the meeting time, members of the Army arrived with their weapons raised: the shootout ended with one militant dead, two “sucked” and with Bullrich hiding in a nearby patio. For a long time he didn’t even dare to breathe. Four decades later, the reality is different, and the irony is almost tragic: today the former Montonera is in command of the Armed Forces, and the disappearance that puts her in suspense is not her own or that of her cronies, but that of a young artisan with whose rebellion the official identified when she was simply “the Duck.” What times those were.
The years, logically, change everything and everyone. However, it is still striking that who was the wife of Galimberti’s personal secretary – one of the founders of Montoneros -, sister of his girlfriend and, in addition, someone who followed the orders of “Galimberti” for at least a decade, answers that she was only “from the Peronist Youth” when asked about her role during the seventies. “Montoneros was an armed organization. As such, there is no one who could have been active there without having fired a shot. And Patricia was in Galimberti’s inner circle,” says someone who bled, sweated and cried alongside those involved. From that place, where he saw and lived the heaviest moments in Argentine history, the person who leads the search for Santiago Maldonado was formed. He who watches the watchers was also watched: it is history as a mockery.
Maldonado
It is not the first time that Bullrich – who systematically rejected the calls of this medium – has been at the center of controversy. But Maldonado’s disappearance turned it into a punching ball. On Tuesday the 5th, the minister went to report to President Mauricio Macri about the case of the man who disappeared in the south of the country, allegedly during an eviction by the Gendarmerie of the Mapuches, on August 1. She left that meeting with public support: the Chief of Staff, Marcos Peña, assured that “they were very happy” with the work of the former Montonera. However, in the corridors of the Casa Rosada his actions generate more doubts than are shown publicly.
For Bullrich, an ideological woman, the PRO technique of the focus group costs her horror. Paradoxically, this tool keeps it standing: the Cambiemos audience applauds the actions of the Gendarmería in the south. They did not even see any harm in the massive march in Plaza de Mayo due to Maldonado’s appearance on the first day of this month, which led to incidents and repression. Many officials consider, under their breath, that they made a deal: as long as the opposition shows its most violent aspect, it alienates non-politicized society.
The young man’s disappearance quickly took center stage in the media. The Government was, in principle, the one who chose the RAM as an enemy: a weak, distant and low-risk enemy. But the move turned around after the news that the craftsman did not appear and the case grew, unstoppable, like a snowball. The opposition saw the opportunity and launched the appropriate blows to send the minister against the ropes.
Representative Victoria Donda managed, through Peña, a meeting with Bullrich. “He spoke for 35 minutes telling us all the measures he took to see if the Gendarmerie was responsible for the disappearance. But it was surprising that several times he repeated to us: ‘A gendarme got out of hand over there,’ with complete naturalness,” he told NOTICIAS.
There are so many versions that fly over the case that the minister had to clarify even to the President what was in the file and what was not. The “operations” flew everywhere, with a case in which there was summary secrecy until Monday the 4th. Maldonado was left only as an excuse: a missing person who serves to engage in politics.
by Carlos Claá, Juan Luis González
