‘We choose to die’: new trial set to investigate infamous dictatorship massacre |
“You don’t kill us. We choose to die.”
María Victoria Walsh, daughter of famed author and journalist Rodolfo Walsh, famously uttered these words before taking her own life during a military operation in 1976 known as the Corro Street Massacre. In total, five members of armed guerrilla group Montoneros died during the assault.
The phrase, which has come to symbolize courage in the face of dictatorship horror, has also remained shrouded in mystery, as the military were the ones to relay the words, given that the victims did not survive.
Next Wednesday, almost 50 years after the killings, a trial will try to uncover the truth of what happened.
Six former members of the Argentine army’s 101 Aerial Defense Artillery group stand accused of the attack: Carlos Alberto Orihuela, Ricardo Grisolía, Gustavo Antonio Montell, Guillermo César Viola, Héctor Eduardo Godoy, and Danilo Antonio González Ramos.
The prosecutor and the plaintiffs are also demanding that three other soldiers who were left out of the case over what is known as “lack of merit,” as well as an officer who was acquitted despite being involved in the operation, also be tried.
On the morning of September 29, 1976, between 150 and 200 military officers, equipped with tanks and a helicopter, surrounded a house in the Villa Luro neighborhood of Buenos Aires City.
María Victoria Walsh, better known as Vicki, was a member of Montoneros and carried out press tasks. She had arrived at the residence the day before with her one-year-old daughter, Victoria, to meet........