PicoZ

At 6:15 a.m., as the day dawned hot and sticky, a Renault 12, trailed by a Coca-Cola delivery truck and six other vehicles, wheeled past La Tablada army base, 20 miles southwest of Buenos Aires. Smashing through the front gate, at least 50 invaders leaped from the vehicles and opened fire with Belgian FAL rifles, 40-mm grenade launchers and Soviet RPG-7 and Chinese RPG-2 rocket launchers. Startled troops, reinforced by some 500 police, fought back. Nearly 30 hours later, when the shooting finally ended, 28 invaders lay dead and 20 were under guard; nine soldiers and police were killed and 53 wounded.

The government quickly concluded that the attack was mounted by leftist subversives, the first such terrorist assault by the left in almost a decade. Officials were startled that the attackers were members of the Movemiento Todos por La Patria (M.T.P.), a leftist group committed to social change that was formed in 1986 and until now had stopped short of violence. Earlier this month M.T.P. seemed to embrace a more radical agenda, and several key figures have been linked to a defunct ultra-left-wing revolutionary army with strong Cuban and Nicaraguan connections.

The re-emergence of leftist insurrection shocked Argentines and revived fears that haunt the nation. As military analyst Andres Fontana put it, “People don’t want a return to terrorism, and they don’t want to give any space back to the military.” A visibly shaken President Raul Alfonsin sought to quell any speculation that Argentina might be returning to the bloody ideological battles of the 1970s. “This is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we have learned from our past,” he counseled.

Alfonsin’s warning reflected the jitters of ordinary Argentines, who now add + the threat of political extremism to their litany of dissatisfactions. Faced with a collapsing economy, a strong Peronist revival and a restive military, Argentines will soon go to the polls in search of democratic solutions. Daily life in the once proud nation has been crippled by a 400% inflation rate, 12% unemployment or underemployment and, since 1981, a 40% drop in real wages. A crumbling infrastructure and labor strikes have curtailed mail delivery, disrupted phone service and left an energy shortage so severe that electricity is rationed.

But nothing in the past decade has troubled Argentina so much as the struggle to come to terms with the wanton brutality of the “dirty war,” when an unchecked military visited a barbaric brand of justice on thousands of leftist rebels and their presumed sympathizers. Since 1983, when Alfonsin assumed power, his main political challenge has been to reconcile the populace’s demand for justice against military excesses with the army’s own demand for respect and recognition of its role in putting down a Communist insurgency. Over the past 22 months, disgruntled colonels have staged three uprisings, demanding pay raises and an end to the trials of officers charged with human-rights offenses. Alfonsin hiked military wages 20% last December and dropped cases against middle-level officers, but has refused to commute the sentences of ten top military and police commanders convicted of human- rights abuses.

A resurgent left could increase pressure to strengthen the hand of the military, and that is something Argentina can ill afford. With presidential elections just four months off, Alfonsin wants to guide his country’s fragile democracy through a peaceful transition. At the moment, the resurgent Peronists have the advantage heading into the May 14 election. Its candidate, Carlos Menem, 53, a three-term provincial governor, has cashed in on Alfonsin’s dwindling fortunes. Menem’s populist message, inspirationally long on rhetoric, disappointingly short on specifics, is playing well in the opinion polls, where he leads Eduardo Angeloz, the candidate of the ruling Radical Civic Union. Menem, a flamboyant politician who loves to drive race cars, has avoided alienating any of Argentina’s voting blocs: he woos businessmen by pledging to honor Argentina’s bloated $60 billion foreign debt, but plays to workers by dismissing the payments as “true immorality.” Says an Argentine diplomat: “Menem is macho, flashy and a Peronist, so he is seen by the majority as a savior.”

Some Argentines fear that last week’s attack exposes the true frailty of the country’s political institutions. “This crisis endangers the democratic system,” says Patino Mayer, a moderate Peronist. “It is like a cancer that spreads to everyone.” Others insist that Argentina’s democracy is not nearly so wobbly. “After a half-century of dictatorships and disappearances,” says Public Works Minister Rodolfo Terragno, “these problems are manageable.” But as disillusioned Argentine voters have sadly learned, five years of elected rule have been fine for freedom but a disappointment for everything else.

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