launcher, and light mortar. The clandestine factory had started production in Chile. As the coup approached the MIR technicians had moved the operation to Argentina and expected to have the first finished weapons in early 1974.
It was a colossal undertaking, Efraín Martínez Platero said. “We intended to develop a grand, an enormous infrastructure network for all of the countries—Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay. That’s how we spent all those millions of dollars of JCR money—in buying airplanes and trucks, in creating a structure capable of giving us the possibility of penetrating each of those countries, so that if we wanted to we could transport weapons, fighters, money, people, moving it all in and out at will.”
Public relations was an indispensable part of any popular movement, even a clandestine one like the JCR. The JCR members decided they would make a public announcement of the JCR call to arms in the coming months. A thick magazine, called Che Guevara: Junta de Coordinación Revolucionaria (of whichthree issues ranging from forty-eight to seventy-six pages were published in Spanish, English, and other languages), was the international voice of the JCR.
Before going public, however, the new organization needed to advise its friends and potential allies. Above all, almost as monks going to Rome to submit to the authority of the Pope, the JCR leaders wanted to lay the idea at the feet of Fidel Castro. Immediately following the meeting in Buenos Aires, Martínez Platero was designated the JCR’s official ambassador, its “international representative,” to travel first to Cuba and then to Europe.
Martínez Platero was a logical choice to be the JCR international representative. The Tupamaros had become a household word in Europe, and were universally respected in leftist circles as nonsectarian, Robin Hood revolutionaries. When he arrived in Cuba he went through channels. He first explained the JCR to Manuel Piñeiro, the famous Barbaroja (Red Beard), chief of the Cuban Communist Party’s Department of America, whose name was synonymous with Cuba’s support of revolutionary groups in Latin America. Piñiero had set up military training courses for the hundreds of Tupamaros who had come to Cuba from Chile just before the coup. For some, there was an elite officers course. Martínez Platero inspected the troops in the courses and took part in the “voluntary work” in sugar fields that was expected of visitors of all classes. Still, it was weeks before he was given an audience with Fidel. It came only a few days before he was scheduled to leave for Europe, in late October.
Martínez Platero invoked Che’s memory as the inspiration for the Coordinating Junta, but Fidel was dismissive. He was far from opposed to the use of armed struggle to win the revolution, but he considered the JCR’s grand strategy impractical and even trivial. And he was disparaging of the Trotskyist ERP.
“I would like to honor you, but it is because you are a leader of the Tupamaros. I never would receive you as the representative of the JCR,” Martínez Platero quoted Fidel as saying. “Chico, don’t run around with those Trotskyists. It’s a waste of time.”
He cautioned that a military offensive in Uruguay now would be disastrous and could very well provoke the executions of the imprisoned leadership. He counseled a strategy of building strength while pursuing the establishment of broad coalitions with political parties. Training and support would be given to the Tupamaro militants, but he refused to consider the proposal that Cuba become the operational and training center for the JCR.
Soon after Martínez Platero left Cuba, another JCR representative arrived,the ERP’s Luis Mattini. His main agenda was to inform Fidel about ERP’s plan to launch a guerrilla campaign in the mountains of Tucumán Province. In an all-night meeting on January 5, 1974, Fidel reminisced about his own experience using rural
It was a colossal undertaking, Efraín Martínez Platero said. “We intended to develop a grand, an enormous infrastructure network for all of the countries—Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay. That’s how we spent all those millions of dollars of JCR money—in buying airplanes and trucks, in creating a structure capable of giving us the possibility of penetrating each of those countries, so that if we wanted to we could transport weapons, fighters, money, people, moving it all in and out at will.”
Public relations was an indispensable part of any popular movement, even a clandestine one like the JCR. The JCR members decided they would make a public announcement of the JCR call to arms in the coming months. A thick magazine, called Che Guevara: Junta de Coordinación Revolucionaria (of whichthree issues ranging from forty-eight to seventy-six pages were published in Spanish, English, and other languages), was the international voice of the JCR.
Before going public, however, the new organization needed to advise its friends and potential allies. Above all, almost as monks going to Rome to submit to the authority of the Pope, the JCR leaders wanted to lay the idea at the feet of Fidel Castro. Immediately following the meeting in Buenos Aires, Martínez Platero was designated the JCR’s official ambassador, its “international representative,” to travel first to Cuba and then to Europe.
Martínez Platero was a logical choice to be the JCR international representative. The Tupamaros had become a household word in Europe, and were universally respected in leftist circles as nonsectarian, Robin Hood revolutionaries. When he arrived in Cuba he went through channels. He first explained the JCR to Manuel Piñeiro, the famous Barbaroja (Red Beard), chief of the Cuban Communist Party’s Department of America, whose name was synonymous with Cuba’s support of revolutionary groups in Latin America. Piñiero had set up military training courses for the hundreds of Tupamaros who had come to Cuba from Chile just before the coup. For some, there was an elite officers course. Martínez Platero inspected the troops in the courses and took part in the “voluntary work” in sugar fields that was expected of visitors of all classes. Still, it was weeks before he was given an audience with Fidel. It came only a few days before he was scheduled to leave for Europe, in late October.
Martínez Platero invoked Che’s memory as the inspiration for the Coordinating Junta, but Fidel was dismissive. He was far from opposed to the use of armed struggle to win the revolution, but he considered the JCR’s grand strategy impractical and even trivial. And he was disparaging of the Trotskyist ERP.
“I would like to honor you, but it is because you are a leader of the Tupamaros. I never would receive you as the representative of the JCR,” Martínez Platero quoted Fidel as saying. “Chico, don’t run around with those Trotskyists. It’s a waste of time.”
He cautioned that a military offensive in Uruguay now would be disastrous and could very well provoke the executions of the imprisoned leadership. He counseled a strategy of building strength while pursuing the establishment of broad coalitions with political parties. Training and support would be given to the Tupamaro militants, but he refused to consider the proposal that Cuba become the operational and training center for the JCR.
Soon after Martínez Platero left Cuba, another JCR representative arrived,the ERP’s Luis Mattini. His main agenda was to inform Fidel about ERP’s plan to launch a guerrilla campaign in the mountains of Tucumán Province. In an all-night meeting on January 5, 1974, Fidel reminisced about his own experience using rural
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