The Siege of Cipolletti

The repressive military regime of Argentine Dictator Juan Carlos Ongania has fallen on tough times. Last May a police crackdown on students touched off bloody big-city riots. Three weeks ago, railway workers set whole trains afire in response to a mobilization order.

Other unions have threatened to tie up the whole economy. Yet nowhere has the brass been more badly tarnished than in Cipolletti, a fruit-packing town of 32,000, deep in the interior. There, the aroused residents used hoes, sticks and a sackful of cats to foil a long bureaucratic siege, a provincial governor and three puppet "mayors."

Defenestrated Deputies. The regime's bad days at Cipolletti erupted not over high policy but a relatively modest 80-mile, $2.8 million road that was to be built in the Andean foothills. The road was the pet project of Governor Juan Figueroa Funge, 66, of Rio Negro Province, who proudly announced it at his inauguration in Viedma last Au gust. It was also the pet peeve of out spoken Mayor Julio Dante Salto of Cipolletti, 600 miles away. Salto, 55, called the road "folly," and urged that the money be spent on other projects.

At that, Figueroa decided that it was time to get rid of the meddlesome may or. When Salto walked into his city hall office at high noon one day three weeks ago, he was greeted by a delegation from Viedma: Figueroa's Un dersecretary of Government, Provincial Police Chief Antonio Aller and a no tary public who, Salto was told, had just been sworn in as the new mayor.

Salto was not about to surrender.

Claiming that he could not read the dismissal order without his glasses, he sent a secretary out of the room on the pretext of fetching them. The secretary promptly telephoned the local radio station, and while most Cipolenos were at their midday meal, they heard a broadcast describing the "reprehensible outrage." Quickly they rallied to support Salto, an obstetrician who since 1963 had vastly improved the city's school, water and sewer systems, set up neighborhood medical dispensaries and won wide popularity.

Within minutes 5,000 citizens were converging on city hall, wielding sticks, hoes and shovels. They burst into Sal-to's second-floor office and unceremoniously tossed the new "mayor," the Undersecretary and Top Cop Aller out of a window. Aller wound up in a flower bed. Figueroa's defenestrated deputies fled to a nearby police station and finally pledged that Salto would remain mayor after all. Half the city's people danced in the streets until 3 a.m., celebrating their victory.

It proved short-lived. When Cipolenos awoke after the weekend, they found city hall ringed by 200 heavily armed policemen who had been trucked in from other towns overnight by the enraged Chief Aller. Salto managed to escape, but Aller jailed his 19-year-old son and declared himself "interim mayor."

Short Career. In protest, the townspeople closed their schools and shops, donned black armbands and launched a guerrilla-style campaign of harassment. By prearrangement, the city's 8,000 motorists leaned on their horns simultaneously. Cops chased and arrested 150 drivers. The locals emptied a large sackful of cats among Aller's police dogs, and when one excited dog bit a twelve-year-old boy, it looked as if the situation might explode in violence. Aller's police moved into action--after a fashion. Jittery machine gunners fired short warning bursts. One cop hurt himself trying to launch a tear-gas grenade. Another drew his revolver inside the police station and accidentally wounded two other policemen.

Next day yet another "mayor" arrived from Viedma--an army lieutenant colonel who had been the economics minister of Rio Negro Province. The colonel's mayoral career was even shorter than the cop's and the notary's. Within hours, he fell out with Aller and left town. So did Aller and his police. Finally, the regime got a mayor to stick--an army deputy brigade commander who won the townspeople's acquiescence partly because he at least had the grace to leave his troops behind.

At week's end Dr. Salto was preparing to go back to Cipolletti for yet another bash, even though there was little chance that he would return to city hall: the regime had publicly denounced him as a "disobedient mayor." Still there was some cause for celebration. Last week President Ongania cashiered the fumbling Figueroa.

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