Argentine Units Surround Rebel Officer Group

Troops loyal to Argentina’s civilian authorities Saturday surrounded a building in which a group of renegade army officers had barricaded themselves in protest of the trials of military men accused of human rights violations during this country’s so-called “dirty war” against subversion in the 1970s.

President Raul Alfonsin appealed for a peaceful end to the protest involving 50 to 150 officers at the headquarters of the infantry training school inside Campo de Mayo, Argentina’s largest military base, 25 miles northwest of this capital.

“We have to make sure everything possible is being done to avoid any useless bloodshed,” Alfonsin told reporters at Government House, where he met with his top military commanders for the third day in a row to devise ways of dealing peacefully with mutinous, middle-level officers.

Other Mutiny Over

“I’m making a new appeal to (the mutineers to) surrender and for a rapid return to a state of rights, like we all want,” the president said.

On Friday, a mutiny in the north-central city of Cordoba ended without a shot being fired when 130 soldiers abandoned their two-day occupation of an army building.

The insurgents here are led by Lt. Col. Aldo Rico, 41, who Friday abandoned command of a rural-based infantry regiment to rally officers at the school. They ousted the school’s commanding officer and are demanding an end to prosecution of officers charged with kidnaping, torture, murder and other crimes under the former military government.

The mutinies prompted an outpouring of national and foreign support for Argentina’s three-year-old elected administration.

Loyal troops, some riding in tanks, began surrounding the infantry school headquarters at sunset Friday. Members of the civilian public allowed onto the base shouted curses at the mutineers and chanted, “Long live democracy!” and “Surrender, surrender!”

Berets, Camouflage Paint

Renegade soldiers, their faces blackened with camouflage paint and wearing red berets, watched from the school, armed with submachine guns.

About 700 loyal soldiers surrounded the school, and additional units from other army bases were moved into positions about 30 miles away from Campo de Mayo, to be available if needed to put down the mutiny.