Argentine Army Chief Resigns After Rebellion

The army chief of staff resigned amid a four-day officers rebellion against human-rights trials that ended peacefully after personal negotiations by President Raul Alfonsin, it was announced today.

The departure of Hector Rios Erenu, Argentina’s highest-ranking army officer, may be the first of several resignations in efforts to ensure military subordination to civilian authority.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said the army chief of staff submitted his resignation privately Saturday night to Defense Minister Jose Horacio Jaunarena. His position had been tenuous since the rebellion erupted Wednesday night.

The uprising was the severest test yet of Argentina’s 3-year-old democracy that follows about a decade of military rule.

President Goes to Base

Alfonsin quelled the officers’ revolt, mainly a conspiracy of colonels and captains demanding an end to human-rights trials of officers accused of murdering and torturing prisoners during military rule, by flying Sunday to their base and negotiating their surrender. (Story on Page 4.)

The rebels had also demanded Rios Erenu’s resignation because they felt he had abandoned them. Although Rios Erenu was a strict constitutionalist and solid backer of Alfonsin, he had been criticized, especially inside the army, as having lost touch with middle-ranking officers.

The Defense Ministry spokesman said 60 officers were under arrest today at the Campo de Mayo base, headquarters of the final three days of the rebellion and about 15 miles west of Buenos Aires.