Juan José Valle

Juan José Valle (Buenos Aires, 1896 – Buenos Aires, June 12, 1956) was an Argentine military who headed a rebellion in 1956 against General Aramburu's dictatorship.

Aramburu's Revolución Libertadora of September 16, 1955 had ended Juan Perón's second term of presidency. After Aramburu's coup against Perón, José Valle was dismissed in the frame of the anti-Peronist policies of the new regime. He then headed a rebellion on June 9, 1956, which quickly spread through the country, but resulted only in seven combat fatalities. Aramburu's regime decided to make an example of José Valle by executing him by firing squad alongside other rebels, on June 12, in the National Penitentiary of Buenos Aires. This site is currently Las Heras Park, where a plaque in his honor remains to be seen.

This execution led some sectors to name Aramburu's regime la Fusiladora (the verb fusilar meaning to execute by a firing-squad). This execution marked a turn in Argentina's history of insurrections, which were not used to such massive retaliation. Between June 9 and June 12, 1956, 27 civilians and military personnel were executed, some of them illegally during the León Suárez massacre (related in Rodolfo Walsh's classic book, Operación Masacre). This event lead to Aramburu's subsequent assassination by the Montoneros, a left-wing Peronist group, in June 1970.