The beginning
Las Madres have traveled a long journey, which began on one April 30th in 1977, during the military dictatorship, at the request of Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti, when fourteen women publicly announced the “forced disappearance” of their children through the genocidal actions of state terrorism.
At the base of the principles of the Doctrine of National Security, since the military coup of 1976 penetrated our country, the state has perpetrated violence against the lives and integrity of its people. In 1974 and 1975, terrorist actions by the Triple A (Anti-Communist Alliance of Argentina) during the constitutional government of Isabel Peron, resulted in the detainment and disappearance of around 2,000 people.
At first when we asked “did you suffer what I also suffered?”, the ideology, religion or social conditions of each person didn’t matter and doesn’t matter. We marched united through tears in the extreme pain of our absent child, mad because they had taken away from us the most intimate.
Over time, the pain became a fight, and fighting in active resistance, which far from stopping us, mobilized us and gave us courage.
We began to construct our identity through the white headscarf, which later bore the names of our children after finally identifying the anonymous, by demonstrating in a public space, Plaza de Mayo. We began to yell around the Pyramid every Thursday from 3:30 to 4 pm, which highlights the historic circles of the Madres. This space in which we now find the painted white headscarves, has been declared a “Historic Site” by the Legislature of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
There appeared the first slogans, which were yelled at the end of each circle, “Full of life they were taken, full of life we love them” and “Alive”.
The union of Madres transcended the individual, assuming courage as a coherent movement that knew how to confront state terrorism.
The rests of the Madres return to tell us something
Three of our first mothers were also victims of terrorist actions: Azucena Villaflor, Maria Eugenia Ponce de Bianco and Esther Ballestrino de Careaga. They were kidnapped in the Parroquia Santa Cruz in December of 1977 by a task force of the Navy. We knew that they were taken to the ESMA, tortured and thrown alive into the ocean.
On December 20th of the same year, their bodies surfaced on the coasts of Santa Teresita and were buried as “anonymous” in the cemetery of General Lavalle. In 2005, the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology identified the remains, three of which were Azucena, Esther and Mari. Together they were kidnapped, together they fought, together were killed and together thrown into the ocean.
1. Founding Line
As in every movement, there were differences of criteria that were beginning to deepen until they distorted the founding objectives. In 1986, this produced the division of the “Asociación Madres”, becoming the “Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Linea Fundadora.”
We mothers have marched and we march convinced of what is just in our cause. We wanted to know what had happened to our children. We demanded that someone would tell us who decided their destinies, how, when, where y why. We continue like this with the pain of all a generation, fearful to look for without answer.
Interamerican Commission of Human Rights
We made our voices known in the exterior. As a result of our efforts and those of many others, the report of the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of the American States, OEA, suggests it was conducted under a full dictatorship. Such commission came to Argentina and during two weeks investigated the violations of human rights that occurred in the country. The report affirms that “the Commission has arrived to the conclusion that through action and omission of the public authority and its agents of the Argentine Republic, numerous and grave violations of fundamental human rights were committed during the period 1975 – 1979.” At the beginning of its conclusions, the commission recommended “to bring to justice and to sanction, with all the rigor of the law, those responsible for these deaths”, and with respect to the detained-disappeared, to inform circumstantially about the situation of these people.
CONADEP and Never Again Report
Already in democracy, at the beginning of 1984, the thousands of testimonies gathered by the National Commission of the Enforced Disappearance constituted the first approximation to the knowledge of the horrendous acts committed. One can affirm that the repressive politics had continued a systematic plan and this is stated in the Report “Never Again” published by this commission.
Democracy broke the silence and each one explains what happened in his own manner: “war”, “theory of two demons”, “excess” are the repressors expressions that acquired the major force with the judging of the guilty ones of the armed forces during the government of President Dr. Raul Alfonsín.
Because of these differences in interpretation of what occurred during the dictatorship, we were obligated to learn and explain the true political, social and economic nature of state terrorism. It is then that we understood that at the beginning of the military process that there was imposed on our country a model of economic concentration and social exclusion that we continue to suffer today; for this reason we consider state terrorism the arm of economic power.
2. Historic Judgment. Impunity, finally broken
The judging of the Military Juntas was the first valid experience that solidified our claim for justice. But unfortunately, these roads of Truth were closed with the impunity laws of 1985 and 1987 –“Final Point” and “Due Obedience” – imposed by the president Raul Alfonsín, and with the indultos decrees by the president Carlos Menem, that benefited the implicated military officials of state terrorism during 1989 and 1990.
During these 30 years and as a result of the incessant struggle of people along with human rights organizations and the political will of some government officials there have been some important achievements at the national and international law. One of them has been the annulment in 2003 of the laws previously mentioned by the Congress of the Nation, also the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declared them unconstitutional.
The FEDEFAM. The Convention.
In 1981 the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM) was created; an organization in which we are a part of along with Grandmothers (Abuelas) of Plaza de Mayo and Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons (Familiares de Desaparecidos y Detenidos por Razones Políticas). Las Madres attended the first Congress in Costa Rica, in January 1981, and since then integrated into this Federation understanding the terrible moments that our country and continent were living, considering that it could collaborate by spreading the word and the denounces where we could not go.
In FEDEFAM we understood the need for a convention and we began the struggle before the United Nations – in the Human Rights Commission in Geneva – since 1983. This task took many years and with great tenacity we participated in all of the reunions that could accept and approve our request. After 23 years we were heard alongside the family members of other continents, experts with solidary attitude and companions from distinct international NGO’s that shared our aims. After 3 years of intense work in the Inter-Sessional Group of Work, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved in New York the draft written by the mentioned group, in September 2005 the Assembly approved the International Convention for the Protection of Every Person against Enforced Disappearance in Geneva, and finally, in December 2006, the United Nations approved the draft of the convention, emphasizing the Madres´ work through that entire period since the Convention draft was presented.
Today we should obtain that the countries sign it and the legislative bodies in each country ratify it. This, under the surveillance of an international organization such as the United Nations, would prevent any further enforced disappearances and hopefully one day this dream will come true. “No more enforced disappearances in the world”. No more crimes against humanity.
In Argentina the clandestine detention centers are being converted into “sites of memory”. They have recovered the buildings of the ESMA (Superior School of Mechanics of the Navy) whose ex Casino of Officials condense the memory and the awful functions of the entire field: clandestine detention, torture, occasional slave labor, assassinations, disappearance of remains, and the appropriation of children. The rest of the buildings are beginning to shelter the work for a more veracious and constructive memory.
It is worth noting the labor of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, who have recovered 102 nieces/nephews and continue, alongside with many recovered nieces/nephews, in their struggle to find those who still do not know their true identity and the lie in which they live with their appropriators.
Much recognition is merited by the Argentine Anthropological Forensics Team, which intends to give them back their name and a history to those who were stripped of both by the inscription N.N. (No Name).
The archive of Memory is being filed to preserve documentation, dozens of causes have been reopened and there are around 1,576 repressors concerned with trials, or detained/processed with all the guarantees they denied their victims. There are documents about the repression sent to the U.S. Department of State that have been declassified and finally disseminated, but few archives guarded in Argentina have been recovered. The repressors continue to maintain their pact of absolute silence.Trials cover the country
Since 2005—in which the Supreme Court of Justice declared the laws of impunity unconstitutional—dozens of penal cases have been opened; 89 sentences have been obtained, with 81 convicted among them. Amongst these, the ones about the police officers Julio Simon “Turco Julian” in the Federal Capital and Miguel Etchecolatz in La Plata, exemplary sentences.
One of the main witnesses of this last trail, Julio Lopez, has once again suffered the horror of “the disappearance” that still continue. We ask the National and Provincial state to fulfill their indelegable responsibility to clarify this detention and disappearance of an Argentinean citizen.
The dictatorship aimed to rip the social ties and despite that and as a result of the struggle of the Madres, the Familiares and the Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos, in 1995 appear H.I.J.O.S. (Hijos por la identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio), who introduce new forms of demanding justice and denouncing impunity. In 2002 the group Hermanos de Desaparecidos por la Verdad y la Justicia was also formed; the group intends to narrate a new version of history starting from their experiences as witnesses paired given the experiences of their brothers.
The Juicios por la Verdad (Trials for Truth) also opened up new roads in several of the cities in the country and the penal hearings in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, which serve as elucidation of destiny for thousands of disappeared victims and open the doors for the necessary justice. They also confirm the nature of “crimes against humanity: and establish the principle of ´universal justice´”.
Trials cover the country
Since 2005—in which the Supreme Court of Justice declared the laws of impunity unconstitutional—dozens of penal cases have been opened; 89 sentences have been obtained (up to end of October, 2010), with 81 convicted among them. Amongst these, the ones about the police officers Julio Simon “Turco Julián” in the Federal Capital and Miguel Etchecolatz in La Plata, exemplary sentences.
One of the main witnesses of this last trail, Julio López, has once again suffered the horror of “the disappearance” that still continue. We ask the National and Provincial state to fulfill their indelegable responsibility to clarify this detention and disappearance of an Argentinean citizen.
The dictatorship aimed to rip the social ties and despite that and as a result of the struggle of the Madres, the Familiares and the Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos, in 1995 appear H.I.J.O.S. (Hijos por la identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio), who introduce new forms of demanding justice and denouncing impunity. In 2002 the group Hermanos de Desaparecidos por la Verdad y la Justicia was also formed; the group intends to narrate a new version of history starting from their experiences as witnesses paired given the experiences of their brothers.
The Juicios por la Verdad (Trials for Truth) also opened up new roads in several of the cities in the country and the penal hearings in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, which serve as elucidation of destiny for thousands of disappeared victims and open the doors for the necessary justice. They also confirm the nature of “crimes against humanity: and establish the principle of ´universal justice´”.
No Forgetting, No Forgiving
Now that we are in a democracy, some sectors affirm—and today they continue to do so—that our attitude could provoke a national dissolution and propose, through forgetting, “national reconciliation”. This impulses us to demand with greater strength Juicio y Castigo, affirming that this is not revenge but simply Justice.
During these 33 years, the claim for Memory, Truth and Justice remain strong, values which have been installed in the society as collective memory. This Memory is the result of a group construction, whose objective is to transform us into witnesses of what has occurred in our country. Through words and fresh narratives, we give Memory its deserving place: the transmission of the Truth, which permits a new reassessment of history since the living horror.
We, as a Human Rights organization, say No to violence, but with the same power, No to resignation. Our action was, is, and will be an active resistance based in the respect for human dignity for life. In other words, we link the permanent plea for Truth and Justice with the current revindications for human rights, defending economic, social and cultural rights of the persons and the people.
The theme of state terrorism entered in the life of society with more or less power. An important part of society seemed to be sick with amnesia, some people were accomplices and others indifferent, but the permanent denouncement of the human rights organizations and the commitment of an important social sector ended the detained-disappeared from being known as ‘No-Name’, as their oppressors wanted, or as the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who when consulted about the theme responded, “The disappeared are not, not here, and do not have identities.”
Our Children Have Names
Our children are here and present, all of them have a first and last name. They are Beatriz, Juan, Carlos, Irene, Susana…and are the 30,000 that are not only in our memories but alive, and in the daily construction of the collective memory.
To remember is to fight against impunity, to rescue from the ghost category of the “disappeared”, thousands of humans who aspiring towards a truly just society, and exercising political and social activism, were kidnapped, tortured and murdered.
We are promoting the reconstruction of the Truth, uniting the lives and activism of our children, their projects and political participation, which responded to the options that each one had chosen. They formed part of a generation committed to the history of their time and their cities, characterized by their solidarity, commitment and delivery.
All and each one of the detained-disappeared live in the memory of their comrades and friends that shared their commitment. They are also present in the ideals of those, despite not knowing them, that continue fighting for the dignity of the human being and of our country, our education, our health, the fair distribution of national wealth among labor unions, in schools, in care centers and in many more places. Above all, they are present in our hearts and the daily actions of our families, and forever as long as we are alive.
We are thankful to all those who have accompanied us in these 33 years, allowing us to reveal the Truth behind what happened. This Truth, which lights and constructs the present, does not allow pain to paralyze or let horror repeat itself. This is our commitment to Memory, Truth and Justice.http://www.madresfundadoras.org.ar/pagina/whoweare/85
Enlaces
-Origen of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora
-Gallery
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