WUNRN
International
Convention for Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance
Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights - Link to Full Article:
NEW IMPETUS TO ERADICATE ENFORCED
DISAPPEARANCES - UN
Estela Carlotto’s daughter Laura, disappeared in November 1977, at the time of the military dictatorship in Argentina. She was three months pregnant. Her remains were eventually returned to her family but Laura’s son, born in detention in 1978, remains disappeared.
Estela spent the past 33 years searching for her grandson as well as other children who disappeared in Argentina following the military coup in 1976. "I am looking for my grandson who should be 33 years old and I do not know where he is,” she said. “And that is what gets me involved in the world struggle against the enforced disappearances of persons.”
Estela is President and one of the founders of the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo - Association of Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers - an organization established in 1978 in response to the forced or involuntary disappearance of hundreds of children during that period.
“Everywhere in the world, families of the disappeared go through continuous emotional and material hardship and years of uncertainty as to the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones,” said UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kyung-wha Kang.
Enforced disappearance occurs when, with the involvement of State authorities, a person is arrested, detained, abducted and his or her whereabouts is intentionally undisclosed.
Among the developments in the fight against enforced disappearances is the proclamation of 30 August as the UN International Day of the Disappeared. This year is the first time on this day that the UN pays tribute not only to those who disappeared but also to their families and friends. Indeed, a disappearance has a doubly paralysing impact : on the victims, frequently tortured and in constant fear for their lives, and on their families, ignorant of the fate of their loved ones, their emotions alternating between hope and despair, wondering and waiting, sometimes for years, for news that may never come.
On 23 December 2010, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance came into force.......
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----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
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To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 1:23 PM
Subject: Argentina - Mothers of the "Disappeared" Continue
Call for Justice
WUNRN
Women News Network
Website Link Includes Video.
October 21, 2010
ARGENTINA - MOTHERS OF THE
PLAZA DE MAYO, MOTHERS OF
THE "DISAPPEARED" - CALL
FOR TRUTHS, JUSTICE, RIGHTS
Argentina Correspondent, Marie Trigona – Women News Network – WNN
Buenos Aires, Argentina: Buenos Aires city
center, known as Plaza de Mayo, has been a site of protest for decades. It is
here that the Mothers of
Known as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, they
have passed down a legacy in defending human rights as they walk steadily
together around the plaza to show the world that they still have not forgotten
what happened to their loved ones during what has been called, ‘Argentina’s
Dirty War.’
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been
integral to recent investigations and discoveries in what have been called
‘crimes against humanity’ in the more than 30,000 estimated missing sons and daughters
who became part of ‘the disappeared’ during the reign of Argentina’s military
juntas from 1975 to 1983.
“I keep on looking for my children and
everybody else’s children, because to me your daughter is my daughter, she’s a
little bit mine. My children are a little bit yours,” said Carmen Robles de
Zurita, a woman who is the Mother of two missing children: Her son, Nestro Juan
Agustín Zurita, abducted at the age of 25, August 1, 1975; and Carmen’s
daughter, María Rosa Zurita, abducted at the age of 21, November 1, 1975.
Now after three decades, justice is finally
possible in criminal courts. Thanks to the investigations carried out by
victims’ families and human rights activists,
The Motor of Society
“The disappearance of people created a
paralysis in society,” says Dr. Rodolfo Mattarollo, international law and human
rights expert.
“Today we still don’t have the complete truth or
information as to what happened to our children.”
- Marta Ocampo de Vazquez,
President of the Mothers of
Plaza de Mayo – Founding Line
On April 30, 1977, fourteen mothers
gathered in the large plaza in front of the government building. The
dictatorship prohibited people from gathering in public places, so they began
walking around the pyramid in the center of the plaza. As more women joined the
rounds, having visited police stations, prisons, judicial offices and churches,
but finding no answers, the Mothers began to identify themselves by wearing
white head scarves to symbolize the diapers of their lost and ‘disappeared’
children.
“Today we still don’t have the complete
truth or information as to what happened to our children,” says Marta Ocampo de
Vazquez, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo – Founding Line. “Who gave
the order? Who executed them? What was our children’s final destiny?” she asks.
Nothing could stop the Mothers protest, not
even physical attacks or endless threats. In 1977, three of the founding
Mothers and two French nuns, who supported the efforts of the Mothers, also
became part of ‘the disappeared.’
“It surprises me when I see what I am
today. Before I was a shy cry-baby. I had no political consciousness. I didn’t
have any kind of consciousness. All that interested me was that my children
were well. I was one of those mothers who went everywhere with their children.
If they organized dances at the school to collect money, I was the one who was
selling tickets. I was involved in everything my children did. You only become
conscious when you lose something. When the Mothers first met we used to cry a
lot and then we began to shout and demand, and nothing mattered anymore, except
that we should find out children. Now I fight, I shout, I push if I have to, I
kick but I still wonder to myself how I could have gone into those military
buildings with all those guns pointed at my head,” said Mother, Margareta de
Oro in an interview with author, Josephine Fisher, for the book, ‘Mothers of
the Disappeared.’
The Pain of the Past
Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, a 22 year old
Argentine Naval lieutenant and intelligence officer, infiltrated the Mothers of
Plaza de Mayo posing as ‘Gustavo Niño,’ a brother of one of the disappeared.
Astiz’s infiltration would haunt the Mothers and the nation for decades to
come. The Mothers say today they still remember young “Gustavo,” who attended
meetings of family members and marched with them.
“I keep on looking for my children and everybody else’s
children.”
- Mother of Plaza de Mayo,
Carmen Robles de Zurita
On December 8, 1977, the Mothers – Esther
Ballestrino de Careaga and Maria Eugenia Ponce de Bianco – were forcefully
taken, along with eight others, by military officials as they were attending a
meeting at the
Two days later, on December 10, eight
hundred and thirty-four Mothers signatures were printed on an almost full page
petition advertisement in “La Nacion,”
Two weeks following the secret raid on the
“The Mothers had planned a major turnout,
at their usual Thursday afternoon demonstration on Dec 15, but the abduction of
members of the Mother’s group had a chilling effect on attendance,” said the
American Embassy in Buenos Aires in a 1977 (then classified) report to the U.S.
State Department. “An additional sheet of signatures for that petition, as well
as $250 of funds collected to pay for the advertisement were taken during the
abduction,” outlined the Embassy.
In the early 1990s, on the edge of new
breakthroughs in forensic science, it finally became possible to recover and
identify DNA from skeletal remains. Genetic testing quickly became a critical
tool in human rights investigations worldwide.
In 2005, through detailed forensic
investigations of skeletal remains, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team
(EAAF), was able to use DNA and forensic evidence to identify four of the
washed-up bodies. It was decided without any doubt. The bodies belonged to
three of the founding Mothers – Azucena Villaflor, Maria Eugenia Ponce and
Esther Careaga, along with the French nun, Léonie Duquet.
“Everywhere we work we have seen the incredible pain and
paralysis that a disappearance produces for a family.”
- Mercedes Doretti,
co-founder of the Argentine
Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF)
“The remains of the four women are thought
to have been thrown into the ocean from Air Force planes. The bodies washed out
on the shore in 1977 and were buried as “N.N.” (unknowns) in the General
Lavalle municipal cemetery,
“Everywhere we work we have seen the
incredible pain and paralysis that a disappearance produces for a family.
Recovering the remains is not enough to erase the pain of the past but it is a
huge part of healing and a crucial form of reparations. Families need it. In
fact, we think that too often the recovery and identification of remains is not
viewed enough as an integral part of the reparations process,” said Mercedes
Doretti, co-founder of EAAF.
Twenty-eight years after the founding
Mothers themselves ‘disappeared,’ on December 8, 2005, the remains of Azucena
Villaflor, Maria Ponce de Bianco and Esther Ballestrino de Careaga were
cremated and their ashes buried in honor at
Breaking Walls of Impunity
Since
The 1986, Argentina Full Stop law and the
1987 Due Obedience law was “used to obstruct the investigation of thousands of
cases of forced disappearance, torture and extrajudicial execution committed
between 1976 and 1983 when the military governments were in power,” said the
International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International in a 2003 Legal
Memorandum. These laws were a deep blow to the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who
resisted the government’s attempt to use amnesty laws to pardon military
actions and human rights abuses.
“As the youth today take up our banner, the 30,000 ‘disappeared’
will never be ‘disappeared.’ They will be present.”
- 2010 statement by the
Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
Today, alternating between years of amnesty
and arrest, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz is facing a stepped up Supreme Court battle.
He is facing investigation along with seventeen other officers and officials.
In addition to individual crimes, the Court is also investigating charges of
‘crimes against humanity’ committed between 1976 – 1983 at the
Known as the largest and most notorious
torture center in Argentina during the nation’s ‘dark years,’ the ESMA Navy
Mechanics School has been linked to more than 5,000 people, who’s fate has
brought them to become part of ‘the disappeared.’
(Now) “The military are having the trials
that our children never had,” said Mother of Plaza de Mayo Truth Commissioner,
Nora Cortinas. Nora’s son, Carlos Gustavo Cortiñas, was an economy student who
became part of ‘the disappeared’ on April 15, 1977.
Because many of the mothers are now in
their 80s, some worry that they will not live to see the former Argentine
military machine held responsible for its crimes.
“What we want is for the trials to speed up
a little bit and not be tried on a case by case basis; and that the government
takes responsibility to help end the threats against witnesses, judges, and
lawyers, so that we can really say that there’s justice in this country,” added
Mother Cortinas.
“I was one of those mothers who went everywhere with
their children. If they organized dances at the school to collect money, I was
the one who was selling tickets. I was involved in everything my children did.
You only become conscious when you lose something.”
- Mother of Plaza de Mayo,
Margareta de Oro
Mother, Ocampo de Vazquez, now 81, has gone
through decades of struggle and frustration. But she knows her long campaign to
find the truth must continue. “I don’t see an end in sight,” she exclaimed.
“We resist because there are crimes
unpunished and questions about the disappearances left unanswered,” says Ines
Ragni, a Mother from the southern
“Our children wanted to live, but their
lives were taken away. The youth in the street protesting today are part of the
memory of our children,” echo the Mothers.
“As the youth today take up our banner, the
30,000 ‘disappeared’ will never be ‘disappeared.’ They will (always) be
present.”
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Scroll Down Website Link to Video: http://womennewsnetwork.net/2010/10/21/argentina-mothers/
This historic video shows the desperation
of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in the early days of their campaign in the
1970s. By reaching journalists around the world, the actions and voice of the
Mothers began to bring light to the the terrible plight of the families of ‘the
disappeared’ in
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