Remembering Argentina’s Mothers of the Disappeared
April 25, 2016
Remembering Argentina’s Mothers of the Disappeared
by Rivera Sun
Campaign Nonviolence is a movement to build a culture of active nonviolence. We share the stories of nonviolent action, drawing lessons, strength, and strategy from the global grassroots movements for change. Throughout the year, we look at historic struggles. This week commemorates the 39th anniversary of the first protest of the Argentina’s Mothers of the Disappeared.
On April 30, 1977, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti and a dozen other mothers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina’s capitol city to demand justice for their children, who had been “disappeared” by the military junta during the Dirty War period – a reign of terror that would last from 1976 to 1983, backed by the CIA.
A tense atmosphere of fear pervaded the years of the military regime in Argentina. Opposition was not tolerated; tens of thousands of people were simply “disappeared.” Only some of the bodies would be found. More than 250 children were taken from mothers in prison camps, or from those who were disappeared, and put up for adoption. The demonstrations of the Mothers of the Disappeared clearly took extreme courage. They started small in size, but within a year, hundreds of women were participating in the weekly demonstrations. They carried signs with photos of their sons and daughters. The regime tried to discredit them by calling the women, “las locas,” the madwomen.
On December 10, 1978, International Human Rights Day, the Mothers published an advertisement in the newspaper with the names of their missing children. That evening and soon thereafter, three of the Mothers themselves were disappeared.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/25/remembering-argentinas-mothers-of-the-disappeared/
