Tens of thousands of people rallied Friday at the iconic Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires and elsewhere in Argentina for the 47th anniversary of the 1976 coup.
Many Argentines chanting “Never Again” gathered for Memorial Day for Truth and Justice, remembering the thousands of victims and those who died under the military dictatorship.
This page of history has also come back into the news with the nomination for the last Oscars of “Argentina, 1985” by Santiago Mitre, a feature film telling the first trial of commanders of the junta in power until 1983.
A statement in the crowded Plaza de Mayo recalled the threats to Argentine democracy, following the assassination attempt on Vice President Cristina Kirchner on September 1, 2022.
“It is impossible to minimize an attempt at magnicide (murder of an important figure in the state, editor’s note). The solidarity and the disgust of the leaders of all Latin America, the United States, Europe and the Pope Francis have shown that the world understands exactly the gravity of what has happened”, underlined this text.
Since the repeal of the 1987 amnesty laws in 2003, 1,115 ex-soldiers and former police officers of the dictatorship have been convicted, according to the Argentine prosecutor’s office responsible for crimes against humanity.
“Argentina has been able to manage a process as painful as that of the coup d’etat, genocide and torture and this is an example recognized worldwide,” the interior minister told Destape radio. Eduardo de Pedro, son of political activists murdered under the dictatorship.
“We must preserve the memory, otherwise history will repeat itself,” pleaded on radio 750 the president of the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto. His organization has so far managed to restore the identity of 132 people kidnapped babies by the dictatorship from their detained or missing parents.
Dictator Jorge Videla, first pardoned by right-wing ex-president Carlos Menem, was sentenced to life imprisonment after this systematic plan to steal babies was brought to light. He died in custody in 2013.
According to human rights organizations, some 30,000 people died or disappeared under Argentina’s dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.
03/25/2023 03:12:13 – Buenos Aires (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
