Abstract
Grandmothers lead a protest seeking justice for the missing activist Santiago Maldonado in the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 19 October 2017
CREDIT: David Fernandez/Rex
It’s all part of the work of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, a group of women who, since 1977, have been looking for the more than 500 children who “disappeared” during Argentina’s deadly military dictatorship.
While most of the grandmothers’ work is now conducted from their offices and lecture halls, they still put on their white headscarves and go out in the streets to protest. Since August this year, they have been taking part in massive protests demanding answers about the whereabouts of Santiago Maldonado, an activist who went missing in August after border patrol agents dismantled a protest, and whose body was found 78 days after his disappearance.
Earlier this year, the grandmothers also marched with tens of thousands of people protesting against a controversial supreme court ruling that reduced the sentence of Luis Muiña, who had been condemned to 13 years in prison for kidnap and torture during the military dictatorship.
But the most important protest for the grandmothers is the one they have been leading for decades every March 24, the day of remembrance for truth and justice, which commemorates the victims of the “dirty war” and is held on the anniversary of the coup that brought the military to power.
Every year, the grandmothers are accompanied by their families and thousands of other Argentinians to remember the victims of the war. Many of them are now pushed in wheelchairs or need walking sticks. But whatever the means, the grandmothers are on the frontline of the protest every year, carrying a long flag with the photos of all the missing children.
For 80-year-old Roa, the youngest of the grandmothers, the decades-long work has not been easy. “There are days when I wake up and I struggle to get myself here,” she said. “But when that happens I look at the photo of my son and think: ‘What would he say if I didn’t keep on fighting today?’. That’s when I realise that I have to keep going, so I get up and head to work.”
Roa’s eldest son, José Poblete, was kidnapped on 29 November 1978 together with his wife, Gertrudis Hlaczik, and their eightmonth-old daughter. They were among the thousands of “disappeared” people during the “dirty war”.
Between 1976 and 1983, generals kidnapped, tortured and killed political dissidents, left-wing activists, students, academics and anyone they believed to be associated with the socialist movement. To this day, the total number of disappearances remains contested. A truth commission that conducted research between 1983 and 1984 established that at least 8,960 people were murdered. Human rights groups put the number closer to 30,000.
For 40 years, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo have been demanding that the children who were kidnapped and placed with families during this period – most of them adopted by military figures or put into orphanages – be restored to their birth families, making their demand one of the longest-running protests in the world. In many cases the children have no idea they are adopted, or that they were taken from their families, and it is a lengthy process to try to identify them.
For Roa, the length of their fight brings up mixed feelings. “Being a Grandmother of Plaza de Mayo is not something to be proud of, because having a disappeared grandchild is not something to be proud of,” she said.
“But we are proud of the community that we’ve been able to build around our fight, a fight that we’ve been carrying out together for all these years and that we’ve been able to push forward.”
Soon after her son’s disappearance, Roa heard of a group of mothers and grandmothers who had started gathering at Plaza de Mayo, the park in front of the national house of government in Buenos Aires, to demand answers about their missing children and grandchildren.
“During the days and weeks after the kidnapping of José, I looked for him by myself. I sent a habeas corpus, did a lot of paperwork, went to hospitals, prisons, morgues, churches, houses for mentally ill people.”
Reunited at last: Buscarita Roa with her granddaughter Claudia, who she found after decades of campaigning
CREDIT: Lucia He
That’s when Roa decided to join the group of protesting grandmothers and mothers, hoping that searching together would be easier than searching alone.
“I saw them at the park, wearing white headscarves on their heads, walking around in circles because they were told they couldn’t stand still in a public space, that they had to circulate.
“I was looking at them from afar when one of the mothers held my hand, brought me to where the rest of them were and gave me a headscarf. That’s how my work with the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo started.”
In addition to walking in circles, the women would often walk in pairs, as groups of more than three or four people could be arrested.
So far, the grandmothers have been able to find 125 of the missing grandchildren but, as Roa highlights, it has been a hard slog. When they first started their search, even talking about the subject was dangerous. Many in the country remained sympathetic to the dictatorship and the press would not cover their plight. In December 1977, three of the group’s leaders were abducted and killed. Leads were buried under the silence and complicity that surrounded the dictatorship. But since the dictatorship’s end, their search has become easier.
A key tool has also helped with this search: the National Bank of Genetic Data, which the grandmothers persuaded Argentina’s post-dictatorship government to establish. The bank was created in 1987 and has since collected and stored hundreds of genetic samples provided by relatives of disappeared children.
“Before the establishment of the bank, even if we found a grandchild, it was very hard to prove his or her identity. How could you prove to the justice system that the grandchild is related to some family member? Now, even if they can’t find the grandmother, the genetic data of the siblings, uncles and aunts and cousins are all in the bank.”
Besides working to make sure the bank has as many samples from family members as possible, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo also continue their search through other initiatives. One of these is the Theatre for Identity, plays seeking to raise awareness about the kidnapping of babies and children during the military dictatorship and the systematic masking of their identities. The grandmothers also travel the country raising awareness for their cause.
For Roa, this work has paid off. In 2000, after 22 years of searching, she heard about a general who, years ago, had come home with a baby that was about eight months old. Together with the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, she took the case to court, where a judge determined that the woman was Claudia Poblete Hlaczik, Roa’s granddaughter.
“It wasn’t easy for her. At first she totally rejected us,” she said. “But, little by little, we started getting closer until, finally, one day, five years after we had first met, she gave me the first hug and said: ‘Thank you, grandmother, for looking for me and for giving me my true identity.’ To me, having my granddaughter sharing things with me, coming to my house for lunch on Saturdays, calling me on the phone, writing to me on Facebook, makes all these years of fighting worth it.”
Having found her granddaughter, Roa feels a responsibility to keep looking for the remaining children, especially as the rest of the grandmothers grow older. At its peak, more than 180 grandmothers were part of the group. Now, only a handful remain.
“It’s hard to think about it, but the truth is that, as the years go by, it is harder for us to continue our work. Some of the grandmothers are sick, some of them passed away, some others have Alzheimer’s. But the grandmothers that are still here have decided to stay and continue working because we want to find all of our grandchildren.
“Even if you’ve found your own grandchild, you stay because you think of the grandmother who is sick in bed and still hasn’t found hers. To us, the grandchildren we are searching for are all ours. Whenever we find a grandchild we have a big party. We drink cider and eat cake, and celebrate the finding of the grandchild as if it were a new birth.”
Besides the challenge of an ageing group, another obstacle facing the grandmothers’ work is the ever-changing political landscape in Argentina.
“The last change in government [in 2015] was very drastic for us, for the simple reason that the new government seems not to care about our work, and has been very austere with the financial help it provides,” she said.
“Our main source of income has always been from the government. That money supports our house, the publishing of our books and newsletters, the many other expenses we have. But since the new government of Mauricio Macri came to power, it seems like we need to be constantly begging the authorities to send us something to pay for our expenses. It’s not like we need much. We just need enough to keep our work going.”
In spite of these challenges, Roa is hopeful that, one day, all of the missing grandchildren will be found and told their true identity.
“We are working with the grandchildren we’ve already found to make sure that once we are all gone, they can continue with the work we started. Our hope is that, one day, all of the missing grandchildren will be found and that it will be recognised as the triumph of the grandmothers, of the work and the fight that we’ve led through our lives.”