The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo announced Friday that one of the hundreds of children snatched from their parents and given up for adoption during the 1976-1983 dictatorship had been found after a long search.
The iconic human rights group announced at a press conference in Buenos Aires that the 138th “nieto,” or grandchild, had been identified after genetic testing. The individual is the child of two left-wing political activists who were abducted and disappeared in 1976, at the very beginning of the military junta’s era of state terrorism.
“This is the son of Marta Enriqueta Pourtalé and Juan Carlos Villamayor, born in December 1976. This marks 138 cases resolved in these 47 years of unwavering search for truth and identity,” said Abuelas President Estela de Carlotto.
“On December 10, 1976, the couple were abducted from their home in Buenos Aires in an operation carried out by plainclothes personnel. She was eight and a half months pregnant,” Carlotto added, speaking at the auditorium of the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos, which used to house the clandestine detention centre at the ex-ESMA (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada) Navy Mechanics School.
Pourtalé and Villamayor were members of the Montoneros guerrilla group. After their abduction, the couple were seen at ESMA, one of the largest centres of torture and extermination, where more than 5,000 political prisoners were held, of whom only around a hundred survived, according to human rights organisations.
“It is likely that the 138th grandchild was born there. To date, more than 30 births have been recorded” at ESMA, Carlotto noted.
The announcement was broadcast live from the auditorium of the Casa por la Identidad, a space recovered by Abuelas in one of the buildings of the ex-ESMA, which was occupied by the Navy until 2007.
Manuel Gonçalves Granada, a member of the Abuelas Executive Board and Executive Secretary of the Comisión Nacional por el Derecho a la Identidad (CONADI), a body dedicated to the search for identity, reported that the man is “deeply moved” and has confirmed that he will reunite with his family.
Along with hundreds of others, CONADI had been investigating the whereabouts of Pourtalé and Villamayor’s missing child since 1999.
After relevant information was provided by both this institution and the Judiciary, the man was contacted to undergo DNA testing, which was compared with biological samples provided by various relatives to the Banco Nacional de Datos Genéticos (BNDG).
Finally, only on Thursday, Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas informed the 138th grandchild of the formal results.
Carlotto explained that the grandchild, whose identity was not officially disclosed, has a brother, Diego Antonio, who was born in 1972 to Marta and a previous partner.
“I am overwhelmed with emotion. You are very welcome. Thank you so much, Abuelas. You are the pride of the nation, a pride for all Argentines,” said Diego himself in an audio message played in the hall, sent from Spain, where he resides.
The last grandchild to recover his identity was Daniel Santucho Navajas, the 133rd, in July 2023. He is the son of Cristina Navajas, who was abducted in 1976 and gave birth in the Pozo de Banfield, a clandestine detention centre in Greater Buenos Aires. His father, Julio Santucho, searched for him for 46 years.
In September 2023, the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF), CONADI, and the judiciary resolved cases 134, 135, 136, and 137, involving four pregnant women abducted during the dictatorship and murdered before giving birth: Dora Elena Vargas, Olga Liliana Vaccarini, Hilda Margarita Farías, and Liliana Beatriz Girardi.
The discovery of the 138th grandchild is the first case announced by the organisation since September 2023, when it revealed the resolution of four cases of families searching for children born during the captivity of their mothers.
In all those cases, the identities of women murdered before giving birth were established.
It is also the first case resolved under Javier Milei’s Presidency, which outrightly challenges the historical narrative of the dictatorship and its reign of terror.
Both Milei and his right-wing vice-president, Victoria Villarruel — who comes from a military family and has close ties to the Armed Forces — question the estimated number of disappeared persons put forward by human rights organisations (30,000), claiming the actual figure is closer to 8,700.
Carlotto, who continues to search for around 300 grandchildren stolen during their mothers’ captivity, expressed concern on Friday over the national government’s stance on human rights policies.
“This restitution is, once again, evidence of the consequences of state terrorism in the present, and of the need to prioritise human rights policies to ensure crimes against humanity cease,” said Carlotto.
Since taking office a year ago, Milei has implemented severe austerity, slashing the size of government and shuttering key agencies.
In this context, Carlotto reminded attendees that the Human Rights Secretariat, under the National Justice Ministry, has supported the work of human rights organisations “in seeking the answers that perpetrators have never been willing to give” and is currently suffering “one of the most brutal cuts, with staff reductions as part of a dismantling plan.”
– TIMES/AFP/PERFIL
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