Tens of thousands of people marched nationwide Monday to remember victims of state terrorism on the 49th anniversary of the coup d’état that brought Argentina’s brutal 1976-1983 military dictatorship to power.
Holding aloft torches and photos of missing loved ones, the demonstrators gathered under the banner of "Memory, Truth and Justice” as the annual remembrance march got underway.
On tNational Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, a public holiday, human rights organisations, political parties, labour unions, social groups and student movements united in Buenos Aires for a march that ended at the Plaza de Mayo, in front of government house.
United by their opposition to President Javier Milei’s government, Argentina’s leading human rights organisations marched together for the first time in nearly two decades since a 2006 split over the direction of the movement.
The final stages of the rally saw the reading of a consensus document by veteran human rights campaigners Estela de Carlotto, Taty Almeida and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
The march was led by factions of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, two NGOs which have fought tirelessly to identify and bring attention to those disappeared by the dictatorship.
Like last year, the rally had a fierce political tone. The Milei government, since taking office, has defunded human rights bodies and sought to challenge widely held views about the dictatorship’s reign of terror and its tally of victims.
The President, along with Vice-President Victoria Villarruel, has been accused of seeking to whitewash elements of the dictatorship's time in power.
Hours before the process, the government announced it would declassify intelligence files on the actions of the Armed Forces during the dictatorship's 1976-1983 reign. The files will be transferred to Argentina’s National Archives, said Milei’s top spokesperson.
Human rights groups say approximately 30,000 people disappeared under the military junta.
The Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, which conducts the searches for children alleged to have been stolen at birth from women detained by the security apparatus, is still looking for victims, many of whom may be unaware of their true identity.
"In this long fight, we have resolved 139 cases" out of a suspected 350 to 400 stolen children, said Carlotto during Monday's march.
"We need all of society to find them all; it's never too late... the state must guarantee the restitution of our granddaughters and grandsons," the president of the Abuelas said.
"Appropriation is an enforced disappearance and until the true identity is known, it [the crime] continues to be committed,” declared the veteran rights activist.
Argentina's dictatorship was one of the most brutal of the slew of military regimes that sowed terror in Latin America from the 1960s through 1980s.
Milei, however, has questioned the estimated number of disappeared, raising the ire of many.
In a separate interview, Carlotto confirmed that she had no dialogue with Milei, but would sit down to talk with him if asked.
"With all the presidents we have spoken, to combine the needs and the relationship. With this one it is impossible," she said.
Several in the crowd held up signs criticising the La Libertad Avanza leader, whose austerity measures have led to job cuts at the National Human Rights Secretariat and at memory sites built where prisons and clandestine detention and torture centres once stood.
"Milei, garbage, you are the dictatorship," chanted many as they waved Argentine flags and sporting scarves with the words “Nunca más” (“Never again”).
Coming weeks after violent clashes with police at a pensioners's march, Monday's demonstration passed by peacefully.
"Today I feel that we must be here more than ever to ensure we don't lose the memory of the horror Argentina lived through," said María Eva Gómez, a 57-year-old shop worker who marched with her husband and three adolescent children.
"We live in a democracy that costs us a great deal of innocent blood. The only way to preserve it is by keeping that in mind," she added.
"There are still missing people that we haven't found ... that's why the demonstration was so massive," said Elías Pérez, a 68-year-old retired doctor.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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