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The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a
remarkable organization of Argentine women human rights activists. They have been active for more than twenty
years. Their exceptional work has been
sustained for this length of time by two interwoven beliefs. One is that they were born again of their
children. The other is that they have
become mothers to all victims of repression in contemporary Argentina.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo embraced these beliefs as a direct
result of the lives lived by their children and the horrific deaths many of
them met. The children of the Mothers of
the Plaza de Mayo were kidnapped and nearly all were murdered by Argentina’s
military during its “dirty war” against the Left from 1976 to 1983. The current Argentine government acknowledges
that some 9,000 of the leftists and labour leaders who died at the hands of the
military during the dirty war are unaccounted for. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other
human rights activists believe the number of dead who remain unaccounted for is
more like 30,000. No one really knows
for certain because these victims of the dirty war “disappeared” without a
trace.
These disappearances and the
documented deaths of thousands of others took place for a definite reason. Their occurrence was an integral part of a
U.S. – backed effort to crush the Argentine Left and facilitate the
implementation of the same kind of neo-liberal policies that were imposed in
Chile by the Pinochet regime and numerous other repressive, U.S. – backed
regimes across Latin America. These
disappearances went hand in hand with Argentine government policies that
slashed real wages, outlawed existing union contracts, led to the firing of
thousands of union activists from their jobs and prompted the privatization
much of the economy.
The Mothers of the Plaza de
Mayo became acutely conscious of these phenomena as they forged their campaign
to demand that the Argentine government account for the whereabouts of their
missing children. And as their political
consciousness grew they became relentless foes of both the neo-liberal agenda
that lay behind the dirty war and of those who bear responsibility for its
continued implementation. Furthermore,
in the process of opposing this agenda, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began
to see themselves as inheritors of the ideals of their children and as
responsible for carrying forward the work of their children.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have no illusions. They know that the large majority of their
kidnapped children were tortured and murdered by the military during the dirty
war. Nonetheless, they remain steadfast
in refusing government offers of reparations for their children’s deaths. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo insist that
they will not formally accept that any of their children are dead until
the government comes forward with
documentation to show what happened to them.
This stance offers the only hope for seeing that justice is done with
respect to what happened during the dirty war.
The civilian government that took over in
Argentina after the military gave up power pardoned the perpetrators of the
dirty war. Despite this, the prospects
for achieving a real measure of justice for the crimes of the dirty war have
improved recently due to the efforts underway in Spain to extradite and
prosecute Chilean General Pinochet for the crimes he committed in Chile during
roughly the same time period.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo want to
make the most of the opportunity presented by the efforts of the Spanish judge
who is attempting to prosecute Pinochet and are directly collaborating with his
work. They understand that a solid
foundation exists for collaborating with him to bring Pinochet to justice. This is because the Latin American military
dictatorships of the period collaborated in arranging the kidnapping and murder
of leftists living in exile in other Latin American countries.
Most significantly, this
collaboration between the judge pursuing Pinochet and the Mothers of the Plaza
de Mayo is certain to be stepped up now that he has charged nearly one hundred
Argentine military and police officers with having committed torture and murder
during the dirty war. And it is aided by
the fact that hundreds of Spanish nationals were among their victims.
In effect, these
developments have made the campaign begun by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
in the late 1970s international in scope.
Furthermore, the increasingly international character of their campaign
has been enhanced by the formation of support groups in several countries,
including Canada. The Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo have also built ongoing links with like-minded organizations in
other countries. The EZLN in Mexico is a
notable example.
Continuing Repression
The ongoing work of the Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo has not gone on unnoticed.
It has earned them international awards from bodies such as UNESCO and
the European Parliament. It has also
been met with harassment and repression.
Three of the organization’s founding members have joined the ranks of
the disappeared since its work began.
They also frequently endure threats and their organization’s offices in
downtown Buenos Aires are often broken into.
None of these things deter the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. They remain defiant in wanting to continue
their work and that of their children.
To that end one of their more recent initiatives has been to establish a
popular university based in their offices.
Its goal is to educate youth to engage in political action. Inspired by this project one of the Mothers
of the Plaza de Mayo recently proclaimed that they want to give youth dreams
and ethics and a love for political struggle to solve the problems of the
people.
Bruce Allen is the 1st
Vice-President of the St. Catharines & District Labour Council. He recently visited Argentina.
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