March 24 marked 47 years since the US-backed military coup overthrew the left-wing government of President Isabel Martínez de Perón in Argentina (July 1974-March 1976), and installed the bloodiest dictatorship in the history of the country. The dictatorship period was marked by state terrorism and human rights violations. During the seven years and nine months of military dictatorship (March 1976-December 1983), Argentine security forces, along with right-wing death squads, hunted down and silenced anyone believed to be resisting the military junta, or associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism, the Montoneros movement, or against the neoliberal economic policies imposed by the military junta.
It is estimated that over 30,000 students, activists, trade unionists, writers, journalists, artists and any citizens suspected of being left-wing activists were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared. The extensive research into the period and testimonies from survivors suggest that those tens of thousands of detainees were clandestinely murdered. Several thousands were killed in the “planes of deaths” wherein they were sedated, loaded into aircrafts, and then thrown into the Atlantic Ocean or La Plata River. Additionally, the armed forces seized their property and their babies. According to available data, around 500 children, who were detained with their militant parents or born in captivity, were appropriated as war trophies by the forces and handed over to military families, sold or abandoned in state institutions. So far, the true identities of 132 grandchildren have been recovered through the tireless work of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
In March 2001, on the 25th anniversary of the coup, Argentines took to the streets en masse across the country to protest these human rights atrocities. The size of the turn-out showed that the feelings about this tragic period of history were as deep as ever. In the following years, government authorities took several steps in order to honor the victims and ensure that those horrible times are never repeated. In 2002, under the interim government of President Eduardo Alberto Duhalde, the Argentine Congress declared that this tragic day would be remembered as the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice. In 2006, under the presidency of Néstor Carlos Kirchner, it was declared a public national holiday in Argentina.
For over three decades, every year, on March 24, hundreds of thousands of citizens, relatives of the disappeared people, members of social movements, human rights organizations and left-wing political parties march to the Plaza de Mayo in the capital Buenos Aires to commemorate the victims of the last dictatorship and demand justice for the crimes against humanity committed by the State during that period.
Last Friday, under the banner of “47 years after the genocidal coup, Memory, Truth and Justice to defend Democracy, Judicial Corporation never again,” hundreds of thousands of Argentines hit the streets across the country to honor the memory of the victims of enforced disappearance and to say “never again.”
In Buenos Aires, members and sympathizers of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the human rights organizations that have been at the forefront of the struggle to justice for and truth about their disappeared relatives, marched from Mayo Avenue to Plaza de Mayo, carrying a large flag with the photos of the 30,000 victims.
The demonstrators also paid homage to the co-founder and former president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo association, Hebe de Bonafini, who died on November 20, 2022.
Likewise, they also expressed their support for Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the face of judicial and political persecution against her, raising slogans and waving flags and banners with her photos.
Massive demonstrations and marches demanding justice for the dictatorship’s victims were held in the cities such as Mar del Plata, Choco, Córdoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Jujuy, Entre Ríos, Río Negro, Neuquén, Salta, and Tucumán, among others.
The demonstrators across the country demanded that the judicial processes against the perpetrators of those horrendous human rights crimes, continue regardless of their old age and they be brought to justice.
Meanwhile, President Alberto Fernández announced the construction of a new Space for Memory and the Promotion of Human Rights in Campo de Mayo, a military base and one of the secret detention centers used by the military regime, as a step forward in “valuing collective memory.”
Anunciamos la construcción del nuevo Espacio para la Memoria y la Promoción de los Derechos Humanos en Campo de Mayo, ex #CCDTyE.
Como cada #24deMarzo, nos abrazamos y marchamos poniendo en valor la memoria colectiva. pic.twitter.com/UNuOqplgFy
— Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) March 24, 2023
Never again!
At Plaza de Mayo, the annual statement by the human rights organizations, such as the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons, and the Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Oblivion and Silence (HIJOS) that were formed as a response to the state terrorism and repression during the dictatorship, was read.
“Forty-seven years after the genocidal coup, we return to this Plaza de Mayo to remember 30,000 struggles, and today more than ever, because we face sectors that, almost 40 years after having recovered it, install hatred in our democracy,” read the first line of the statement.
“There was a judicial corporation at the service of the political persecution of State terrorism and the appropriation of children and babies, led by economic groups that financed the terror, benefited from it and also set up mechanisms to guarantee impunity. Decades later, the strategies of persecution and political and institutional violence have changed their methodologies and protagonists. The groups in power no longer use the Armed Forces to condition the popular sectors and the democratic system according to their interests and needs, but directly the judicial system, transformed today into just another corporation, through a fierce strategy of persecution against the political opposition and social fighters,” the statement added later.
“Hatred and political persecution have reached very serious limits within democracy. That is why we demand a responsible investigation of the attempted assassination of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and we demand an end to the proscription process against her,…organized in the shadows by those who intend to ban her as a candidate,” the statement added referring to the lawfare against the former president.
“We know the Judiciary in depth. We have learned that we can call it more often the Judiciary than the Justice. That is why we reaffirm that the existence of a judicial corporation of these characteristics in our democracy is unacceptable. We once again state that we support the impeachment trial promoted by the government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández against the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, composed of Carlos Rosenkrantz, Horacio Rosatti, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Ricardo Lorenzetti. Memory, Truth and Justice to defend democracy, Judicial Corporation NEVER AGAIN!,” the statement stressed.
The statement highlighted the significant advances made in the justice process following the inauguration of President Néstor Kirchner such as the annulment of impunity laws, the official apology by the Argentine State for the atrocious crimes of the dictatorship, the strengthening of institutions to search for disappeared people and victims, the payment of debt to the IMF, the nationalization of oil fields, airlines, the solidarity retirement system, among other measures towards greater social justice, economic freedom and political sovereignty.
“With the arrival of the national and popular governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández, we were able to hope that impunity would be transformed into justice, and that it would advance and grow stronger,” the statement added.
In the face of current threats, the organizations affirmed that “despite all the obstacles to the consolidation of democracy, we reaffirm our commitment to this system in favor of popular interests, expanding and defending rights from the attacks of those who seek to violate them. Once again, we say: no to silence and indifference towards the signs that denote actions against democracy.”
The organizations also criticized the Judiciary for showing leniency towards those responsible for the genocide. “We have managed to have 1,115 perpetrators of the genocide convicted, whose sentences are final in less than 40% of the cases, not due to the judicial complicity to sustain impunity. But of the total detainees, in preventive detention or serving a sentence, almost 80% have the benefit of house arrest…with practically no one having health problems that justify this benefit…We say to the Judiciary that so easily sends them home with house arrest, grants parole or releases for two-thirds of the sentence, that it does not comply with the victims…We want to hold a profound debate on parolees for genocides. We also demand the opening of all intelligence files.”
“296 sentences in 17 years: of course, we have come a long way. But the tree does not cover the forest and we continue to demand trial and punishment for all those guilty,” the organizations stressed.
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