Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and Democratization – after the dirty wars and today
This week, I read “The Personal is Political – Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo” along with Chapter 3 – “The Military – Heading for the Exits?” Particularly relevant to Navarro article was the focus on the human rights abuses that resulted in the disappearance of officially 9,000 people who were treated as a threat to the order of the junta in Argentina, though human rights organizations say this number is closer to 30,000 (Smith & Sells 76).
In 1983, the military junta in Argentina transitioned to civilian rule under democratically elected President Raul Alfonsin (Smith & Sells 76). This is where the Navarro article ends – after all, Las Madres had been revolutionary in fearlessly protesting against a brutal military junta and this was the focus of the article. After reading the textbook chapter, though, I felt that this could not be the end of their story. Surely, the mothers would have been protesting the amnesty that the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas had given to torturers and murderers. For example, I wondered what their response had been to the June 1987 bill passed by the congress to “exonerate soldiers who were merely following orders during the course of the dirty war” (Smith & Sells 78). Where were their children and where was their justice?
It was surprisingly difficult to find statements by the mothers responding to legislation passed by the new democratic government (even in Spanish!). Perhaps the most telling information, though, is that the mothers continued their Thursday afternoon marches of resistance long after the junta transitioned to democracy. In fact, the mothers marched in protest of the government’s handling of the aftermath until January 26, 2006. At this point, the mothers had marched for 1,500 Thursdays (Barry 1). To me, the fact that the mothers marched for all of those years is an interesting topic to study. There was no mention of the fact that Las Madres continued to soldier on in the Navarro article, no word of how they continued fighting for what was right. I consider this to be a fault in the article. To me, the strength of the women to carry on for 30 years even though their children were not coming back is as important as the nerve it took to start protesting in a hostile government environment in the first place. This was their way of contributing to democratization – they would not give in until their government listened to them. I was also struck by the collective experience that these women shared that still binds them together. Though the government tried to move on past the human rights abuses, the memory of what happened lives on still through these women.
It is important to note that the mothers still meet every Thursday at the Plaza de Mayo to march in remembrance of their lost children and in protest of other human rights issues in Latin America (Bosco 1). Yet, they announced their final march in resistance to the government because of President Nestor Kirchner’s work to repeal amnesty laws from the 1980s, like the one mentioned in the second paragraph (Chicago Tribune 1). It took 30 years, but the mothers were finally seeing justice for what they spent their lives fighting for. The mothers were very happy with these developments that sentenced long free military members, and one stated that they no longer had grievances with the way that the Argentinian government was dealing with the injustices (Barry 1). This unequivocally shows that Las Madres were not going to give up on their cause until their government answered them.
Most recently in the news, leader Hebe de Bonafini has been ordered to appear in court in connection with embezzlement of millions of dollars from a low-income housing project that Las Madres had sponsored (“Argentine Rights Group…”). As unfortunate as this scandal is, I was interested to see that the mothers had chosen to work on projects like this one. The idea is that the mothers wanted to contribute to the socialist agendas that their disappeared children would have wanted to spearhead. The mothers are fighting for the causes that their children were killed for believing in. The article seemed to suggest that Bonafini was resisting appearance in court but was not suspected to be personally accountable for the embezzlement.
Though the aging group of Las Madres appear at Plaza de Mayo every Thursday afternoon to this day, they hardly make the mainstream news. Their story makes for a nice BBC feature article that people read and empathize with, but probably soon forget. In a way, this is a beautiful resolution. The women who were once ignored, antagonized, and even kidnapped and murdered for taking a stand against the cruelty of government-sanctioned killings of their children have helped to usher in a transparent democracy in which protests are accepted. These women were unyielding in their search for justice for their children and devoted much of their lives to making sure that all who had been tortured and murdered by the Argentinian government would be remembered. They showed strength and determination after their newly born democratic government did not deliver for them. More than a story of rebellion against a junta, this is an amazing example of what a democracy should be – a place where people can make their voices heard. In this way, I see Las Madres as responsible for the strong democracy that Argentina enjoys today.
These articles on Las Madres were used as sources in this blog post.
Democracy in Latin America by Peter H. Smith and Cameron J. Sells
*“Argentine Mothers mark 35 years marching for justice.” By Vladimir Hernandez
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-17847134
“Last March of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo” By Jeff Barry
http://baires.elsur.org/archives/last-march-of-the-madres-de-plaza-de-mayo/
“The Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Three Decades of Human Rights’ Activism: Embeddedness, Emotions, and Social Movements” By Fernando Bosco
*“Argentine mothers rejoice at repeal of amnesty laws’ from the Chicago Tribune
“Argentine rights group head Hebe de Bonafini faces arrest” from BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36982976
“The Personal is Political – Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo” by M. Navarro
I would especially recommend the articles marked with a star for extra reading about Las Madres
Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo continue to protest in 1991 – 8 years after the junta transitioned to democracy