Juana de Pargament speaks boldly, passionately, and without stopping. This indomitable 90- year-old marches around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires at 3:30 PM every Thursday, arm-in-arm with other mothers.
Juana is a founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who protested their children’s disappearances during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship, the so-called “dirty war,” from 1976- 1983. She has been marching for 27 years
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo began the fight as a group of 14 on April 30, 1977. After former president Isabel Peron declared a state of siege. Under the “Doctrine of National Security,” fighting communism and upholding Christianity were trademarks of a regime based on censorship and persecution of sub- versives.
Dazed by a sudden surge in the kidnappings, which had begun as early as 1971, the Mothers banded together to demand information. When General Jorge Rafael Videla refused to meet with them, former President Azucena Villaflor suggested they assemble in the plaza facing the Casa Rosada—the presidential palace.
The middle-aged and older women, most of whom had never been politically active before, suddenly faced snarling dogs, police brutality, and death threats, which continue today.
According to Bonafini’s account in the History of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the women were condemned as mothers of “terrorists.” Several original Mothers, including Villaflor, disappeared. In 1979 they resorted to secret church meetings for fear of harshening repercussions. “Our children were militants, they knew about all this, but we didn’t. We were still working in our kitchens,” says Juana. “We went into the streets to look for them. We knocked on every door. Everything was, ‘No. We haven’t seen them, we don’t know them, we don’t recognize them.’”
The Mothers eventually discovered that their children were held in 340 secret detention centers where they were tortured, killed, and sometimes thrown into the ocean
Juana says lawyers, doctors, and psychologists participated in the systematic torture, with doctors determining how much prisoners could withstand each day without dying. The Mothers have also accused Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and the sugar refinery Ledesma of lending trucks for kidnappings.
Juana and the other Mothers agitated internationally, eventually provoking criticism of Argentina by journalists, human rights organizations, and the United Nations— earning a UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1999 and inspiring women’s groups from Holland to Guatemala. However, even as they were promised help, State Department officials maintained covert business relationships with the military. In fact, many military officials had been trained in U.S. military academies to fight the spread of “communism.”
“We believed they were listening with love and understanding. But it was not true,” Juana jabs the air for emphasis. “Carter tricked us, they all did.”
During Operation Condor—the code name for the secret regional South American plan to share intelligence on suspected Marxists—the Mothers received no support from the Chilean military government and activists were detained in Brazil and Uruguay as they tried to escape. The Mothers also received little aid from the Catholic Church, even though nuns and priests also disappeared. “Of the 80 bishops, only four understood us,” says Juana. “The rest supported the military, like the pope.” According to Juana, former papal envoy Pio Laghi entered concentration camps and signed death sentences. “He kicked the kids that were being tortured and said, ‘Tell them everything you know and you will be saved.’ And they still weren’t saved.”
Juana, who is Jewish, claims about 2,000 Jews were among the disappeared, with Jewish prisoners receiving “double the torture.” They were made to walk on all fours and paint their bodies with swastikas, as Nazi music blared. When the Mothers asked the Israeli embassy to save the Jewish disappeared, the Mothers were told Israel didn’t want them either because they were revolutionaries.
After the transfer to democracy in 1983, the Mothers met with new President Raúl Alfonsín, but found him unresponsive. He formed the National Commission on the Disappeared (CONADEP), which released explosive details of military repression, but found only 9,000 disappeared. The Mothers estimate at least 30,000
Even as they continue to agitate, the Mothers have also moved into a new role—teachers. Visitors often use them as a primary resource to understand a past Argentines are loath to discuss. The Mothers have written several histories, profiles of the disappeared, and a monthly newspaper. Their headquarters houses a revolutionary bookstore, cafe, and library. In 2000, they began the Popular University of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, offering an activist education unavailable in mainstream schools.
Juana thinks young activists should immerse themselves in history, but steer clear of violent conflict. “Save the country with concepts, with feelings, with morality, not with the savagery of the military,” she says. “We fight so new leaders are born to govern with honesty and love. When we don’t live anymore, we want people to remember our example and what happened in this country that made us give our lives to change it once and for all.”
Amanda Schoenberg has worked as a reporter for The Tico Times, in San Jose, Costa Rica.
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