Supported by guards, but with their heads, walk the world famous, but now fragile mothers through the cheering crowd at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.
It is the two thousandth time that they demonstrate. In the crowd they can be recognized directly by their white head scarves, symbolizing the cloth diapers of their missing children.
world-famous
Their protest has become world famous, but it started forty years ago, suddenly and spontaneously. The military junta of dictator Videla was in power from 1976-1983 in Argentina. Tens of thousands of young opponents of the regime and their children disappeared.
When their mother came to ask the authorities for clarification, they were sent away. In protest, they are then silently to walk across the square. Every week after that they came back almost thirty years.
Radical for wife
The founder of the Mothers underwent the same fate as the children. According to Amnesty came several women in 1977 from a church when they were met by a group of heavily armed men. Twelve of these mothers never returned.
The leadership was taken over by Hebe de Bonafini, but she was so radical in the eighties its positions to the Mothers broke up into two groups. Hebe de Bonafini is still controversial.Last week, she was almost arrested as hundreds of protesters did not occur.
Stopped or not?
Meanwhile, they run again, but actually kept their mother's last major event in 2006. The then President Kirchner did when first serious investigation into the disappearances, were the mothers. But actually were the heavy 24-hour marches physically especially not be sustained. Now they are dissatisfied with the policy of the new president and they run every Thursday again a few laps on the square.
Nelleke Noordervliet wrote in 2006 in the Historical Newspaper on the famous protest that a mother is sacrosanct and her emotions are always pure. Still, she doubts the sincerity decades later: ".. It has become the justification for their existence a livelihood Sellers of Silly-Mother Souvenirs put down their stalls around the circle which is run."
Anyway the Mothers have become worldwide symbol of human rights abuses. Their name will always be inextricably linked to the Plaza de Mayo, the Meiplein of the Argentine capital.
They won many awards, but their greatest wish never came true clarity about the fate of their children. And so they continue in the coming years their walk round on Thursday afternoon, so yesterday for the two thousandth time.
By: NOS Editors: Photo: REUTERS
Reactie plaatsen
Reacties