ARGENTINA: Saying never again, Argentines mark the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup.

Record ID: 447864

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Saying never again, Argentines mark the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup.
  • Date: 24th March 2006
  • Summary: CLOSE OF PROTESTROR SPRAY PAINTING WALL WITH SLOGAN
  • Embargoed: 8th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAM8WLYYRXW0E0IC828S4EC610
  • Story Text: In poignant and dramatic ceremonies across the country, Argentines marked the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military dictatorship that ushered in one of the bloodiest periods in the country's history.
    Hundreds of police and national guardsmen stood outside the Campo de Mayo military bases, providing security to the military complex in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Several hundred leftist protesters marched on the bases. The hooded protesters carried sticks and pipes, ready for a physical confrontation. Ready also for an ideological confrontation, the fringe group carried a poster of communist icon Che Guevara and spray painted anti-military graffiti on the complex's exterior wall.
    The colourful protest ended peacefully on a day when most Argentines want to celebrate the tolerance in their society, and look back at a time when the government of General Jorge Videla imposed a systematic crackdown on leftists and dissidents.
    Over the course of seven years of military rule, thousands either died or disappeared during their so-called "dirty war." The official number is 12,000 although human rights groups put the number at 30,000. Many were tortured before being killed, or drugged and put on "flights of death" to be thrown into the sea.
    One military officer who denounced the regime was Colonel Juan Jaime Cesio, who affirmed the torture, kidnappings and assassinations during the dictatorship. In 1983, he was stripped of his rank and forcibly removed from the military because of his statements.
    On Thursday, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner reinstated Cesio to the military at a ceremony witnessed by Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group formed by mothers whose children had disappeared during the military regime. The historical significance of the day was perhaps best captured when one of the Mothers-- who have steadfastly denounced the military-- hugged Cesio, a former military officer.
    Cesio said the day is a sombre remembrance of a long night the country would never revisit.
    "Tomorrow is a day for meditation, to learn, to affirm ourselves in the deep pain, in the pain full of hope because we know that it will never happen again, never again because a people never gave up," he said. "It's a journey of remembrance, of acknowledgement, of recollection-- for young people to know that their parents and grandparents were immersed in a long, tragic night."
    A bill in Congress, expected to come up for a vote in the next few days, would raise Cesio's rank to general.
    Meanwhile, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who for decades marched around the square demanding justice for their lost children, held a vigil to remember the victims. The women were joined by thousands who survived the regime and, little by little, by a new generation who revel in the freedom of their nation.
    Many of the junta's top leaders, including former General Jorge Videla and Admiral Emilio Massera, were later arrested on charges of kidnapping the babies born to mothers held in captivity during military rule.
    And the mothers and grandmothers, long ignored by Argentine governments, are finally being recognised under the leftist government of current President Nestor Kirchner. Having welcomed these women into government house, Kirchner's government is the first since the bloody dictatorship to publicly acknowledge and address this dark period of Argentine history.
    Having repealed the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, allowing those responsible to be prosecuted once more for the atrocities committed under the military regime, Kirchner has taken the unprecedented step of designating this March 24 a national holiday to commemorate the coup which forever changed the course of Argentine history.
    Under Kirchner, the government has actively engaged in a number of acts intended to address decades of silence and impunity, and reincorporate the disappeared into the nation's official history.
    "Everything the president, the government, the people are doing is a marvel," said Hebe de Bonafini, a leader of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
    And as a number of special events and exhibitions gear up to commemorate and reflect on the country's bloody past, the tens of thousands who were silenced under the military regime are finally being heard.
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