Delia Cecilia Giovanola, one of the founders of the Argentine humanitarian organization Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, died this Monday at the age of 96, seven after reuniting with her grandson, stolen after being born in captivity during the last dictatorship (1976-1983).
“A fighter woman has left, a militant of memory, truth, justice and joy,” wrote the organization created in 1977.
On November 5, 2015, after 39 years of searching, Giovanola had managed to meet Martín Ogando Montesano, her grandson, who months earlier had agreed to take the proof of identity at the Argentine consulate of the country where he lives (which was never disclosed). DNA that allowed “verifying his identity by 99.99%”.
He was the 118th grandson recovered by Grandmothers, who estimates that there were 400 children stolen during the dictatorship. Another 12 have appeared since then and she, like other grandmothers, continued to accompany each reunion.
Martín is the son of Jorge Oscar Ogando and Stella Maris Montesano, both leftist militants kidnapped from their home in 1976 in La Plata, 60 km south of Buenos Aires, when she was eight months pregnant. The couple already had a three-year-old daughter, Virginia.
“Little Virginia was left in her crib. Warned, Delia went to look for her and took care of her, while she was desperately looking for Jorge and Stella Maris, ”recalled her part.
After turning 18, Virginia helped her grandmother in the search but plunged into a deep depression she took her own life at age 39, four years before her brother appeared.
From the testimonies of survivors it was learned that the couple was taken to the clandestine detention center called ‘Pozo de Banfield’, on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, and that it was there that the young woman gave birth on December 5, 1976, “handcuffed”. , blindfolded and on top of a sheet”, according to the statement.
“Two days later, her baby was taken from her and was sold to a married couple and she was taken to the ‘Pozo de Quilmes,’” another clandestine prison, says the report. The couple is still missing.
In October 1977, Delia was part of the women’s group that founded Abuelas. In addition to looking for their kidnapped and disappeared children, as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo did, they dedicated themselves to looking for babies born in captivity and illegally handed over to families, generally accomplices of the regime.
A photo of Giovanola is famous in the Plaza de Mayo with a poster that read “The Malvinas are Argentine, the disappeared too”, which he exhibited in the midst of the war with Great Britain in 1982 during the dictatorship.
In this period 30,000 people were disappeared, according to human rights organizations.
