At the age of 93, Hebe de Bonafini died this Sunday, the president and co-founder of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association and central protagonist of the first marches for the appearance alive of the 30,000 detained-disappeared-kidnapped during the civic-military dictatorship that lasted between 1976 and 1983, a commitment to fight that he maintained until the end of his life.
Countless displays of affection and affection flooded social networks since the news broke and the Government decreed three days of national mourning for the death.
Bonafini had been admitted last October to undergo a series of check-ups.
Bonafini was born in a working-class neighborhood in the town of Ensenada and would have turned 94 on December 4.https://t.co/0CGUI67lSK pic.twitter.com/qZ0IJnzZQA
– Telam Agency (@AgenciaTelam) November 20, 2022
According to that medical report, “complementary studies were carried out in relation to non-communicable chronic pathologies and the medical treatment was adjusted.”
On October 13, she was discharged and shortly after, on November 10, she returned to participate in the marches of the Mothers in front of the Casa Rosada.
There he asked to “make a town to get all these shitty judges out”, when referring to the ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice.
But in recent days she had to be hospitalized again due to complications in her health, a situation that was kept strictly confidential by her relatives.
Since the attempted assassination of Vice President Cristina Kirchner, she has made several public appeals to condemn the culprits and protect the former president, whom she had defined as “a daughter.”
He said in that line that the Judiciary is “committed to pardon murderers”and called to defend the vice president from those who “want her sentenced so that she does not appear” in the 2023 elections.
The protagonist of innumerable tributes and awards in Argentina and the world, shortly before his hospitalization he had been the focus of a photographic exhibition about his life entitled “Hebe de Bonafini, a rev/belada mother”, held at the Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK). .
The exhibition is based on a selection of photos based on the book “Los Caminos de la Vida”, by Ulises Gorini, about the story of the head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and in the presentation the leader recounted unknown details of her life .
“I had my children who taught me what politics is and I forgot who I was the day they disappeared; I never thought about myself again”he said at the time.
She was born in the city of Ensenada on December 4, 1928 and in 1942 she married Humberto Bonafini, with whom she had three children: Jorge Omar, Raúl Alfredo and María Alejandra.
At the beginning of 1977, his eldest son Omar was kidnapped and disappeared in La Plata, and in December of that same year his other son, Raúl, suffered the same fate.
In addition, the following year his daughter-in-law, María Elena Bugnone Cepeda, Jorge’s wife, disappeared.
His work at the head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
Hebe María Pastor de Bonafini began her work as president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association in 1979, after the kidnapping and disappearance of the first owner Azucena Villaflor, an entity in which she stood out for the fight for human rights, against impunity of those guilty of crimes against humanity, together with the vindication of the revolutionary militancy of the detained, disappeared and murdered.
Hebe not only vindicated the struggles of her own children, but promoted the collective claim of the Mothers: “They are all our children.”
She continued her struggle alone even after the death of her husband, which occurred in September 1982.
As head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Foundation, he promoted the growth of that institution. He promoted the creation of a national university institute, a newspaper, a radio, a cultural center and a bookstore. He also manages the cultural center of the exESMA.
These milestones coincide with his ideas that human rights should be combined with social rights.
Hand in hand with this conception, he never hid his political preferences, which were expressed in his intransigent positions in the face of inequalities.
After the arrival of Néstor Kirchner to the presidency in 2003, for the first time he made public his adherence to a government that he embraced until December 2015 when Cristina Kirchner left the Casa Rosada.
During the more than 12 years of Kirchner governments, the association interrupted its historic “resistance marches” that it had staged every year since 1981.
With the death of former President Kirchner on October 27, 2010, Bonafini declared that a son of the Mothers had died.
Hebe has also defended left-wing governments and leaders from across the region, including Fidel Castro, Lula da Silva, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales.
Bonafini, a central figure in the democratic recovery, was also in the streets defending democracy during the carapintadas uprisings against former presidents Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menem, she was a fervent opponent of the pardons in favor of genocidal that the latter granted.
Together with the Mothers he was in the Plaza de Mayo on the days of December 19 and 20, 2001 facing the repression of the government of the radical Fernando de la Rúa against the demonstrators, where there were dozens of deaths.
She was a great defender of the Audiovisual Communication Services Law and other public policies promoted by the Kirchner governments.
She also got involved in the construction of social housing through the “Sueños Compartidos” program, which was clouded by allegations of tax fraud, which led her to break her relationship of years with Sergio Schoklender, one of those accused of the maneuver. .
His social concern remained intact despite the defamations and maneuvers against him, during the Cambiemos government he organized talks and “mateadas” with young people and received food donations to take to poor neighborhoods in the suburbs, an action carried out by the Mothers without that had public importance, by their decision.
He faced the government of Mauricio Macri from the first day, when he resumed the marches of the Resistance. In August 2016, a crowd gathered at the doors of the Casa de las Madres when it became known that she could be detained and taken by force to testify in the courts of Comodoro Py.
After having maintained a critical and distant relationship with Jorge Bergoglio when he was archbishop of the city of Buenos Aires, the link between the two changed when he was consecrated Pontiff. Francis maintained constant communication with Bonafini, whom he called frequently, concerned about the health of Hebe, who visited him at the Vatican in 2016.
Regarding the reasons for his death, which coincided with National Sovereignty Day, the Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Nicolás Kreplak, stated today that Bonafini “had chronic illnesses that in recent weeks had a considerable setback” and that is why he had returned to be admitted in recent days at the Italian Hospital in the city of La Plata.
The daughter who survived and accompanied her until the last moment, Alejandra Bonafini, said in a statement that Bonafini passed away today at 9:20 a.m. the Italian Hospital in the city of La Plata as throughout his militant career”.
As a sign of respect, President Alberto Fernández today decreed three days of national mourning for the death of the head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
“The President says goodbye with deep pain and respect to Hebe de Bonafini, Mother of Plaza de Mayo and tireless fighter for human rights. The Government decrees 3 days of national mourning and pays tribute to Hebe, her memory and her struggle”said the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti.
