Human rights organizations began to work together to prepare for a new commemoration of the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, on March 24, the 47th anniversary of the start of the last civic-military dictatorship in Argentina.
Referents of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo Association, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line, HIJOS Group, Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) and the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)spoke with Télam about how they are working “united for more Memory, Truth and Justice” one of the “most emblematic and convening” marches in the country.
Although the central slogan that will lead the day has not yet been defined and the document that will be read in Plaza de Mayo as every year is in full development, they affirmed that there are already “several slogans” and “common themes” that will accompany the traditional commemoration of the victims of state terrorism and the tireless struggle for justice.
The referents of human rights organizations consulted said that it is expected that next week the central slogan and schedule of the call will be defined.
“As on every March 24, united for more Memory, Truth and Justice, everyone to the Plaza!”, expressed the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo from their Twitter account last Wednesday in one of the traditional meetings that led to carried out in the House for the Identity of the Grandmothers.
The grandmothers Estela de Carlotto and Buscarita Roa participated in it – as could be seen in the photograph that accompanied the tweet; the secretary Abel Madariaga; the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro; the Secretary of Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla and several restored grandchildren such as Guillermo Pérez Roisinblit, Victoria Montenegro, Manuel Goncalves and Leonardo Fossati.
“As reflected in the photo of the meeting we had on Wednesday, there is a sense of family, a tragedy and the same common destiny united us and in that framework of unity we are all thinking about how to diagram this March 24, which is one of the most emblematic and convening marches in the country,” the spokesperson for Grandmothers and restored grandson Guillermo Pérez Roisinblit told Télam.
Likewise, he emphasized that this day of reflection will continue to maintain its historical emblems such as “bearing in mind the 30,000 disappeared comrades, the more than 300 people who still have their identity violated and who we continue to search for, as well as the three fundamental pillars Memory, Truth and Justice”.
Roisinblit is one of the many who experienced firsthand the worst of State terrorism but remarked that “the dictatorship did not happen only to the victims, the families or the survivors, the dictatorship happened to all of us as a society.”
“We build unity day by day and that has been the strength of the human rights movement in Argentina.”Eduardo Tavani
“The slogans that can never be missing are the vindication of the 30,000 disappeared comrades, the defense of democracy and the rule of law against the mafias and the factual powers, the trial and punishment of the genocidal, a common prison for all those convicted. and other issues that will accompany the document”, listed the co-president of the APDH, Eduardo Tavani.
Likewise, he stressed the strong joint work of the table made up of the 13 human rights organizations “united for years in the same collective claim, pursuing the objective of doing justice, sustaining memory and defending the truth.”
“We build unity day by day and that has been the strength of the human rights movement in Argentina,” Tavani stressed.
Another of the common factors that appear among the different organizations linked to outstanding debts of democracy has to do with the democratization of the Judiciary and the end of institutional violence.
“The harmony that Argentina is experiencing with respect to the Judiciary is one of the great issues that will go through this March 24 because today the forms of persecution of those who think differently continue, as was the case with our elders, but with other methods. “, pointed out in this direction the referent of the HIJOS group, Carlos Pisoni.
In this regard, Pisoni assessed that “Today there is not physical disappearance but there is political disappearance” while “they try to destroy you politically so that you can not continue to be a militant and exercise this vocation that many of us have to change what we consider to be done differently”.
However, he valued the “great support of the people for the policies and actions” carried out by human rights organizations in massive mobilizations such as the one on March 24 where “a message is given to a sector of the population that it is not possible to go backwards in terms of human rights, nor deny what happened or increase hate speech that later ends with an assassination attempt”.
Meanwhile, the expectation of the historical reference of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line Nora Cortiñas, is that this March 24 “everyone stays where they feel comfortable” because the important thing is “to go out once more to look each other in the eye, hold hands and walk like so many years ago in repudiation of the coups d’état.”
“We will be back on the streets like every year with love for families, young people and all those who still cannot recover their identity,” Cortiñas remarked in dialogue with this agency.
And warned: “We hope that after this March 24, the archives will be opened as we have been asking for so long and they will tell us what we need to know to have the whole truth and continue to strengthen our memory.”.
Coincidentally, the CELS lawyer, Diego Morales, maintained that among the debts to be settled are the claim for the opening of intelligence files that can “reveal elements necessary for the consolidation of the justice process”; as well as the creation of “norms that give priority to trials against humanity” taking into account “the advanced age of both victims, relatives and defendants.”
Another of the axes highlighted by CELS for this March 24 -and taking into account that this year will mark 40 uninterrupted years of democracy- has to do with the vindication of all the advances that have been achieved in terms of human rights in the country and how to pull all the richness of that historical baggage around “the idea of truth and memory that was forged in these years for the current human rights discussions.”
“It seems important to us to vindicate the truth and justice process in Argentina, which has been one of the most relevant worldwide in terms of human rights in terms of identifying those responsible for crimes against humanity, identifying the facts attributed to it, the number of victims who have testified, legal proceedings and convictions,” Morales pointed out.
Closing of five days
In addition, March 24 will close the five days of the III World Forum on Human Rights 2023 (FMDH23) organized by the International Center for the Promotion of Human Rights (Cipdh-Unesco) in Buenos Aires, which will be the largest international meeting of activists in the field, who will also join the call to Plaza de Mayo for the day of memory.
The 13 organizations that make up the table that convenes and organizes the day of March 24 are Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line, Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons, HIJOS Capital, APDH, APDH -La Matanza , CELS, Buena Memoria Association, Memory, Truth and Justice Commission in the North Zone, Relatives and Companions of the 12 of Santa Cruz, Argentine Historical and Social Memory Foundation, Argentine League for Human Rights (LADH) and the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights Humans.
