The head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, today received the Rodolfo Walsh Award from the Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication of the National University of La Plata and stated that the human rights defenders have spent “45 years of struggle” given “in small steps” to find the appropriate grandchildren during the last civic-military dictatorship.
“I am very excited. It has been 45 years of struggle, which we took little by little. Without knowing how to do it, alone, I did not say anything about what I was doing. Not even to my schoolmates, because the infamy of the press spoke of our children as criminals. I thought they were going to tell me, if I commented on what I was doing to look for my daughter (Laura Carlotto), that ‘she was looking for it’, ‘they will have done something,'” Estela pointed out.
Upon receiving this distinction in the “Diego Maradona” auditorium of the Néstor Kirchner Building of the university headquarters located on the diagonal 113 and 63 of La Plata, the head of Abuelas recalled that the police forces “let us walk (around the Plaza de Mayo ) and there came the unity”.
“We all began to share ideas among the mothers and grandmothers who were looking for our children and grandchildren, but we did not know what to do, we had never practiced politics. We had to learn suddenly,” he said.
Carlotto added: “When a woman touches a child, she is a beast, claws come out, strength and that was what came out of the Mothers and Grandmothers, and love. This award is for the Grandmothers, we are sisters and we have 45 years of struggle.”
Addressing the students, Estela said that “to the young people who arrive at the university and are told what a journalist should be like, you have to tell them a lot about Rodolfo Walsh, a man who gave his life as we were offering it.”
The dean of the Faculty of Journalism, Andrea Varela; the president of the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Fernando Tauber; the mother of Plaza de Mayo Herenia Sánchez Viamonte; the Secretary of Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla Corti; and Rosa Schonfeld de Bru, mother of the student from that university, Miguel Bru, who disappeared in 1993 by members of the Buenos Aires police who tortured him.
“Welcome Estela to this Faculty, the Néstor Kirchner Faculty, who apologized on behalf of the State, who showed us that the 30,000 missing compañeros and compañeras were unbearably alive in every fight,” said an emotional Varela.
The dean highlighted the figure of the journalist Rodolfo Walsh after whom the Prize is named, noting that “the author of ‘Operation Massacre’ never negotiated the truth; he denounced the plan of the dictatorship knowing that he was going to be persecuted and gave testimony in difficult times and for that’s like a flag.”
“This award is a prize for those who do not negotiate and do not give themselves up,” remarked Varela, who specified that the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo association has been fighting for 45 years “without hatred and with the revolutionary power of love.”
The Secretary of Human Rights of the Nation, Horacio Pietragalla Corti, a grandson appropriated and returned in 2003, stressed that the Grandmothers “always had a clear objective, which was Memory, Truth, Justice and finding the missing grandsons and granddaughters; and always Always remember that there are 30,000, that’s the biggest example.”
The president of the University of La Plata, Fernando Tauber highlighted their sacrifice and the struggle of all these years in the context of Mothers and Grandmothers.
“Let’s not let the effort of Estela, Herenia, Mothers and Grandmothers, that painful and tremendous effort be lost in a chapter of our history. It has to be the beginning. We have a lot to do and to build,” he said.
The distinction was promoted by the Rodolfo Walsh student group and approved by the Board of Directors, which valued “his unwavering and authentic commitment to defend and promote human rights and be consistent with truth and democratic values.”
Estela de Carlotto had four children: Laura Estela, Claudia Susana, Guido Miguel and Remo Gerardo, current secretary of the Mercosur Public Policy Institute.
Laura was kidnapped by the repressive forces on November 26, 1977. She and her partner were detained in the clandestine detention center called “La Cacha”, in the city of La Plata, and on June 2 she had a child whom she called Guido.
On August 25, 1978, Laura was murdered by military personnel and her body was returned to her parents.
Once the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers Association was established, Estela Carlotto held the position of vice president and since 1989 she was president, a task that has allowed the meeting of 130 grandchildren who had been robbed and appropriated by agents of State terrorism, including her grandson Ignacio Montoya Carlotto.
