The Asociation Mothers of Plaza de Mayo called to participate in their traditional march on Thursdays to honor the memory and legacy of who was its president since 1979, Hebe de Bonafini, who died last Sunday at the age of 93 at the Italian Hospital of La Plata.
Social, union and human rights organizations confirmed their presence, as well as political leaders from various spaces confirmed their presence at this ceremony, which It will be held in the march 2328 to the May Pyramid.
“We are waiting for all of you in the Plaza de Mayo to embrace each other and honor the legacy of our eternal companion Hebe,” the association invited from its social networks to march 2,328, which will take place at 3:30 p.m.
From 3:30 p.m. we are waiting for you all in the Plaza de Mayo to embrace each other and honor the legacy of our eternal companion Hebe.
Let there be none
What is left in the house
Let them all come
to cover the squareLove with love is paid#MothersofPlazadeMayo
– Press Mothers (@PrensaMadres) November 23, 2022
Who will be present
The Minister of the Interior, Eduardo “Wado” de Pedrohis pair of Culture, Tristan Bauerand the head of the Buenos Aires community development portfolio, Andres Larroqueconfirmed their presence at this event that will take place starting at 3:30 p.m. in the historic square where the Mothers began their traditional marches 45 years ago to ask for their children who disappeared during the civic-military dictatorship.
They also announced that The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo will be present Josefa de Fiore, Visitación de Loyola, Irene de Chueque, Sara Mrad and Carmen Arias, accompanied by the journalist Demetrio Iramain.
“That there is no one left in the house, that they all come to cover the square”requested the organizers in the call for the tribute, which will have as its slogan “Love with love is paid.”
Bonafini, in a video that the association published on its social networks last Sunday, had expressed that: “The day I die they don’t have to cry, they have to dance, they have to sing, have a party in the square because I did what what I wanted and said what I wanted”.
Until victory always, Hebe!
Love with love is paid.
Thursday, November 24, 3:30 p.m. March No. 2328 – Plaza de Mayo. pic.twitter.com/Fnt1M1yq7k– Press Mothers (@PrensaMadres) November 20, 2022
For his part, the Children’s Associationannounced that he will be present in Plaza de Mayo to honor the deceased leader of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
“This Thursday 11.24 at 3:00 p.m. we are going to Plaza de Mayo to say goodbye to Hebe forever. With the white handkerchief as a flag, always,” said the group from their social networks.
This Thursday 24.11 at 3:00 p.m. we are going to Plaza de Mayo to say goodbye to Hebe forever.
With the white handkerchief as a flag, always. pic.twitter.com/WBgQKNnizo
— CHILDREN Capital (@hijos_capital) November 23, 2022
The political party Large Front (FG)headed at the national level by the mayor of Ensenada, Mario Secco and Eduardo Sigal, summoned Plaza de Mayo under the slogan “Hebe Eterna”.
In Cordoba, the Forum for Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights invited to the “Celebration of the life of Hebe de Bonafini” to be held on Thursday afternoon in the Plaza San Martín in the provincial capital.
Together with Azucena Villaflor
Bonafini’s remains will rest in the Plaza de Mayolike those of Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti, the first mother, whose ashes remain buried at the base of the Mayo Pyramid, the same place where 45 years ago the women in white scarves began their fight for human rights against terrorism of State.
On April 30, 1977, at the height of the civic-military dictatorship, a group of women led by Villaflor de Vicenti gathered for the first time in the center of the Plaza de Mayo and since then they never stopped doing it.
Hebe 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 Jorge 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.
Intransigence in the face of inequality
Hebe Maria 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 for those guilty of crimes against humanity, together with the vindication of the revolutionary militancy of the detainees disappeared and murdered.
Hebe not only vindicated the struggles of her own children, but also 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 house and a bookstore. They also manage the exESMA cultural center.
These milestones coincide with his ideas that human rights should be combined with social rights. Hand in hand with that conception, he never hid his political preferences that were expressed in their 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.
Bonafini, central figure of the democratic recovery, He was also on the streets defending democracy during the carapintadas uprisings against former presidents Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menemand was a fervent opponent of the pardons in favor of the 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.
For Pisoni, Hebe’s death is “comparable to those of Néstor Kirchner and Diego Maradona”
The referent of the HIJOS group, Carlos Pisoni, affirmed that the death of the head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association, Hebe de Bonafini, which occurred last Sunday, is “comparable” with those of former president Néstor Kirchner and soccer player Diego Armando Maradona , because they are figures that leave “an irreplaceable legacy.”
“Hebe is irreplaceable; she marks a path for us. We can talk about legacies, but there is no one who can continue her. She is a great personality. It will be very difficult for us to get used to the idea that we no longer have her. Her death is comparable to that of Néstor (Kirchner) and Diego (Maradona). They are absences that are suffered every day,” Pisoni said in statements to FM La Patriada.
Pisoni confirmed the presence of HIJOS this afternoon in the Plaza and maintained that Hebe’s ashes will be scattered “where she began to take her first steps in struggle” and in the place where “mothers will always continue to be present.”
“If something characterized Hebe, it is that she made her children’s struggle her own. She was a disruptive figure because in the middle of the dictatorship and later in democracy she did what many did not dare ”, Pisoni pointed out.
On the other hand, the human rights referent criticized opposition referents and indicated that “a member of the State cannot deny the forced disappearance of persons.”
“If a public official does it, the disqualification of the position should be applied. You have to set limits, start having a debate. Denial and hate speech are and were the seed of the attempted assassination of (the vice president) Cristina (Fernández de Kirchner). There was emboldening and a sector of society that says what it wants openly and incites death,” he stressed.
