Argentina: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo will Fight against Milei

By Clara Lídice Valenzuela García on November 30, 2023

Yesterday The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo held their first resistance march in front of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires in view of the danger posed by the ultra-right discourse of President-elect Javier Milei, who does not believe in the disappearance of 30,000 people during the military regime, and if they occurred, he justifies it because the country, he says, was in the middle of a war.

Milei, 54 years old, an ultra-reactionary of the La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party, won the presidency on the 19th against the pro-government Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, of Unión por la Patria, by about 10 percentage points, in what many analysts qualify as a death-warning to the population who voted for him despite the dangers of his retrograde thinking and political criteria.

Both the future president and his vice-president Victoria Villarruel, -daughter, niece and granddaughter of military men-, and other members close to his cabinet are defenders of the last military regime (1976-1983) and its most relevant hired killers, whom they intend to release and compensate after being convicted for crimes and forced disappearances.

Even in 2013, before his death, Villarruel visited the dictator Rafael Videla, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010 when Justice found him guilty of the shooting of some thirty political prisoners in 1976.

This right-wing leader maintains a continuous defense of the recognized murderers of that period, in which more than 30,000 women and men, mostly young, who were considered to be against the regime, are considered to have disappeared. The Argentine dictatorship was part of the Condor Plan that swept through Latin America and allowed the exchange of prisoners of different nationalities, who were imprisoned and killed even in brutal ways, such as throwing them into the sea from airplanes, or burying them in remote places where their remains will never be found.

The vice-president-elect, who is thinking of freeing the military accused of their crimes, will be the Minister of Defense, Security and Intelligence of the new administration, that is, head of the Armed Forces and Public Security, as announced by Milei, who does not recognize State terrorism.

During his campaign, the new head of government also questioned the number of victims and reedited the so-called “Theory of the two demons” by affirming that “we are against a one-eyed vision of history; for us there was a war during the 70’s”. He has not repeated that again after his victory in the ballot on the 19th of last month.

His vice president, a lawyer by profession, also contends that those accused of murder and kidnapping be compensated as victims of the actions of the Montoneros guerrilla, which operated at the time by means of a clandestine system of mobilization in the sewers of the cities, in view of the lack of mountains.

The decision of the economist Milei, a controversial operator of the most ultra-conservative policies convergent with those of the United States where he visited this week after showing his admiration for its warlike and imperial system of government, affirmed that it is in the hands of Villarruel as to the issue of the free use of firearms.

Once Again in the Plaza

A few days ago the historic Plaza de Mayo, located in front of the Casa Rosada, seat of the national presidency, was once again the scene of popular expression and the first public act against the future government before a day in office. This is just the first round of resistance of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo after the consecration of Milei. As it happened for many years, the older women touched by their white handkerchief -which in 1977 were sewn with cloth from children’s diapers as a symbol of the lost children- were surrounded by hundreds of people who marched by their side to repudiate the coming policies against the 47% of the citizenship, especially, who voted for Massa. Although, apparently, the measures will affect even those who trusted the so-called El Loco for his attitudes.

In this march, number 2,380 of the humanitarian organization, students, trade unionists, politicians who foresee the future of the nation, and are willing to confront Milei, gathered. Although he will take office on the 10th, he anticipated a strong cut in public spending, closing of ministries and privatization of public companies, among other regulations.

Embraced by Peronist militants, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, some of them very old now and in wheelchairs, paid a special tribute to one of their founders, the courageous Hebe de Bonafini, one year after her death on December 20, and began a week of tributes in her honor in view of the proximity of her birth on December 4.

Hebe de Bonafini is a symbol of the sacrifice of 14 women who in April 1977, during the military occupation of the country, united to circulate around the Pyramid of May, demanding the location of their kidnapped children. Within months, the numbers of women multiplied by the hundreds. Every Thursday, at 3:30 p.m. (local time) they would occupy the place and in front of the uniforms they would show the photos of their loved ones, their names, and the place from where they were taken.

Bonafini, a housewife, without much knowledge of politics, advocated for her disappeared children’s lives until her death. On February 8, 1977 her firstborn son Jorge Omar was kidnapped in La Plata. On December 6 of that year a similar event occurred with her other son, Raúl Alfredo, in Berazategui. On May 25 of the following year her daughter-in-law María Elena Bugnone Cepeda, Jorge’s wife, was also kidnapped. She never heard from them again nor have their remains been located.

This activist, who embraced the cause of human rights in her country and in many others, stated that she “was just an ordinary woman, but after what happened to her family, the imperative to demand that her children be returned to her, the desire shared with other mothers who felt the same yearning as mine, has put me in a new world. Now I am realizing that all those things that many people still do not care about are very important, because the destiny of an entire country depends on them; the happiness or misfortune of many families,” she said in October 1982 in a church in Legazpi, in Madrid, capital of Spain.

The presence of these women with their white handkerchiefs in front of the Casa Rosada aroused worldwide admiration. They traveled to different countries where they denounced the dictatorship and its excessive repression; they participated in solidarity meetings in scenarios where freedom was defended and continued with their demands until the triumph of the late leftist president Néstor Kirchner in 2003 when Bonafini said,¨We no longer have an enemy in the Casa Rosada.”

They only returned to the streets when the right-wing Mauricio Macri took office in 2015 and reinstated the neoliberalism promoted by the also president Carlos Menem, who left a huge debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Now, after the government of Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernandez (who replaced her husband and governed for two terms) was defeated at the polls, the Mothers have returned.

With tears, cheers and raising the traditional banners with pictures of the victims of the repressors, part of a speech by Bonafini, considered the historic president of the Mothers, was read.

“We can’t stay quiet or still or bitter or crying or hitting ourselves in the back with a stick. Resistance and combat are rights of the people that we are not going to abandon, because this square is this,” she said in 2017 against the Macri government – Milei’s political ally – and repeated now amid applause, cheers and conviction six years later, when another stage of struggle begins for the dispossessed of what was once one of the nations with the most stable economies in Latin America.

The Mothers once again toured the historic space holding a sign with the slogan demanding, “No to the payment of the foreign debt,” referring to the $45 billion loan delivered by the IMF to Macri and which has  left Argentina indebted for more than 100 years, according to economists’ estimates.

“Alert, alert, alert, alert that all the ideals of the disappeared are alive”, shouted the women during the march, together with hundreds of their followers who consider them an inspiration in difficult times for the country, such as the one that is now approaching.

This Argentine organization, an example for human rights defenders in other countries, grew with branches in several provinces, and maintains its own media from which it mobilizes and alerts about local and world events.

Another hard battle begins to be fought by these worthy mothers who, despite their advanced ages, did not hesitate to be the first to raise their hands and voices against the controversial Milei, the 54 year old, misogynist, racist and defender of the darkest hours lived by their country.

Source: Cuba en Resumen