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| Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo |
On our tour of Buenos Aires, we were taken to the Plazo de Mayo. This is a square in the center area of Buenos Aires near Casa Rosada. Casa Rosada is the pink building where the President of Argentina has his office. That building is also referred to as the Government House. The Plazo de Mayo is the site of many historic protests.
But what caught my attention when we stepped off the bus onto the plaza was the tour guide’s mention of “the disappeared.” I was in high school during the height of the disappearing, and I knew from the news reports that many of those disappearing were my age. The idea that the government could just abduct a high school student and make them “disappear” was frightening. Most of the people abducted were taken to secret government locations and tortured. A small number were eventually released, but most were never seen again and presumed dead.
In 1977 a group of mothers began protesting against “The Disappearing.” The wore white kerchiefs on their heads to represent diapers. Some of these women were abducted and became part of the disappeared themselves. Reporting a disappearance was often a trigger to become “disappeared” yourself, so reporting became very limited.
The white kerchief designs ring the Plaza de Mayo to remind Argentinians that many of the disappeared have never been found.
According to the report Nunca Más (Never Again), the Argentinian government formed a commission called The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons. The commission’s report was published in 1984. At that time, the commission had been able to track down records of just under 9,000 of the presumed 30,000 people who had disappeared. The report itself is quite long, and the details they uncovered are horrifying.
I discovered in Nunca Más that just over 10% of those reported as disappeared were 16-20, which was my age bracket at the time. The largest group were those aged 21-30 when they were abducted. This age group accounts for 58% of the reported disappeared.
While we were at the plaza, I watched busy people crossing the square with none really looking down at the white kerchiefs. For the people old enough to remember, the kerchiefs may be a painful sight. For those too young to remember, I wonder if they mean anything at all.
