00:01On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the civic military coup in Argentina,
00:05we will look back on the extremely difficult early days of those who fought against the massacre
00:09and the lies spread by the coup plotters, a group of women who would later become known as the mothers
00:15of Plaza de Mayo.
00:19To talk about the Argentine civil military dictatorship, it is essential to discuss those who fought it more vigorously.
00:26A group of women, the mother of Plaza de Mayo, and their leader, Jeve de Bonafini.
00:34We realized that the Plaza de Mayo was the only place that gave us visibility.
00:39All the organizations were just desk-bound. There was already the assembly, the ecumenical movement,
00:44the permanent assembly, the league, and the families. But everything was confined to the desk.
00:49And everyone asked you the same questions. Nothing ever came out of it. It was like we were trapped.
00:54The plaza, on the other hand, made us visible.
00:58The person who remembers her as well is journalist Lisa Ranz, former communication director for mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
01:07I spent so many years with Hebe, but the memories that always come to mind are of Hebe's ability to
01:12give her all in every fight,
01:13even if she didn't know whether she would win or not.
01:20When they took us to prison, at first for a little while, one or two at a time, and then
01:26they tried to lock us in a cell all night with a dead body.
01:29A dead body you knew was one of your children. It belonged to some mother, but you didn't want to
01:34look at it.
01:35And that mother never came back. I said, mothers, we're all going to have to go to prison.
01:42We had to go rescue the kids from the police station. If we had to wait there for 10 hours
01:46and put up with insults, I was there.
01:47If we had to go to a march in the rain, I was there. The persistent march meant marching for
01:5124 hours.
01:52It wasn't about going for a little while, going home, and then spending 24 hours in the square.
01:59March 24 marks the eighth anniversary of the day the armed forces overthrew a constitutional government freely elected by the
02:07people
02:07to impose a dictatorship based on the doctrine of national security, with the premeditated aim of implementing policies
02:14that brought hunger, unemployment, and poverty to a large segment of the population.
02:23And yet, far from rescaring them, the fear topped them, the creativity of survival.
02:31We didn't have our first office until 1980. Until then, we were always out on the streets or in a
02:37church,
02:38organizing massive petition drives, like when we'd go to the zoo or a park and put little arrows on the
02:43ground.
02:43There was one mother here, another there, another over there, so that if they took one away,
02:48since they always arrested us, those signatures will be lost, but not all of them.
02:57Always thinking of others without considering the consequences that might have for her.
03:04We decided to go to mass at the cathedrals where the most fascist bishops were serving, to receive communion.
03:10So every three mothers or every three people, including one mother, that mother had to say,
03:14I received communion for my detained or disappeared son.
03:20And the need of protection in our most clandestine conditions gave rise to the same move.
03:25How are we going to recognize each other? I'm also going to Rodriguez, I'm getting off at Luján, I'm going
03:29straight there, I'm walking there.
03:31Everyone was coming from a different place. But how are we going to find each other?
03:34Then one mother said, well, we have to put something on our hands.
03:37Well, not a red scarf, you can see it at night. Blue doesn't show up either, white.
03:41And when we mentioned the white scarf, one said, hey, why don't we put on one of our kids' diapers,
03:46since they used to be made of gauze.
03:47The rest is well known history.
03:51Desde Buenos Aires, para Telesur, Fabián Restivo.
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