RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Accounts of Minors Abducted During Dictatorship

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 15 1998 (IPS) - The recent arrest of former dictator Jorge Videla in Argentina on charges of appropriating minors during the 1976-83 de facto regime highlighted the silent work of the ‘Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo’, a rights group created 21 years ago to seek ‘disappeared’ children.

The Grandmothers are mothers who lost children in the dictatorship and have long been seeking their grandchildren, born to their pregnant daughters in captivity or abducted as small children along with their parents. Other members are parents who survived the repression and are searching for their own children.

Nearly 300 cases of disappeared minors have been reported to the Grandmothers. But the group’s president, Estela Carloto, estimates that there could have been 500 cases. Of that total, 59 stories have been cleared up.

As to the rest, the now elderly women have not given up on their hopes.

The army took 78-year-old Azucena Bermejo’s daughter, four months pregnant, in 1976. The young woman’s husband, parents-in- law and brother-in-law were also seized.

Bermejo found out from survivors that her daughter’s husband and father-in-law were shot by a firing squad shortly after the abduction. Her daughter was killed after giving birth, but Bermejo has no idea what happened to her grandson.

“I’m still looking for him, he must be 20 years old. I’m happy that they arrested Videla. Maybe I’ll see him in prison before I die. But how am I going to find my grandson?” wonders Bermejo, who has obtained little consolation with Videla’s arrest.

The generals who headed the dictatorship were sent to prison in the mid-1980s, but pardoned by President Carlos Menem in 1990. The rest of the armed forces personnel involved in the repression – which left some 30,000 supposed opponents or “subversives” disappeared, according to rights groups – were let off the hook by amnesty laws passed by the democratic transition government of Raul Alfonsin (1983-89).

Videla’s arrest last Tuesday awakened new hopes among rights groups that the former commanders could yet end their days in prison. But those hopes have been dampened by declarations from legal experts that the judge involved weakened the case by acting hastily in ordering the former general’s arrest.

Of the total numer of cases that have been resolved and legally clarified by means of a Genetic Databank created at the Grandmothers’ request, 13 minors were found living with couples who adopted them in good faith and now allow the children’s biological families to visit them and tell them the “other story.”

Thirty others, tracked down by painstaking detective-style searches – in some cases, the Grandmothers trailed the children as they left school every day – were returned to what was left of their biological families.

The group also found that seven children had been killed. And the custody of minors is still being disputed in court in six cases. Videla was arrested in connection with five of those cases.

Some argue that those involved in appropriating the children they later raised may have been good parents. But Emilio Mignone, a prominent rights activist whose daughter was a victim of disappearance, asks “how can anyone believe that a person who kidnaps a child, changes their identity and continues to hide them for 20 years, could be a good parent?”

One of the cases being disputed in court is that of Mariana Zaffaroni, a young lawyer living today in neighbouring Uruguay. The identity of Zaffaroni’s biological parents, both of whom were disappeared, has been established. Her adoptive parents, who appropriated her and changed her identity, are serving time in prison.

Carlos de Luccia and Maria Sol Teztlaff were also raised by those who took them away from their parents.

A particularly high-profile case is that of Pablo and Carolina Bianco, taken away from their biological mothers, and later torn from their adoptive parents.

The youngsters were appropriated by former army physician Norberto Bianco, who is in prison on charges of appropriation of children and falsification of documents. During the dictatorship, the former major attended the births of pregnant women abducted by the army. The courts suspect that he took two of the children, Pablo and Carolina, home.

But Bianco continues to deny the charges. Last week he said in prison that although there were irregularities in the registration of the two children, they were not the children of “subversive elements,” but were voluntarily given to him by a couple who he failed to identify.

Bianco and his family fled to Paraguay in 1984 when the courts attempted to establish the identity of the children. Although the family took a new surname, they were tracked down, and the parents were extradited to Argentina on charges of appropriation of minors. The two children remained in Paraguay.

Carolina and Pablo say they love their adoptive parents, and refuse to undergo genetic tests. While Carolina has declared – with a shaky voice – “we know we are adopted, and we know the name of our parents, who were not disappeared,” no one believes her. Not even her former defence attorney, who said “I’m tired of being lied to,” to explain her decision to stop representing the young woman.

But it is hard not to feel sorry for the youngsters, who themselves are victims of the lies. The judge presiding over the case said they were lying to protect those who raised and loved them.

In Buenos Aires, meanwhile, five families active in Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have reasons to believe Carolina and Pablo may be their children or grandchildren.

Abel Madariaga’s young wife was four months pregnant when she was taken away in 1977. “One survivor testified that my wife was transferred to the Military Hospital, where she gave birth to a boy a few months later.”

Madariaga believes Pablo Bianco could be that boy, but the young man refuses to submit himself to an analysis.

But Madariaga understands that the Bianco children have suffered too, perhaps even more than himself. “It is very painful to follow the path of truth, knowing that you were raised among lies, and that your ‘parents’ are really the murderers of your parents.”

A group of minors who lost their parents during the de facto regime created an outspoken group “Children”, which has also drawn youngsters restored by the courts to their biological families.

Whenever someone involved in the repression is taken into custody, the group turns out to sling insults – and sometimes more than just insults – at the detainees. Not only have these youngsters suffered the most terrible loss when they were small. They must also share the streets with the murderers of their parents, who were amnestied or pardoned, and who continue to justify their ideological “purge.”