Friday, October 2, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Open Novel University
Marcela Valente
- More than 700 students started classes this week at the new People’s University in Argentina, a novel initiative of the local human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
The new university is not seeking official recognition, but academic respect for the masters degrees earned by its graduates.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organisation was founded in 1976 by a group of women whose sons and daughters had been disappeared by security forces during the dictatorship (1976-83).
Since then, the Mothers have fought to find out the truth about their loved ones and to bring the military agents implicated in human rights violations to justice, while supporting other humanitarian causes as well.
Hebe de Bonafini, the rector of the new university and president of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, told IPS that the degrees awarded by the new “free” institution would have value in and of themselves, and not as a result of official recognition, which she said the group had no faith in anyway.
“The State that pardoned the murderers of our children does not have the moral authority to grant us recognition,” said De Bonafini. “The stature of our professors and of the universities with which we have agreements are sufficient to imbue our degrees with value.”
De Bonafini is one of the most oustpoken critics of the measures adopted by the administrations ruling Argentina since the restoration of democracy, such as two amnesty laws that let human rights violators off the hook, and a presidential pardon that let the former military commanders out of jail.
Although the activist is still a symbol of the fight against the dictatorship, her radical postures have put her at loggerheads with other human rights groups, which she criticises, for example, for accepting money awards in compensation for the disappearance of family members.
Another group, known as Mothers-Founding Line, split over eight years ago from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo led by De Bonafini.
The Mothers-Founding Line is closer to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of women seeking their grandchildren who were kidnapped by security forces or born to political prisoners in captivity and given in illegal adoption to military officers or others. The Grandmothers organisation is also distanced from De Bonafini’s group.
The students enrolled at the new university do not need to be high school or college graduates to earn the masters degrees offered in human rights, social psychology, investigative journalism, art and political economy.
The professors giving classes at the new university include prominent local figures like psychoanalyst and playwright Eduardo Pavlovsky, philosophers Rubén Dri and León Rozitchner, writers Osvaldo Bayer, David Viñas and Juan Gelman, and filmmaker Fernando “Pino” Solanas.
The degrees are earned in three years, with the exception of psychology, which takes four years. Seminars will also be held, for example, on “grassroots education”, “psychoanalysis and Marxism”, and “a critical reading of Das Capital by Karl Marx”, said the university’s academic director, writer Vicente Zito Lema.
The People’s University is operating out of a house located near the headquarters of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The building was purchased with the funds raised from a series of rock concerts in which the bands not only played for free, but donated the royalties from the sales of the live albums recorded at the events.
Last year, De Bonafini’s group opened a literary coffee-house in the building, complete with a bar and a bookstore. The locale, which also functioned as a cultural centre, hosted a seminar on “a critical analysis of Argentine reality”, which had repercussions in the academic world.
From that seed, the activists decided to set up six classrooms, a professor’s room, and a great hall. The project immediately drew support from local and international writers, journalists, psychologists and academics.
US sociologist James Petras, from the State University of New York, is a member of the academic board. And present at the inauguration of the new college were authorities from the University of Salamanca and the Basque Country in Spain, as well as officials from universities in Cuba and Chile and the Argentine university of Comahue.
Workshops on video and documentary filmmaking, murals and street art, and photography will also be offered at the new college. Those registered for the courses or workshops are charged 25 dollars a month “to pay the professors,” De Bonafini explained.
The president of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – who lost two sons and two daughters-in-law during the dictatorship – said the new university was full to capacity, and no new students could register until a larger building became available, perhaps next year.
Both De Bonafini and Zito Lima pointed out that grading would be strict. “Those who want to earn a degree will have to study hard,” warned De Bonafini shortly before the first class started Monday.
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RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Open Novel University
Marcela Valente
- More than 700 students started classes this week at the new People’s University in Argentina, a novel initiative of the local human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
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