Mothers never forget

Every Thursday afternoon at 3:30 pm, the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (the Mothers of the May Plaza) hold a demonstration around the central obelisk in the park across from the Presidential Palace. They have done so every week since April 1977, and their goal remains the same: to force the government to accept formal responsibility for, and give them a full accounting of, the whereabouts of their adult children, who were kidnapped by paramiltary gangs and the armed forces for their left-wing, anti-military, or trade unionist activities from 1977 to 1983. As many as 30,000 people went missing during that period, during the Dirty War and Operation Condor.

What began as a small, silent protest of a few has now turned into a larger event, with the active support of trade unions:


Many of the founding Mothers were themselves "disappeared" to concentration camps, and three never returned - their remains were finally found and identified in 2005, and one founder, Azucena Villaflor, has even been buried at the foot of the Obelisk.

Many of those lost, however, were never found, owing no doubt to a preferred military technique of throwing militants out of planes over the Atlantic. Without a body, the military could then claim they weren't actually dead, only that they had "disappeared".

The Mothers have split, over the years, into two factions, with the Founding Line (below) continuing their original quest; the splinter group has become more radical and supports all sorts of anti-government activities, but both continue to march together on Thursdays.


The white headscarves the Mothers each wear are embroidered with the name of their specific disappeared child; some also march while holding photos of their children. The Mothers are getting older now, of course, but they have vowed to continue as long as they can.

They are also extremely well-organized; they have a storefront near the Senate, they sponsor an independent University and all manner of programs designed to support democracy, free speech, and unionism, and they run fundraising booths on the Plaza selling pins, T-shirts, and keychains to fund their initiatives.

While the UN and an independent commission have each confirmed the Dirty War's legacy, the government still has not taken responsibility for these thousands of tortures and murders. And the Mothers wait.