MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Thousands of Argentines march 46 years after coup d'état

“Never again, never again,” repeated the crowd in memory of the coup d'état that deposed the three constitutional powers presided over in 1976

Tens of thousands of Argentines marched again to Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo (Mayo Square) on Thursday, 46 years after the coup d'état that installed a dictatorship responsible for tens of thousands of disappearances, exiles and executions in clandestine centers.

Taty Almeida, from the humanitarian organization Mothers of Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line, closed the ceremony with the cry of “30,000 detainees-disappeared! present!”, after warning that ”we will not allow democracy to be damaged, since it was recovered (in 1983) this people has taken care of it forever“.

In an atmosphere of celebration for returning to the streets of the Argentine capital after the covid pandemic, which prevented this emblematic march from taking place in 2020 and 2021, the demonstrators demanded ”memory, truth and justice“.

”Never again, never again,“ repeated the crowd in memory of the coup d'état that deposed the three constitutional powers presided over in 1976 by Peronist María Estela Martínez de Perón.

Some members of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, all over 90 years old, accompanied the march from a bus, while in the streets a huge banner of more than 200 meters with photos of the faces of the disappeared carried by relatives and activists was unfurled.

”I follow in my mother's footsteps looking for my brother who was arrested-disappeared in Misiones (northeast), who is here (in a photo) together with the 30,000. May the Argentine people never again lack democracy, participation, commitment! We want justice, that they tell us what happened”, said to AFP María Graciela Leyes, 63 years old, one of those who carried the flag.

Earlier, another massive demonstration by radical left parties focused criticism on the government's recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refinance the debt of some $45 billion granted in 2018 to former liberal president Mauricio Macri.

“30,000 comrades detained-disappeared, present! No to the government-IMF agreement!” their banner read.

The left-wing president Alberto Fernandez led another act in the morning in which he announced the repair of the files of eight workers and scientists of the National Commission of Science and Technology (Conicet) where it will appear that they suffered “forced disappearance”.

“The dictatorship was merciless because it was afraid of thought,” said Fernández. “We all know that there was a dictatorship that persecuted, killed, murdered, condemned to exile, made people disappear and postponed Argentina like no other government ever did,” he added.

Based on information from AFP