MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine President says March 24 brings Argentines together

“We do not want to repeat that damned experience that took away those who believed in a freer, more egalitarian, fairer society,” Alberto Fernández said

President Alberto Fernández Thursday stressed March 24 was the day when Argentines were stronger together. Hos words came during a ceremony marking a new anniversary of the 1976 coup d'etat aganst Constitutional President María Estela Martínez de Perón.

“The dictatorship was merciless because it was afraid of thought,” Fernández highlighted when paying tribute to the eight researchers and members of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) who went “missing” during the dark years between 1976-83.

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The military dictatorship “took the lives of all those who opposed it: if they were workers, they killed workers; if they were students, they killed students; if they were lawyers defending human rights, they killed them, they exiled them; if they were businessmen, they robbed them, they tortured them; if they were scientists, they also made them disappear. Dictatorships had something in common: they feared nothing more than thought, nothing was more dangerous,” Fernández insisted.

Regarding the fact that Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elsewhere prasing a rally to Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo, the President stressed: “March 24 is the day when we are most united because we have a single slogan: truth and justice.”

The head of state also underlined the work of Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo throughout the years and urged Argentines “not to forget, never to forget.”

“It is not about revenge, it is about having a memory; because if we do not have a memory we are going to repeat experiences, and we do not want to repeat that damned experience that took away those who believed in a freer, more egalitarian, fairer society,” the President said.

Fernandez was also critical of the genocide-deniers who are unwilling to admit there were “30 thousand Argentine men and women [who] were kidnapped and made to disappear, thousands were killed, thousands were imprisoned, thousands were sent into exile...”