MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Human Rights groups commemorate 24M at Plaza de Mayo

“We are honoring the memory of those who fought for a just, free, and sovereign homeland,” said Carlotto

Human rights and leftwing militants convened Friday at Buenos Aires' iconic Plaza de Mayo to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the last military coup d'état in the country and to insist that “Never Again” should democracy be taken away from Argentines.

The demonstrators underlined yet again the importance of Memory, Truth, and Justice in a new celebration of what is now known as Remembrance Day in light of the people killed, kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared during the de-facto regime (1976-1983).

Members of Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and dozens of other human rights groups were at the demonstration alongside other left-wing social and political organizations.

“No to the IMF, no to the payment of the foreign debt” read one of the banners these groups displayed.

A joint statement was read through the loudspeakers: “47 years after the genocidal coup, let us build a homeland for the people, with Memory, Truth, and Justice always ... We arrived marching with hundreds of flags of unions, student centers, women and diversity collectives, social organizations and thousands of families with whom every March 24 we come to sow memory and shout present...”

The declaration added that “the military was the executing arm of a coup by national and foreign corporations,” and stressed that there were over “700 clandestine detention centers” where crimes against humanity were committed.

“Forced disappearances, sexual crimes, imprisonment, baby theft, fear installed in militarized factories and they counted on the propaganda of the press of the corporations that called the massacres 'confrontations',” the declaration went on.

After 1983, there were “1,115 convictions for crimes against humanity, 550 accused and 20 fugitives”.

The groups also concurred that one of the goals of the military regime was to increase the “foreign debt by more than 300%,” which “benefited the main economic groups.” Despite 40 uninterrupted years of democracy, the signatory organizations assured that there are “the same economic groups” that continue “causing the same hunger with the judicial complicity that persecutes and imprisons popular referents”.

“We are going to continue taking care of this democracy in Argentina and in all the Patria Grande always. When we do so we are honoring the memory of those who fought for a just, free, and sovereign homeland,” said Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo leader Estela de Carlotto, who also called for “an end to the practices of hate speech and denialism” from those such as former President Mauricio Macri who called ”the search for Memory, Truth, and Justice a 'curro' (swindle).“

”We came out of silence and we are not going to go back ever again,“ Carlotto, concluded before stressing that the Judiciary should not be ”a branch of the corporations.”

Meanwhile, Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), technically Acting President due to Alberto Fernández's trip to the Dominican Republic, assured on social media that “democracy is in danger” when economic and power concentration “deepens” social inequalities, and celebrated that “hundreds of thousands are marching” this Friday for “Memory, Truth, and Justice.”