Juan David Latorre
In the framework of the Commemoration of the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, the Embassy of Argentina paid a tribute to Estela Barnes de Carlotto, president of the association Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo).
Laura Estela Carlotto, daughter of the honoree, was kidnapped and disappeared in Buenos Aires, pregnant, at the end of 1977. She was able to reconstruct from accounts that her daughter had given birth and that her grandson had been appropriated and his identity changed. She searched for him for almost 36 years. On 5 August 2014, after a DNA check done voluntarily by the person concerned, his grandson was identified, and became the 114th on the list of recovered grandchildren. There are still around 300 grandchildren to be found.
The Ambassador of Argentina, Ricardo Alfonsín, welcomed the attendees and referred to Estala de Carlotto as “one of the most consistent, strongest, noblest, most integral symbols of the struggle for human rights in Argentina”. And he pointed out that she has done so “without rancour, without feelings of revenge or hatred. He was able to turn his pain and tragedy into a cause, into a banner. All of us, by the fact of living in society, are an example to others,” Ambassador Alfonsín concluded, “but not all lives are exemplary. Estela de Carlotto’s life is an example and has exemplarity”.
De Carlotto recounted to those attending the event everything she had lived through, her continuous struggle and self-sacrifice to find her grandson, and recalled the moment when she was told the good news. “Judge María Servini de Cubría called me. She spoke to me about other things and when she thought I was calm she told me: ‘We have found him’. I jumped up, hugged her and we cried together. Then we met, we got to know each other…. For me it’s as if the aura of my daughter Laura came back. I am happy.
The president of the Association of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo had a memory for the grandchildren of those who disappeared during the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship, who one day asked them for “advice on how to find the remains of their grandparents”. “They took the concept of fighting, organising and demanding from the state. Thanks to them, many grandmothers in Spain have been able to bring flowers to their husbands because they finally knew where they were.
There is still a long way to go, yes,” continued Estela de Carlotto, “but we have to go on. There are still 30,000 bodies to be found. Their mothers are dying, but their children are left to search for them”. For all this search, she continued, “you have to have heart, will and no bad feelings. No hatred, no grudges, no revenge. They are of no use to us. No ‘dad’ of those attacked went out in Argentina to attack or kill the genocide, but to ask for news and explanations.
“When they ask us for forgiveness, I always reply: ‘ask Laura and see what she says’. I don’t have the right.” “And sometimes with this pain that I cry at night and fight during the day, I think I have to thank life,” she concluded, “because it is ugly to go through this world without doing anything and life allowed me to do something for others, to leave something behind.
The ceremony was attended by important guests and friends of the honoree and her children, Claudia and Guido Miguel, and her recovered grandson Ignacio Montoya Carlotto. The event was attended by the Secretary General of the OEI, Mariano Jabonero, who played an important role in the achievement of the tribute; the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez López; the deputy for Más Madrid in the Madrid Assembly, Mónica García; the judge Baltasar Garzón; the director of the Anne Frank Centre in Argentina, Hector Shalom; the singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat and the actor Juan Diego Botto, son of one of those who disappeared after the coup d’état, among others.
The Organisation of Ibero-American States (OEI) was the co-organiser of the tribute to De Carlotto through the OEI-Ana Frank Ibero-American Youth Network, with the support of the Embassy.
