The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo () is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla. Initially the association worked to find the desaparecidos, people who had disappeared without arrests, trials or judicial process; most were believed dead. Their mothers and supporters investigated to determine the culprits of what were considered crimes against humanity in order to bring them to trial and sentencing.
The Mothers began demonstrating in the Plaza de Mayo, the public square located in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in the city of Buenos Aires, on 30 April 1977. They petitioned to have their disappeared children, mostly young adults, returned alive. The women demonstrated in the square on a daily basis and held signs with their pleas, followed by carrying photos of their missing children, and wearing white scarves with their names. By declaring a state of emergency, police expelled them from the public square.
In September 1977, in order to make a larger opportunity to share their stories with other Argentinians, the mothers decided to join the annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Luján, located outside Buenos Aires. To stand out among the crowds, the mothers wore children's nappies (diapers) as headscarves. Following the pilgrimage, the mothers decided to continue wearing these headscarves during their meetings and weekly demonstrations at the Plaza. On them, they embroidered the names of their children and wrote their main demand: "Aparición con Vida" (Proof of life).
During the years of the Dirty War (the name used by the military junta in Argentina from 1976 to 1983 as a part of Operation Condor), military and security forces suppressed known and suspected political dissidents. They cast a new against anyone suspected to be associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism, or the Montoneros guerrillero movement.
As the Mothers publicized the disappearances of thousands of victims, they opposed the de facto government and suffered persecution, including kidnappings and forced disappearances of their own members. Most notably founders Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino, and María Ponce de Bianco, and French nun supporters Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, disappeared. They were later found to have been murdered, perpetrated by a group led by Alfredo Astiz, a former commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship.
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, known for having found and identified the remains of Che Guevara, later found the bodies of these women and determined that they had been killed via death flights, when they were thrown out of planes to die in the sea.
On the first days of December 1980, the first "March of Resistance" was held, consisting of mostly women marching around the public square for 24 hours.
Despite democracy being re-established in the 1983 general election, the Mothers movement continued to hold marches and demonstrations, demanding trials and sentences for the military personnel who had participated in the government that overthrew Isabel Perón in the 1976 coup d'état. This would eventually culminate in the Trial of the Juntas of 1985.
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have received widespread support and recognition from many international organizations. They were the first association to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. They also helped other human rights groups throughout their history. The 1980 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was an active supporter of the association, for which he was harassed by the dictatorship.
Since 1986 the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been divided into two factions, the majority group "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association" (presided by Hebe de Bonafini) and . Ceremonially, every Thursday at 3:30 p.m, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo march around the May Pyramid at the central hub of Plaza de Mayo. At 4:00 p.m they give speeches from the Equestrian monument to General Manuel Belgrano, where they opine over the current national and global situation.
Purpose Women had organized to gather, holding a vigil, while also trying to learn what had happened to their adult children during the 1970s and 1980s. They began to gather for this in 1977 every Thursday at Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in public defiance of the government's law against mass assemblies. Wearing white headscarves to symbolize the diapers (nappies) of their lost children, now young adults. These were embroidered with the children's names and dates of birth. For months the government had refused to answer questions about the missing people; the mothers marched in twos in solidarity to protest the denials of their children's existence or their mistreatment by the military regime. Despite personal risks, they wanted to hold the government accountable for its murders and other abuses committed in the Dirty War.
Activism and reaction
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo were the first major group to organize against the Argentina regime's human rights violations. Together, the women created a dynamic and unexpected force, which overturned traditional constraints on women in Latin America. These mothers came together to push for information on their children. Their actions highlighted the human rights violations and the scale of the protest drew press attention, raising awareness on a local and global scale. Their persistence to publicly remember and try to find their children, the sustained group organisation, the use of symbols and slogans, and the silent weekly protests attracted reactive measures from those in power.
The military government considered these women to be politically subversive. After the founder, Azucena Villaflor De Vincenti, listed names of 'the missing' in a newspaper in December 1977 (on International Human Rights Day), she was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. (She was later found to have been killed on a 'death flight', when she was thrown into the sea to die.) French nuns Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, who also supported the movement, were also killed in this manner. Their deaths were ordered by Alfredo Astiz and Jorge Rafael Videla (who was a senior commander in the Argentine Army and dictator of Argentina from 1976 to 1981), both of whom were later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the repression of dissidents during the Dirty War.
Esther Ballestrino and María Ponce de Bianco, two other founders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, also were "disappeared".
In 1983, former military officers began to reveal information about some of the regime's human rights violations. Eventually, the military has admitted that more than 9,000 of those abducted are still unaccounted for. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo say that the number of missing is closer to 30,000. Most are presumed dead. Many of these prisoners were high school students, and young adult professionals and union workers who were suspected of having opposed the government. Those 'taken' were generally below the age of 35, as were the members of the regime who tortured and murdered them.
Jewish activists comprised a disproportionate number of the "disappeared" as the military was anti-Semitic. This was documented in the article Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, which provided testimony of Jacobo Timerman and his experience of torture and abuse during this time.
It was not until 2005 and the advanced use of DNA analysis that many human remains could be identified after mass graves were found and excavated. Families chose whether to have the remains cremated or buried; Azucena's ashes were interred in the Plaza de Mayo.
Today, the Mothers are engaged in the struggle for human, political, and civil rights in Latin America and elsewhere.
Origins of the movement On 30 April 1977, Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti and a dozen other mothers walked to the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina's capital city.
The original founders of the group were Azucena Villaflor de De Vincenti, Berta Braverman, Haydée García Buelas; María Adela Gard de Antokoletz, Julia, María Mercedes and Cándida Gard (four sisters); Delicia González, Pepa Noia, Mirta Acuña de Baravalle, Kety Neuhaus, Raquel Arcushin, and Senora De Caimi.
When the disappearances began, each mother thought that their child's disappearance was a single unique case. Initially, the lack of media coverage of the disappearances led the mothers to believe that they were alone in their plight. As each mother visited prisons, hospitals, and police stations searching for their missing children, they began to notice other mothers who were also searching for their children. The women began to realize that these disappearances were systematic, organized, and planned.
While many of their adult children had become educated and politically active, most of the mothers came from traditional working-class backgrounds and had limited knowledge of political processes. But they banded together to confront the regime as a unified front of mothers seeking answers about their missing children.McFarland, Sam (2018) "Azucena Villaflor, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and Struggle to End Disappearances," International Journal of Leadership and Change: Vol. 6 : Iss. 1, Article 7.
Each of the women had at least one child who had 'disappeared', sometimes known to have been arrested or detained, 'taken' the military government. The mothers declared that between 1970 and 1980, more than 8,500 individuals became "Desaparecidos" or "the disappeared". These people were erased from public records; no level of government had notes of arrests or evidence of charges against them.
The women decided to risk a public protest, although gatherings of more than three people had been banned. They linked arms and walked in pairs, as if on a stroll just across the street from the presidential office building, the Casa Rosada (the Pink House). The mothers chose this site for its high visibility. They hoped to gain information on their children's whereabouts to recover them from prison or to properly bury them if their deaths were acknowledged.
The "disappeared" were believed to have been abducted by agents of the Argentine government during the years known as the Dirty War (1976–1983). Those who were found had often been disposed in rural areas or unmarked graves; their remains showed evidence of torture and executions.
Becoming a movement As growing numbers joined weekly marches on Thursdays, the day the first few met, the Mothers also began an international campaign to defy the propaganda put out by the military regime. This publicity campaign brought the attention of the world to Argentina.
One year after the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo was founded, hundreds of women were participating, gathering in Plaza for weekly demonstrations. They found strength with each other by marching in public, and attracting some press. They made signs with photos of their children and publicized their children's names. They wore white headscarves embroidered with the names and dates of births of their lost children.
The government tried to trivialize their action calling them "las locas" (the madwomen).
As the number of disappeared grew, the movement grew, and the Mothers were getting international attention. They began to try to build pressure from outside governments against the Argentine dictatorship, by sharing the many stories of the "disappeared".