Horacio O. G. Gastelu, presente!

On Thursday 30^th April, Jun and I attended the “march” of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 32 years to the day after a handful first went to the square in front of the presidential palace (Casa Roasada) and were made to “circulate” rather than stand still, which resulted in them walking round the the “Piramide”, a tradition which has continued to this day.

The mothers, of course, are those whose children were “disappeared” (read “tortured and murdered”, often by being dropped still alive into the sea or adjoining river) during the Dirty War (also known as State Terrorism and sometimes “genocide” here) by the military junta between 1976 and 1983, which claimed somewhere betweeen nine thousand and thirty thousand Argentine lives. They still meet weekly in their white headscarves with the names of their disappeared on them and many – not only mothers – carry pictures too.

Not all of them meet, though. Three of the original founders were also disappeared soon after forming the group, which has influenced feminist and human-rights movements around the world. One of those founder`s remains are now buried under the pyramid in agreement with the idea of “nunca mas” (never again). Some mothers have died of natural causes without ever seeing justice ., some have stopped marches of resistance and – obviously – not all of the mothers of the disappeared from all over the country (the 9^th largest in terms of area in the world) can make it to Buenos Aires every week.

I spoke with a Madre, although it would be more accurate to describe the interaction as her talking to me. She told me some of the story of how her son, Horacio, and his girlfried Ada Victoria, were taken away in the middle of the night soon after he had been conscripted. I didn`t follow much more than that, to be honest (my Spanish needs work) but fortunately I was able to find details of the story in English. It turns out that Horacio was part of a group of revolutionay students that were decimated by their resistance.

The anniversary of the founding of the movement was marked with a free showing of a 2007 documentary, simply named Madres, which was shown at the closest cinema to the flat Jun and I are renting. We went early to ensure we`d get in but needn`t have. Political documentaries here are no more popular than anywhere else, even when they are free. Madres talked before the showing of “love, resistance and struggle” and one tellingly contrasted the solidarity of the group thirty years previously with the present day.

In homage to the truths spoken by Monty Python, the Mades have long since split. The “Founding line”, who were the sponsors of the film and whom the Madre I spoke to belonged to, are mostly concerned with finding and identifying remains and bringing perpetrators to justice whil the “Association” has taken on some of the perceived political ideals of their disappeared children and support a variety of political causes. The leader of the latter has courted controversy with her support for FARC and the attacks of September 11^th 2001 and is perhaps why my friend Lora has misgivings about the movement.

The documentary itself – introduced by the director – went beyond the disappeared and (as the name suggests) focussed on the lives of the mothers, one of whom has since passed away. Since there were no subtitles, we were both prone to losing concentration and focussing on images – ranging from Peronism to the Falklands and incorporating football. However, there was plenty to evok emotion and I had to get the tissues out when one of the mothers, interviewed in the Plaza, said “we want to know where our children are. Are they cold? Are they scared? Are they hungry? We are their mothers, we want to help them. Help us, please, help us.”

Ater the film ended, there were a few more words from Madres too, culminating in a chant that I was able to catch on to: “Presente ahora y siempre” This idea, that the disappeared – neither dead nor living – are now and always present, is a central tenet of the movement. I would like to end by saying that Horacio, too, is here now and always will be.