Marching to remember
Up to 100,000 gather in Plaza de Mayo — and many more thousands nationwide — to repudiate the 1976 coup. Tens of thousands of Argentines yesterday held rallies and marched throughout the nation to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1976 military coup that ushered in the deadliest dictatorship in Argentine history.
State-run news agency Télam said that 100,000 people gathered at the Plaza de Mayo square in front of Government House to repudiate the seven-year regime that human rights groups and President Néstor Kirchner say killed or made to disappear 30,000 people. The last official estimates put the figure of the dead or disappeared at 13,000. Some media estimates said that the Plaza de Mayo ceremony was attended by 30,000.
Kirchner grimly shouted ‘‘Never Again!’’ as he headed the main official ceremony at the military base at El Palomar, in Greater Buenos Aires. Similar ceremonies were held in most provinces.
The President, who declared March 24 a national holiday for the first time, challenged a 1990 pardon for former dictators.
His speech at the white-colonnaded military college was broadcast nationwide on a day of candlelit vigils, marches, folk concerts and rallies, the culmination of an unprecedented week of soul-searching in the nation.
The ceremony was marred by some minor scuffles as both the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights groups last night walked out from the square claiming that left-leaning groups, among the 18 groups that took part in the event, had turned the rally into a political event to foster violence.
"We didn’t come to incite violence," said Estela Barnes de Carlotto, the head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. "It was a violent, unfair speech," read at length by one of the leftwing groups. The speaker was not identified, but immediately after the speech the Mothers and Grandmothers said they did not support the speech.
It was just after 3am on March 24, 1976 that coup leaders announced they had toppled the constitutional government of María Estela Martínez de Perón — aka "Isabel" or "Isabelita" — widow of three-time president Juan Domingo Perón, whose government was marred by both violence from leftist groups and state terrorism that heralded the atrocities committed by the dictatorship.
Martínez de Perón was evacuated by helicopter from the pink Government House, steps from where rallies were held yesterday.
‘‘Thirty Years of Life Defeating Death!’’ and ‘‘Not One Step Back!’’ read large banners strung alongside black-and-white photographs of victims of the so-called Dirty War, as many cried and lit candles.
Some 3,600 photos of victims were projected — one per second — onto the white stone flanks of a towering Buenos Aires Obelisk.
Thousands of Argentines sang protest songs and watched newsreel clips of armoured cars and junta leaders on big screens.
Meanwhile, Kirchner, who promised to make human rights a high priority while in office, unveiled a plaque to the desaparecidos — Spanish for ‘‘disappeared’’ — as officers now subordinated to civilian leadership looked on.
Leuk hoor en morgen Boca - River
"We moeten ons bewust zijn van de superioriteit van onze beschaving, met zijn normen en waarden, welvaart voor de mensen, respect voor mensenrechten en godsdienstvrijheid. Dat respect bestaat zeker niet in de Islamitische wereld".