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Who are the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and why do they wear veils on their heads?

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo is an Argentinean group of Women protestors whose children were kidnapped and “disappeared” between 1976 and 1983 by the U.S.-backed Argentinean military dictatorship of President Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo.

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During protests, the (Spanish) Madres de Plaza de Mayowear white scarves on there heads in remembrance of their lost children. These white scarves are supposed to symbolize diapers -- or the caretaker commitment of the protestors as mothers of the missing victims.

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The Mothers ofPlaza de Mayo isan organizationof Argentineanwomen who havebecome generalhuman rightsactivists.

The organization took form by a group of women who met each other in thecourse of trying to find their missing sons and daughters, who were abducted by agents of the Argentinean government during the years known as the Dirty War(1976-1983), which is when the right-winged military forcefully seized political power over supporters of the recently deceased President Juan Domingo Perón and called it a “National Reorganization Process” when it should have been called “The Processes of Genocide” to be more accurate.

How they came to be:

+ Azucena Villaflor de Vincenti -- initiator

+ Berta Braverman

+ Haydée García Buelas

+ María Adela Gard -- sisters

+ Julia Gard -- sisters

+ María Mercedes Gard -- sisters

+ Cándida Gard -- sisters

+ Delicia González

+ Pepa Noia

+ Mirta Baravalle

+ Kety Neuhaus

+ Raquel Arcushin

+ Sra. De Caimi

+ Sra. Anonima

Villaflor started the demonstrations on the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, On April 30th, 1977. Villaflor had been searching for one of her sons and her daughter-in-law for six months.

She was taken to a concentration camp on December 10th 1977 and then “disappeared”. Latertwo more of the founders of the Plaza de Mayosomehow also “disappeared”.

The fourteen founders:

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have always used a very peaceful mode of protestation.When they first began there demonstrations, they merely stood in the nation’s capitol central plazawearing the “diapers” of their missing children around their heads. Each of the Mother’s diaper-veil hadembroidered on it the name of her missing child and the date her or she mysteriously vanished.

After being hassled by the police, and being told that they could not stand in Plaza de Mayo they begancircling around it. For nearly three decades, since March 24th 1976, they circled the Plaza every Thursdayafternoon from 3:30pm until 4:00 in efforts of exposing the truth about what had happened to theirabducted children.

The military has admitted that over 9,000 of those kidnapped are still unaccounted for, but the Mothersof the Plaza de Mayo say that the number is closer to 30,000. The numbers are hard to determine due tothe secrecy surrounding the abductions. After the fall of the military regime, a civilian governmentcommission put the number of disappeared at close to 11,000.

How they fought [then]

One of the explanations typically given to the mothers in regards to their missing children:

“No se, ¡se habrá ido con alguna mujer!”

How they fight [now]Today the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo no longer wear the names of their children on their diaper-veils. Instead they just read “Madres de Plaza Mayo” -- in a way saying that all of there children are the equal, and that all of the Mothers are together in the same struggle.

After the military gave up its authority to a civilian government in 1983, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have pressed the new government to do social justice.

In 1986, the Mothers association split into two factions:

+ The [Organization] Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo + Founding Line which now focuses on legislation.

+ The [Association] Mothers of Plaza de Mayo +Political Approach and Activists.

Néstor Carlos Kirchner is the President of Argentina today, sworn in on May 25th, 2003.

The Madres de Plaza de Mayo led the November 4th march against Bush and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Mar de Plata, Argentina. The FTAA is a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce trade barriers amongst most nations in the American continents.

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo do not doubt that their children “disappeared” in the worst way. They are aware that the majority of them faced torture and most of them were ultimately murdered. Many of them still refuse any help offered by the government as compensation for their children's absence. They refuse to recognize the deaths of their children until the government admits its fault and its connection to the Dirty War and “National Reorganization Process” as genocide.

The oldest Mother : 92The youngest Mother : 75

+ The “National Reorganization Process” or better yet the “Processes of Genocide”? + Systematically forced disappearances.

+ Justifying torture by calling it interrogation.

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Understanding the MothersUnderstanding Coco Fusco

A forced disappearance occurs when an organization forces a person to vanish from public view, either by murder or by simple sequestration. The victim is first kidnapped, then illegally detained in concentration camps, Often tortured, and finally executed and their corpse hidden. In Spanish and Portuguese, "disappeared people" are called desaparecidos, a term which specifically refers to the mostly South Americans victims of state terrorismduring the 1970s and the 1980s.

What is a forced disappearance?

How does this idea relate to the world view on terror, and, according to what Coco Fusco learned from “Operation Atropos”, what is the difference between interrogation and torture?

Maybe processes of genocide is w

hat it really should be called.

+ In 1992, all members of the Mothers' association were awarded the Sakharov Prize

for freedom of thought.

+ In 1999, the organization was awarded the United Nations Prize for Peace Education.

+ On 10 December 2003, the Grandmothers' president, Estela Barnes de Carlotto,

was awarded the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.

Awards and prizes