Part 3 - Document 3
…It was April 1977, a year since the military had launched a fierce wave of repression against left-wing activists and people accused of collaborating with them.
Ms de Bonafini’s* first son had been arrested two months earlier by the security forces.
“We went to the square that Thursday with the intention of handing over a letter to (military ruler Jorge) Videla.
“I remember there was a small group of mothers, some were terrified. Many of us came from small towns outside the city. Some, like me, hadn’t even finished primary school. Others couldn’t even read or write,” she says.
Their inquiries were met with silence. Officials would refuse to meet them or tell them where their children were.
At the time, Ms Almeida says, the concept of “the disappeared” was unknown.
“We thought our sons had been imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement, but were surely alive.”
That Thursday, 30 April 1977, a small group of mothers had assembled on the square by mid-afternoon.
The authorities had forbidden public gatherings of more than three people, so the police immediately approached them to demand they clear the place.
“But, by absolute chance, in response we started grabbing each other in pairs, arm to arm, and started walking in circles around the square. There was nothing illegal about that,” says Ms de Bonafini, now 83.
It was the first act of a movement that would slowly raise international awareness of one of the most brutal episodes of state-sponsored repression in South America.…
Source: Vladimir Hernandez, “Argentine Mothers Mark 35 Years Marching for Justice,” BBC Mundo, April 2012
*Ms de Bonafini was the president and co-founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
