A crowd gathered in the Plaza de Mayo this Sunday to commemorate the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, on the 48th anniversary of the coup d’état, on an unprecedented 24 March with a national government that, for the first time in democracy, takes a denialist stance and rejects the figure of 30,000 disappeared.
Source: somostelam.com.ar
With its epicenter in the Plaza de Mayo – but with replicas in different parts of the country – the march was called by human rights organizations, together with political, social, student, and trade union groups, in a call to demand and protest against the economic adjustment policies of Javier Milei’s government.
At the same time as the march began, the government defiantly aired its “version” of the 1970s, questioning the number of 30,000 disappeared, demanding “memory, truth and full justice” and accusing human rights organizations of having created a “big business”.
According to human rights organizations, today’s march was one of the largest since the return of democracy, with the presence of dozens of elderly mothers and grandmothers, in wheelchairs or with walking sticks, and a significant participation of young people and entire families.
Despite several attempts, a unified event between the different organizations was not achieved, so in the end, as in previous years, two separate activities were held.
The first, called by 13 human rights organizations, including Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, HIJOS Capital, and CELS, was accompanied by the active participation of the CGT and the two CTAs.
Photo: @somostelam
Among the political groups were representatives of the different facets of Peronism, such as Axel Kicillof and Máximo Kirchner, and of radicalism, whose president Martín Lousteau led a column of radical organizations.
For Kicillof, today’s march is “one of the most important marches since the return of democracy, because some things that we thought had been resolved are now being discussed again”, and he stressed the need to “make it clear: memory, truth, and justice, and there are 30,000 of them”.
Under the slogan “30,000 reasons to defend the homeland, never again planned misery”, the organizations marched from noon from the intersection of Avenida de Mayo and Piedras to the Plaza, where a document was read at 3 pm.
“The constant provocations of Milei and Villarruel deny all international agreements with constitutional rank,” warned the leader of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, in the first part of the message, in which they condemned the approval of an anti-negationist law.
The Grandmothers’ leader added later: “The main civilians of state terrorism remain largely unpunished: they are the economic and business power behind the genocide. We demand trial and punishment now”.
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In the text, Carlotto also questioned one of the government’s recent measures to combat drug trafficking in Rosario: “The participation of the armed forces in internal conflicts endangers everyone’s human rights,” said the head of Abuelas.
She was followed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who rejected the government’s “denial and apology of state terrorism”.
“The government is rapidly implementing the most ruthless adjustment plan of the last 40 years, which is a repeat of the misery planned by Martínez de Hoz,” the human rights leader warned.
Meanwhile, the Encuentro Memoria, Verdad y Justicia (EMVJ), together with left-wing political organizations, and social and student movements, gathered at 2 pm on the Avenida de Mayo and 9 de Julio and read out their document at around 5 pm in the Plaza de Mayo.
Among the main slogans announced in a statement by the EMVJ are “There are 30,000, it was and is genocide, enough with impunity”, and they demand “the trial and punishment of all the genocidaires in a common prison”, to which they add demands such as the demand for “a strike and a plan of the struggle for the trade union centers”, the rejection of the payment of the debt to the IMF and the rejection of the “reactionary plan of adjustment, capitulation, and repression of Milei and the governors”, among others.
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For their part, the Association of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo gathered from 11 am at the Casa de las Madres, located in Hipólito Yrigoyen 1584, in the center of Buenos Aires, where a rally was held under the slogan “The homeland is not for sale, life is not surrendered, the people revolt”.
Earlier, the organization La Cámpora held a massive rally from 9 o’clock in the exEsma at Libertador Avenue and Manzanares, in a caravan that walked the 13 kilometers that separate it from the Plaza de Mayo, with the slogan “Why others have walked before, we walk so that others will walk”.
On the other hand, this Sunday is the first National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice in 40 years of democracy in which the public media will not be officially present with their coverage at the scene of the events….
“The absence of the national news agency Télam and public television on 24 March is unprecedented in 40 years of democracy. It is a disaster, it shows the denial and censorship of this government, which despises freedom of expression,” said Agustín Lecchi, General Secretary of the Buenos Aires Press Union (Sipreba).
Photo: @somostelam
