Argentines Remember Victims of Dirty War
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Thousands of Argentines swayed to protest songs Friday at an early morning vigil marking the 30th anniversary of a military coup that ushered in the country's Dirty War.Gracias, las Madres, para todos sus esfuerzos.The gray-haired Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo took center stage at the rock concert-styled rally, wearing the trademark white handkerchiefs of their long human rights struggle.
"Thirty Years of Life Defeating Death!" and "Not One Step Back!" read large banners strung alongside black-and-white photographs of hundreds of "desaparecidos" — Spanish for the "Missing" victims of the seven-year dictatorship and its bloody crackdown on dissent.
It was just after 3 a.m. on March 24, 1976, that coup leaders announced they had toppled the government of Maria Estela Martinez de Peron, widow of the former strongman Juan Domingo Peron. She was flown away by helicopter from the pink Government House, steps from where the rally was held Friday on the Plaza de Mayo.
The junta would remain in power until 1983, leaving a trail of nearly 13,000 now officially listed dead or missing during the era. Human rights groups put the toll for a systematic crackdown on dissidents, now known as the Dirty War, at nearly 30,000.