Sunday, January 20, 2008









The film The Official Story has an open ending:

What will happen not only to Alicia's family but also where will the country go? What is done to bring justice to the families of the disappeared? In the two decades following the "dirty war" of 1976-1983 the new Argentine government created amnesty laws that protected the junta leaders from prosecution. In 2003 the government voted to overturn the amnesty and in 2005 Argentine's Supreme Court found the amnesty laws to be in violation of the Argentine constitution. How will this decision affect those junta members that were pardonned earlier under the amnesty law? Those responsible for the 30,000 disappearances will likely never be sentences for their crimes; many are in the 70's and older. Ditto for the non-Argentine nationals that have been implicated in the dirty war. Declassified documents from the U.S. State Department showed that Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld supported the military regime in Argentine.
For the familie who lost 30,000 members and who, like the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have been seeking justice for decades now, this political limbo must be infuriating! The grandmothers are continuing their work. Only 77 missing children have located. New laws and technology may make it easier to identify the children; national law has created a Genetic Data Bank that stores the genetic material from all families that have come forwards.


2 comments:

Lisa Eller said...

"Declassified documents from the U.S. State Department showed that Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld supported the military regime in Argentine."

Huh, imagine that!

Anonymous said...

Fantastic update and thoughts. Thank you. It's heartbreaking to learn that only 77 children have been located, but given the technology more people have hope to be reunited.