A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child stolen by the Argentinian junta
A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child stolen by the Argentinian junta
The Observer
In 1977 Estela Carlotto’s pregnant daughter was arrested. The Argentinian regime let her live long enough to have the baby before killing her. With others, Estela formed the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo to search for the grandson she’d never known. Uki Goñi reports
Sunday 7 June 2015 05.30 EDT
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‘I begged God not to let me die before I found him’: Estela Carlotto hugs her grandson Ignacio Montoya Carlotto, son of
her daughter Laura, who ‘disappeared’ in 1977. Photograph: Leo La Valle/Getty
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Practically all of Argentina has cried on this one,” says Ignacio Montoya Carlotto, patting his right shoulder. We are crisscrossing the old cobblestone streets of San Telmo, the colonial district of the capital, Buenos Aires. The 36-year-old musician, his crinkly curls prematurely greying, his mouth fast to resolve into a smile, is not bragging. It’s impossible to walk even one city block without someone rushing to hug him and then burst into tears, as he predicted, on his rumpled T-shirt.
Maybe it’s because, thanks to his grandmother, the whole of Argentina had been waiting – praying – for more than 30 years for the day when he would be “found”. Most Argentinians can remember exactly what they were doing when that moment finally came in August last year.
“When I turned 80, I begged God not to let me die before I found my grandson,” says Estela Carlotto. Estela has led an extraordinary life, rising from tragedy into one of the most loved and respected public figures in Argentina. It took four more years. “We all cried; everyone has something to say about how they felt to have found this grandson we were all searching for.”
Estela was a 47-year-old schoolteacher, housewife and mother of three in November 1977 when a death squad from Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship picked her daughter Laura off a street in the city of La Plata where she lived, about 32 miles south of Buenos Aires. Laura, a 22-year-old political activist, became one of the thousands of young dissidents who were made to “disappear” by a bloody, fascist regime. Unknown to Estela, her long-haired, strikingly beautiful daughter was three months pregnant at the time of her abduction. She was taken to a secret “detention centre” called La Cacha. There, in her presence, they killed her companion and the father of the child she was carrying, 26-year-old Walmir Montoya.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/07/grandmothers-of-plaza-de-mayo-36-year-hunt-for-stolen-child
Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016124081