Two crusading Argentinian grandmothers noticeably moved an audience with their tales of struggle against a violent military dictatorship that kidnapped their daughters and separated them from their grandchildren, in a lecture Tuesday night at the Rockefeller Center.
Estella Barnes de Carlotto and Rosa T. de Roisinblit, president and vice president respectively of Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo organization, recounted how their common losses drew them together in 1976 to create the group with the goal of locating their long-lost grandchildren.
"They persecuted Laura, my oldest daughter, for belonging to a university student center, and she was kidnapped in November 1977," de Carlotto said.
De Carlotto's daughter, eight months pregnant at the time, was a member of the 30,000 Argentinian "desaparecidos" kidnapped during Jorge Rafael Videla's military dictatorship. Videla, who overthrew President Isabel Martnez de Pern's democratic government in 1976, ran an oppressive military junta that provoked thousands of the worst human rights violations in South American history.
"They kidnapped everyone who could be suspected of being in the opposition," said de Carlotto.
Each woman spoke of her daughter's kidnapping, as some audience members fought to hold back tears. De Carlotto recounted how her daughter and son-in-law were imprisoned at one of the 600 concentration camps in Argentina. Although her son-in-law was immediately killed, her daughter was allowed to live until she gave birth to her son.
"Her son was born there. She only had him for five hours, and he was taken away," de Carlotto said. "For a mother to bury her daughter is the greatest suffering, but the great love and pride I feel for my daughter gave me strength to continue fighting."
After many of their children were killed, the grandmothers came together to find their missing grandchildren. Using investigative, judicial and scientific methods, the grandmothers located 80 disappeared grandchildren and, in the process, became known as "007's" for their detective work. Still, the Abuelas believe over 500 disappeared grandchildren remain unidentified, with many of the children still searching for their long-lost families.
The most helpful addition to the Abuelas' search was DNA technology, which has allowed the grandmothers to match blood donated from families seeking missing members. The Abuelas established and ran blood banks in Argentina to store the blood samples and have successfully used DNA matching to identify several lost grandchildren.
De Roisinblit is an example of one of the Abuelas' successes. In 2000, using a DNA sample from the granddaughter that was left in her care after her daughter's abduction, de Roisinblit found her lost grandson.
"He came to the house of the Abuelas, put out his arm, and said, 'I want to draw blood to see if that girl is my sister,'" said de Roisinblit, who, soon after, received the news that the young man was indeed her grandson.
De Roisinblit's story is one of a growing number of cases in which the grandchildren are coming to the Abuelas out of suspicions of their identity. The grandmothers have recently launched a campaign attempting to reach Argentine youth through music, theater and other media, urging them to contact the Abuelas.
"The last grandchildren we found came to us," said de Carlotto, who, unlike de Roisinblit, has so far failed to locate her missing grandson.
In their efforts to raise awareness and seek justice, the Abuelas have not been immune from the same violence that affected their family members. De Carlotto's life was threatened in 2002 when an anonymous assailant fired on her house with a machine gun.
"The bullets that were in my garage were the same bullets that were in Laura's head when I did an exhumation, and I'm going to go on fighting against them," she said.
Many of the people now working with the Abuelas are young adults, some of whom rediscovered their families through the organization's efforts. For de Carlotto, these young people are essential to continuing the search for the hundreds of men and women still missing from their families.
De Roisinblit took a broader view and added that the youth of the entire world are responsible for combating future injustice and tragedy.
"The day we are gone, they will continue the fight," de Roisinblit said.
