From the Classroom to the Field: Meeting with Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina
Esmé Smith and Sofía Pérez
Between the years of 1976 and 1983, Argentina was controlled by el Proceso, a military dictatorship that ruled the country with terror tactics that included kidnapping, torture, and assassination, among other violations of human rights. Particularly gruesome was the military junta’s use of forced disappearances. During the military dictatorship, the government forcibly disappeared an estimated 30,000 people, leaving countless families without answers or the possibility of retribution.
During our factfinding trip to Buenos Aires, the pain and suffering caused by these forced disappearances was tangible as we stood in the cramped attic of the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), the clandestine detention center where the desaparecidos, 'the disappeared,' were held against their will, tortured, and killed. We had read about the atrocities carried out at ESMA in Professor Cavallaro’s Human Rights Advocacy course. Now, three months later, we were in the facility seeing the remains of an elevator shaft that had been filled with cement, a last-minute effort by ESMA to conceal the torture rooms from the international human rights community.
The horrors of the military dictatorship became even more real as we met with some its most known victims. In Human Rights Advocacy, we learned about the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, the 'Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.' Founded in 1976 as a response to the disappearances, the Madres gathered at the Plaza de Mayo in front of the presidential palace every Thursday to demand answers about their missing loved ones. The Abuelas, inspired by the Madres, formed to locate their grandchildren—babies born in captivity to their kidnapped daughters. Together, these organizations gained global recognition for their nonviolent, community-based advocacy. One can’t walk two blocks in Buenos Aires without seeing enormous, vibrant murals of the Madres painted on the walls. Incredibly, we had the honor and opportunity to meet María Adela Antokoletz for coffee.
María is not a Madre in the typical sense; her mother was María Adela Gard de Antokoletz, one of the original founders of the movement. María’s brother Daniel had been forcibly disappeared in 1976. As she emptied a packet of sugar into her cortado, María passed around a pin with her brother’s face and name. Maria shared that he was a professor and a lawyer, and his defense of political prisoners made him a target for the junta. María had grown up with the Madres, fighting alongside these women for justice almost her entire adult life—and now she is one of the organization’s leaders.
At ESMA, we read endless testimonies from former victims, watched videos of the Madres desperately pleading for answers, and touched the walls of rooms where women gave birth to babies who would be confiscated and rehomed with supporters of the regime. With María, we had a chance to meet one of the women behind an internationally influential organization, one that advanced the movement towards community-based advocacy and altered the history of human rights. All of it was incredibly chilling and intensely powerful. To take information from the page and the classroom to the scenes of violations and conversations with activists was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us.
As undergraduates, it was through the University Network that we were able to have these moments of connection—moments that bridged our academic knowledge with real life.
