Grandson lost during Argentina 'dirty war' emerges

[Judi Lynn]

6. Argentine Musician Finds Out His Biological Parents Were Killed by Country’s Dictatorship 36 Years A

Argentine Musician Finds Out His Biological Parents Were Killed by Country’s Dictatorship 36 Years Ago

Uki Goni / Buenos Aires
12:39 PM ET


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Estela de Carlotto, president of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, right, and her grandson Ignacio Hurban, left, hug during a news conference in Buenos Aires, Aug. 8, 2014.

Victor R. Caivano—AP[/font]

Ignacio Hurban's parents were killed by a ruling dictatorship, and he was raised by another family


It wasn’t until his thirty-sixth birthday two months ago that Ignacio Hurban was told he was adopted. But his was no regular adoption — it transpired instead under the most violent of circumstances.

His real parents, Oscar Montoya and Laura Carlotto, were arrested in November 1977 by Argentina’s ruling dictatorship because of their political activities, disappearing into the macabre system of death camps the military set up across Argentina. His father was secretly executed shortly after his arrest. But his mother, two months pregnant, was kept alive until Hurban was born in June 1978, after which she was also murdered.

Hurban’s case was by no means an isolated one. It’s estimated that some 500 infants suffered the same fate during the bloody 1976-83 Argentinian regime, during which some 20,000 mostly young left-wing political activists were murdered. The military made only one exception during its killing spree: Pregnant women were kept alive until they gave birth. Afterwards, the infants were handed over to military families or unsuspecting couples to be raised according to the “Western and Christian” values the military claimed to defend. These infants grew up completely unaware of their real identities.

“It’s a crime beyond all imagination,” says Robert Cox, a British journalist who lived in Argentina during those years, bravely reporting and even confronting top generals personally about the crimes they were committing. “I still don’t understand how men who are meant to be men of honor, military men, could fall so low. It’s the one crime above all others that wakes us up to the horror of what happened and how terribly evil it was.”

Two former dictators of that regime were eventually convicted for the systematic kidnapping of children. Jorge Rafael Videla died in prison last year while serving a 50-year sentence, Reynaldo Bignone remains behind bars. Various military couples who knowingly took in such children have also been convicted, including cases in which the “adoptive father” played a hand in the killing of the infants’ real parents.

More:
http://time.com/3096122/ignacio-hurban-argentina/