French President François Hollande joins Estela Carlotto in tribute to Argentine Dirty War victims.

[Judi Lynn]

4. A human being will never forget the two French nuns who were tortured and murdered

for their support for the mothers of the political prisoners who had been murdered, after their totally non-violent organization was penetrated by a military spy, and betrayed for daring to try to find out what happened to their sons and daughters.

[center] [/center]

Léonie Duquet (April 9, 1916, Longemaison, Doubs, France – 1977, Argentina) was a French nun who was arrested in December 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and "disappeared." She was believed killed by the military regime of Argentine President Jorge Rafael Videla during the Dirty War. Alice Domon, a French nun working with Duquet, disappeared a few days later. They had been working in poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires in the 1970s and supported the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, founded in 1977. Despite repeated efforts by France to trace the sisters, the Argentine military dictatorship was unresponsive.

In 1990 a French court in Paris tried Argentine Captain Alfredo Astiz, known to have arrested Duquet and believed implicated in the "disappearance" of Domon, for kidnapping the two sisters. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia.[1] In Argentina at the time, he and other military and security officers were shielded from prosecution by Pardon Laws passed in 1986 and 1987. These were repealed in 2003 and ruled unconstitutional in 2005, and the government re-opened prosecution of war crimes.

In July 2005 several bodies were found in a mass grave in General Lavalle Cemetery, 400 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. Forensic DNA testing in August identified one as Duquet's. DNA testing revealed that within the same grave were the remains of the three "disappeared" Argentine women, founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who had also been missing since December 1977. Domon has not been found.[1] Since the confirmation of Duquet's murder, France has been seeking extradition of Astiz; in 2005 he was being detained in Argentina after being indicted on charges of kidnapping and torture.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9onie_Duquet

[center]

Alice Domon

[/center]

Alicia Domon, Caty, (born September 23, 1937, Charquemont, Doubs, France; disappeared on December 17 or 18, 1977 near Santa Teresita by the Argentine Sea) was a Roman Catholic nun from France who was one of two French nationals to be "disappeared" in December 1977 in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the "National Reorganization Process" (1976–1983). She was among a dozen people associated with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group, who were kidnapped and taken to the secret detention center at ESMA.

According to witnesses who saw her there, over a period of about 10 days, she was interrogated and tortured, forced to write a letter claiming participation in guerrilla group opposing the government, and photographed in a staged setting in front of a Montoneros banner (this photo was released to the press). That group of detainees, including Sister Léonie Duquet, was "transferred", a euphemism for being taken out and killed. Domon's remains have never been found.

Bodies began to wash up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977. They were quickly buried in mass graves. A March 1978 Agence France-Presse article reported that the bodies of the missing two French nuns and others associated with the Mothers were believed to have been among them.[1]

In 2000, a small plaza in Buenos Aires was named "Hermana Alice Domon y Hermana Leonie Duquet," in honor of the sisters. Their lives are celebrated in an annual commemoration at the Santa Cruz church of San Cristobal, where they had worked, and where the remains of Duquet and several Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are buried.

In 2011, Alfredo Astiz, who had infiltrated the Mothers of the Plaza and organized the abduction of the twelve in December 1977, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for that and other crimes against humanity. For his torturing at ESMA, he had been nicknamed "The Blond Angel of Death."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Domon