Mothers of Plaza De Mayo (Jakarta Post)

[struggle4progress]

Tifa Asrianti
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sun, 04/26/2009 12:35 PM

... Two members of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (who are now grandmothers) Lydia Taty Almeida and Aurora Morea, visited Jakarta between April 16 and April 22 to share their experience with families of the disappeared. They also met with the National Commission on Human Rights and National Commission on Violence Against Women to boost efforts towards the ratification of The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention against Enforced Disappeared). In the words of Morea, those who kidnap people and make them vanish want to ensure that the victims “are non existent, are nothing, with no identity.” “But Juan, Carlos, Susana <her own son> ... exists among the 30,000 who disappeared” ...

Almeida: Even if you are not an activist, no woman is ever prepared to lose the most precious thing top her, her children. Most of us were schoolteachers, housewives, and some were professionals, but none had ever experience in activism. We asked questions to the government. Everything was learned by doing ...

Morea: Anthropologists play an important role in our cases because when we find burial sites, they can identify the bodies even if they had been buried for 20 years. In 1999, we found a mass burial site and the anthropologist identified the remains of Susana, who was shot in her head, along with the remains of Susana’s husband. The mother of my son-in-law and the other son-in-law were never found, perhaps they were taken onboard a death flight, but we don’t know for sure. Now I can go <to Susana’s grave> and mourn and pray. At least one chapter is closed ...

Almeida: Lose no hope. Keep fighting. Guard the memories. We wear headscarves with the names of our disappeared children. We also bring the pictures of our children. It prevents us from forgetting them. We need to show that the disappeared are humans; they have names, faces and families.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/04/26/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-justice-disappeared-loved-ones one-step-a-long-time.html

http://www.thejakartapost.com.nyud.net:8090/files/images/sp06-b_4.img_assist_custom.jpg
Lydia Taty Almeida (JP/J. Adiguna)

http://www.thejakartapost.com.nyud.net:8090/files/images/sp06-a_9.img_assist_custom.jpg
Aurora Morea (JP/J. Adiguna)