Los Madres de La Plaza de Mayo de nuevo

Today I finally had my interview with the president of the mothers of the disapeared.  I am going to very sadly admit that I can´t remember her name, nor could I dig it up on the internet to look like I had remembered her name.  But either way, I met with the president, and it was intense.

I went with two other Americans from my class, and we walk into their inner offices in their administration building.  The walls are covered with some incredible, symbolic, and disarming art.  There are plaques and pictures of their marches and struggles against the government.  We sit at a desk, opposite a small hunched over woman, who dispite her size had a very comanding presence.  And then she starts to speak.  And then I start to loose her.  Dispite how she is the mother who is most accustomed to speaking for foreigners it was still difficult to understand her, and we had to get her to repeat herself a few times:

She talked to us about their continuing struggle for justice for their children, they want all the people who are responsible for their disapearences to go to jail (and she made it clear that house arrest was not an option) and come to justice.  At this point however, the organization is larger and fights for more than just justice for their “fallen soldiers” (as she refered to them….none of the mothers want their childrens remains back, because they feel that their children are soldiers of the revolution and soldiers should remain where they fall.  To move them is to take away their honor).  Their larger fight consists of full health care, full education, food, clean water, houses and santination for the whole world.  Oh and they are fiercely anti-imperialist.  We asked them if they had any thoughts about the candidates in America, and she said she didn´t care, they both were useless and weren´t going to change anything.  And then when we said we agreed, she asked why we bothered asking her that question.  She was quite a character.

She explained their great cause very well, and the people in the struggles in the world that they support, especially those of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales.  But when I asked her HOW they were going to support these groups and how they were working on creating the changes that they desired, she avoided me.  The first time she told me about a protest they were having next week.  Then the second time I asked about the future her answer was even more vague, she basically repeated her goals.  Out of respect I did not repeat the question a little more blatently: “So what is going to happen to your organization and your struggle after you are dead (which is soon)?  Who is going to carry this on?¨ That might not have gone over so well.

But she was amazing to talk to, and the organizations goals and aspirations are very impressive, I would just have loved to hear how they were going about doing it.  I would stand behind them one hundred percent (who doesn´t believe in ending all the evil in the world), and give them support, if she would tell me how they were going about doing it.  I might just think twice if they were supporting guerrilla armies….Human rights in a fascinating topic in this country and I am very very happy that I was able to talk to her about this one side of it.  If anyone has any questions about the Mothers you can either read the wiki-page, if you are feeling really really endevorous the Mothers page in Spanish is really powerful, or you can just ask me!

I will have a few pictures soon, my camera battery died, but my classmate snapped a few, so I will throw them up here soon, and tell you when I do!