Donne senza confini

One thursday as so many others

It is one thursday of august, I have been arrived in Buenos Aires two days ago and I ask to my girlfriend to go to Plaza de Mayo to be with the mothers of the Argentinian "desaparesidos" that every thursdays, from more than twenty years, they find again themselves in that plaza.

It is a spring day considering that in Argentina is winter. We reach the Plaza de Mayo, just in front of "Casa Rosada" , at 15:10 o'clock. Mothers have not arrived yet. People quickly transit in that plaza as in an any plaza of the world but that plaza is not as the others, it has become the symbol of the pain of those mothers and everyone can see it looking the ground where there is drawn the handkerchiefs that mothers wear in head.
At the 15:20 they start to arrive the first mothers, meanwhile some tourist stops them to be able to make some photos. A lot of foreign people come to assist to this "rite". For me mothers represent the tenacity and the stubbornness of so many mothers that don't resign them not to know anything of the fates of their children disappeared during the regimes of the soldiers; they are elderly women but with an enviable internal strength.
At 15:30 o'clock they have almost all arrived, last to arrive is Hebe de Bonafini, chairwoman of the Mother de Plaza de Mayo. My girlfriend introduces me to her and with a lot of pleasure I express her my solidarity. Not always Hebe succeeds in being with the other mothers on Thursdays because she is often around the world to make to know to all the injustices that have suffered and to report the indifferent Argentinian institutions to their application of justice and truth.

To the 15:35 with a little delay , mothers begin to turn and they do this for half an hour. Behind them, a lot of people to support mothers, also me with my girlfriend: also her aunt and her uncle have disappeared an evening of 1977 when they had few more than twenty years. Histories as these are rather common but they are histories that the Argentinian institutions have never helped to clarify. Not only: the daughter of Hebe, Maria Alejandra, is had to recently transfer to Cuba following the concrete threats that she has received.

We keep on turning for that plaza, some applause of tourists, there are also Israeli journalists to document the day.
I feel a lot of sadness to consider what mothers have passed in that terrible years however I am also happy to see that they are not alone, that so many people and so many associations as Amnesty Internazional support them.
While I am walking I see to the borders of the plaza other mothers that are out of the group of the other mothers. Those mothers are dissociated because they have accepted money that the government has offered them, money that in reality, in many cases, they have not received. Other mothers have not shared this line of behavior and therefore there has been an inside division.
At 16:00 o'clock mothers stop turning and they are directed in front of "Casa Rosada" where Hebe holds the usual discourse. She speaks on the recent trip to Italy to participate in the G8 in Genoa and also of some demonstrators that have been arrested during a demonstration and brought in a jail of maximum safety where they have not been able not to even see the family ones.
Unfortunately Argentina is crossing a very critical economic phase and they is warned social tensions but mothers are sensitive to every form of injustice.
The day is concluded, Hebe grants some interview, we direct to the center of mothers, "mothers house" in the Street Hipolito Yrigoyen really in front of the Congress. It is a very big place where a cafe managed by mothers and also pictures to the walls that speak of their stories and a beautiful library.
We stop there to take a coffee, we greet some mothers and we go out. It has been a very exciting day that has made me know exceptional women with which I will always collaborate for getting justice.


Federico Bastiani