The people of Argentina now are beginning at long last to unravel the mystery of the
disappeared.
The remains of many of the disappeared are being found in unmarked graves throughout
the country.
Many of the bodies show signs of torture.
During the military dictatorship in Argentina – from 1976 to 1983 – as many as 30,000
people simply disappeared without a trace.
Some of those taken were young pregnant women.
Kept alive until they gave birth, at least 500 of their babies were then given to couples
who were deemed sympathetic to the regime.
It's a story that's still playing out
today, nearly 40 years after it began.
It’s so easy to relate.
They kidnapped my daughter.
She was pregnant.
Where’s my grandchild?
It’s the most basic human story in the world.
A three-man military junta has taken over the government of Argentina.
The coup began in the early morning hours of March 24, 1976.
The action was swift and efficient, and the new ruling junta composed of coup leaders
seemed in firm control.
It wasn’t long before the military dictatorship started rounding up guerrilla groups and those
believed to be left wing subversives.
The military went to where the person worked, or the university, or maybe the person was
walking in the street and then it was like the earth had swallowed them.
Isabel Mignone-del Carril’s sister was one of the first to be taken.
Social worker Monica Mignone disappeared in 1976.
She was organizing resistance to a government slum demolition project; Miss Mignone was
24.
I am totally pessimistic about the fate.
My father told us, that they had probably killed her.
They would take them, get information out of them and then get rid of them.
The only ones that were really kept were the women that were pregnant.
They considered these women and certainly the fathers of these unborn children to be
communists, and there was a danger that they would raise these children as communists.
So they quickly came up with the idea, we’re going to let them give birth, then we’re
going to kill the mother and then we’re going to hand over the children to proper
Catholic families to raise as their own.
The kids will never know.
Housewife and school principal Estela de Carlotto was 47 years old back in November of 1977
when her 22-year-old daughter, Laura disappeared.
Carlotto says she was frantic to find out what had happened to her daughter.
Carlotto would never hear from her daughter Laura again.
In August of 1978, she was killed by her captors.
Although devastated, Estela de Carlotto was one of the more fortunate ones – she was
given her daughter’s body to bury.
It was two years later that she learned something she had suspected – Laura had been pregnant
and given birth to a son before she was murdered.
Not long after, she joined the grandmother’s or abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo.
The Mothers were looking for their dead children.
The Abuelas were looking for their live grandchildren.
That was the difference.
They were parallel organizations.
Every Thursday both groups would march in silent protest around the Plaza de Mayo, the
famed city square that sat opposite the presidential palace…
It wasn’t long before their silence began to be heard around the globe.
Their brave work demonstrated to the whole world that something horrible was going on
in Argentina.
The dictatorship lasted seven years.
During that time, as many as 30,000 people were tortured and killed at detention camps
all over the country.
While many of the victims were buried in mass graves, nearly 5,000 were taken to a camp
known simply as the ESMA.
At the beginning, they would set up huge bonfires and cremate the bodies.
Once the number of people captured started growing, that was no longer a viable method.
So then they decided to use military planes.
They would drug the, the prisoners at the ESMA until they were in a kind of half-awake,
half-asleep state, load them on the planes and throw them into the Atlantic Ocean.
After the regime fell, the grandmothers were desperate to not only find out what had happened
to their children, but to also recover their grandchildren who had been stolen at birth.
They had like an intelligence agency.
They worked like detectives already during the dictatorship.
Their search would take them to New York and the office of exiled Argentine geneticist,
Victor Penchaszadeh.
Their question was, is it possible to identify children even if you don’t have their parents?
The answer was yes.
They could match genetic markers in blood samples from any living grandparents, aunts
or uncles.
So they turned to science… and in 1987, they began storing their profiles in a newly
created national genetic bank.
By then, they had already found 39 missing grandchildren.
The truth is the truth.
I mean it’s the ethical basis for all what the Abuelas have been doing.
And that search for truth would lead to something the generals had never imagined…
A civilian court in Argentina today, convicted five former military leaders accused of murder,
torture and other charges.
Much of the evidence gathered against the regime came from the grandmothers and the
mothers.
Their work with forensic experts in the often painful process of finding and identifying
the remains of their children would help secure convictions against the former dictators.
By May of 2014, Estela de Carlotto and the grandmothers had found or identified 113 missing
grandchildren, and at the age of 83, her determination to continue the search that
began in 1978 with the murder of her daughter,seemed stronger than ever.
Ignacio Hurban was born in June of 1978.
His parents were farmers near the city Olavarria – some 220 miles from Buenos Aires.
A few years ago Ignacio says he was at home watching television.
On his 36th birthday in 2014, Ignacio found out that he had been adopted at the height
of the dictatorship.
He is an accomplished musician and director of a music conservatory.
While he says he was stunned to learn of his adoption, he cannot deny that growing up,
he did have some doubts.
Not long after his discovery, Ignacio went to the grandmothers, who arranged for a blood
test.
The results were sent to the National Commission for the Right to Identity – the government
agency that the grandmothers lobbied for to restore their grandchildren’s family heritage.
In August of 2014, just days after taking the test, Ignacio got the results from the
head of the commission.
The country came together I think in this huge cry of joy.
I went to the press conference where she appeared publicly with him for the first time, and
there’s a room packed full of journalists all in tears, myself included, because she
represented so much for us.
I mean she had been so brave.
She had put so much of herself at stake.
And finally she had her reward.
…And for her grandson, the reward would be two-fold.
The genetic bank didn’t just reveal the identity of his mother, it would make known,
for the first time, the name of his father – Walmir Montoya.
Montoya’s remains were identified in 2009.
And his profile was then stored in the genetic bank where it quietly remained until Ignacio’s
DNA was entered.
The result was immediate and indisputable.
But with those results came something else – the parents who raised him would face
a legal investigation.
Ignacio Hurban is now Ignacio Montoya Carlotto.
Although he has changed his name, he says his bond with the parents who raised him remains
strong, and he is proud to be the 114th grandchild identified.
Since Ignacio, three more grandchildren have also been found.
Hundreds more remain missing.
At the age of 84, Estela de Carlotto shows no sign of slowing down – taking her message
and now her grandson around the world.
Sitting on the river bank in Buenos Aires is a memorial, a tribute to the thousands
of people who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered.
For Argentines, it is a stark reminder of a dark and not so distant past.