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Are we going down the road of Pinochet's Chile or Argentina's "Dirty War"?
Taking children from their parents and then "disappearing" the parents while the children are given new homes? Is that a far-fetched interpretation of what is going on here?
Children of the Dirty War
Argentina’s stolen orphans.
On November 24, 1976, eight months after a military junta took power in Argentina, launching the Dirty War that introduced the term los desaparecidos—“the disappeared”—to the world, a house in a peaceful, tree-lined neighborhood of La Plata, about forty miles southeast of Buenos Aires, came under attack. The assault, which involved two hundred armed forces on the ground and bombing and strafing from the air, lasted for four hours. María Isabel Chorobik de Mariani (known as Chicha), an art-history teacher who lived a few blocks away, heard it, as did others throughout the city. The next day, Mariani found out that it was her son’s house that had been attacked. Daniel Mariani, an economist, and his wife, a graduate student, were both members of the leftist guerrilla group known as the Montoneros. They had been in the house that day with their three-month-old daughter and three other militants. Neighbors called the building the House of Rabbits, because the people who lived there bred and sold rabbits, but that business was a front; the basement held the printing press that put out the underground newspaper Evita. The militants were only lightly armed. “They should have surrendered,” Mariani told me. Instead, they resisted.
Daniel, it turned out, had left for a meeting in Buenos Aires shortly before the attack. His wife, Diana Teruggi, was slain on the patio. She had hidden their daughter, Clara Anahí, in a bathtub, covered with towels. After the attack, a soldier found the baby and carried her out to the street. He asked the commander of the operation, Colonel Ramón Camps, what to do with her. Two police officers were sitting in a car nearby, and Camps told the soldier to give the baby to them. Thirty years later, a neighbor told Chicha Mariani that she had seen one of the policemen place Clara Anahí in an ambulance. When the policeman noticed her watching, he shouted at her to go back into her house or he’d kill her.
Argentina’s stolen orphans.
On November 24, 1976, eight months after a military junta took power in Argentina, launching the Dirty War that introduced the term los desaparecidos—“the disappeared”—to the world, a house in a peaceful, tree-lined neighborhood of La Plata, about forty miles southeast of Buenos Aires, came under attack. The assault, which involved two hundred armed forces on the ground and bombing and strafing from the air, lasted for four hours. María Isabel Chorobik de Mariani (known as Chicha), an art-history teacher who lived a few blocks away, heard it, as did others throughout the city. The next day, Mariani found out that it was her son’s house that had been attacked. Daniel Mariani, an economist, and his wife, a graduate student, were both members of the leftist guerrilla group known as the Montoneros. They had been in the house that day with their three-month-old daughter and three other militants. Neighbors called the building the House of Rabbits, because the people who lived there bred and sold rabbits, but that business was a front; the basement held the printing press that put out the underground newspaper Evita. The militants were only lightly armed. “They should have surrendered,” Mariani told me. Instead, they resisted.
Daniel, it turned out, had left for a meeting in Buenos Aires shortly before the attack. His wife, Diana Teruggi, was slain on the patio. She had hidden their daughter, Clara Anahí, in a bathtub, covered with towels. After the attack, a soldier found the baby and carried her out to the street. He asked the commander of the operation, Colonel Ramón Camps, what to do with her. Two police officers were sitting in a car nearby, and Camps told the soldier to give the baby to them. Thirty years later, a neighbor told Chicha Mariani that she had seen one of the policemen place Clara Anahí in an ambulance. When the policeman noticed her watching, he shouted at her to go back into her house or he’d kill her.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/19/children-of-the-dirty-war
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Corrected.
