Stella Calloni
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, October 27, 2024, p. 19
Buenos Aires., In a new attack by the government of far-right President Javier Milei against human rights organizations, the secretary of this matter, Alberto Baños, announced the suspension of the construction of the Memory Space in the Campo de Mayo Military Barracks, where at least four clandestine detention and extermination centers operated during the military dictatorship (1976-1983), and it is the place where thousands of kidnapped people were tortured and disappeared; It is added that similar works will also stop being built in the so-called Escuelita, in the southern city of Bahía Blanca.
This is one of the many actions of the government trying to collapse everything related to memory and justice, removing budget and destroying everything related to human rights, which placed Argentina in one of the first places in the world as an example of fight against impunity.
“In almost 11 months of management, Baños has not yet appointed a person to head the national directorate of Sites (of Memory). These spaces have been denouncing that they suffer a emptying by the national administration – which includes layoffs and the lack of replacement for those workers who retire,” says Luciana Bertoia, in statements to the Argentine media. Page/12.
Former judge Alberto Julio Baños entered the Judiciary during the dictatorship, with which he sympathized, according to several colleagues at the time, especially with the security forces; In December 2023 he was appointed Secretary of Human Rights. In September of last year he resigned as a magistrate, when he was investigating the strange disappearance of the Buenos Aires city police officer, Arshak Karhanyan, of Armenian descent, amid serious irregularities.
The arrival of Baños to Human Rights displaced Horacio Pietragalla Corti, a son of disappeared people, who was rescued by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation was only left as the Ministry of Justice in charge of Mariano Cúneo Libarona, another character very close to the so-called judicial party.
There are also complaints about Baños’ actions at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), the other largest Clandestine Detention and Extermination Center, which they have even tried to convert into a recreation place, as Vice President Victoria Villarruel has suggested. defender of the military of the past dictatorship, despite the fact that that place was recognized as Historical Heritage.
The construction of the Memory Space in Campo de Mayo was one of the objectives of the ruling Frente de Todos, at the request of the families of the victims who passed through that place where the clandestine centers operated: El Campito, Las Casitas, the Prison for Defendants and the Campo de Mayo Military Hospital, where children were born that were appropriated by the military.
They claim the president lacks conscience
One of the victims of these centers, Iris Pereyra de Avellaneda, survivor of unspeakable torture, today president of the Argentine League of Human Rights, was in Campo de Mayo together with her 15-year-old son, Floreal. black Avellaneda, both kidnapped at the time their house was raided on April 15, 1976, when the militia were looking for her husband Floreal Avellaneda, union delegate and member of the Argentine Communist Party.
On May 13, 1976, after being cruelly tortured in El Campito, the teenager was taken on a death flight and his body was found along with seven other deceased in the Ensenada del Puerto of Montevideo, Uruguay. On May 15, 1976 The Uruguayan press reported on the discovery of the bodies.
black Avellaneda was found tied hand and foot with deep unhealed wounds, with visible signs of torture, and experts considered that his death had been caused by an impalement that destroyed him.
That event caused horror throughout the world and since then Iris de Avellaneda, along with other victims of the dictatorship, in her fight for justice and in memory of her son, became one of the pioneers in asking for a site to be built. Memory, in a place where so many kidnapped-disappeared people passed through.
The government of far-right Javier Milei is trying to erase the memory of a country that lived under several dictatorships, the last one, the bloodiest in history, which left 30,000 missing, which the president now denies.
The attitude of the Executive It is a whim and a sign of hatred towards the sitessaid the president of the League, Iris de Avellaneda, who, along with other victims, decided to go wherever necessary in the face of so much injustice and the attempt to free criminals against humanity.
The Bahía Blanca justice system has also requested that the National Human Rights Secretariat be informed when the works will resume to continue the expert reports on the land that the building will occupy.
