It's hard to imagine how it must have been...
Imagine you're starving. You haven't eaten in hours and you run around a busy city asking for food, banging on restaurants, yelling at people to give you something, anything. Now imagine it's not food you lack, it's information. Your son has been missing for weeks and no one wants to talk about it.
You're pissed. It's 1976 and a military junta has just taken over your country. No one, and I mean no one is allowed to demonstrate against the government. Fortunately, or unfortunately I should say, there are others like you. The last year has been the worst of your life. Your sons are taken in their sleep without explanation. Now you're all pissed. And one day you decide you've had enough. So, on April 30, 1977 you march down the street wearing cloth diapers on your head to symbolize your missing sons. You march into the most obvious place in all of Argentina: La Plaza de Mayo. You know the police will be there. You don't care. It works, they don't stop you. How could they, you're a mother with a diaper on your head and you're pissed.
I met one of those mothers wednesday afternoon. I called her office and she told me to come right away. Our conversation is below. Her name is Juana de Pargament. She talks about being the oldest member, the treasurer, the one who initiated the fight, and what her group is fighting for.
Then yesterday it was time for the march on the Plaza de Mayo. Every thursday for the last 30 years the mothers have marched around the Plaza de Mayo and made a speech outside the Casa Rosada (the Pink House) or Presidential Residence. The last part of thursday's speech is below. She declares her support for Nestor Kirchner and all candidate aligned with the former president's Justicialista Party.
