Hundreds of thousands of people will take to the streets in Argentina this Monday for the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, marking the 49th anniversary of the 1976 coup d'état that established the country's terrible dictatorship. The day will commemorate the 30.000 missing persons left behind by the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), under the rule of a president and vice president who champion denialist slogans.
"We're going to take to the streets. It will be a massive demonstration to shout louder than ever against the denialism promoted by Milei's government and for our children, the 30 detainees who disappeared during the genocidal dictatorship," Lidia Miy Uranga, better known as Taty Almeida, head of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line organization, told EFE.
The renowned Argentine human rights activist called Milei's government "authoritarian" and denounced the "police repression" during the March 12 demonstration in support of retirees.
"It's a shame we have this president. I'm retired and I know how difficult it is to live in this country. It's unacceptable that we can't protest peacefully in the streets without being subjected to violence," Almeida said.
Buenos Aires City Representative and President of the Human Rights Commission in the Buenos Aires Parliament, Victoria Montenegro, called attention to the "government's constant attacks on human rights policies."
“There's a new Plan Condor (coordination between the dictatorships of the Southern Cone in the 70s and backed by the United States), only the methods have changed, and that's why it's so hard for us to identify what's happening to us.”
Guillermo Torremare, vice president of Argentina's Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH), stated, for his part, that "although the government cannot be described as fascist in the classic sense of the term, it would be correct to present the political debate in Argentina today as fascism vs. anti-fascism."
Since the start of Javier Milei's term in December 2023, the National Directorate of Memorial Sites and Spaces and many other human rights sites have been depleted by funding cuts and dozens of layoffs.
In 2024, the government closed the Special Unit for the Investigation of Disappeared Children, part of the National Commission for the Right to Identity (CONADI), which investigated and provided information to the justice system on cases of children who disappeared during the dictatorship.
According to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, more than 300 children from that time, now adults, have still not been returned. The reason is that these people don't know they were stolen children, and identifying them and restoring their identities requires a lot of work.
