Word: argentina
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...bitter June wind began to pick up, most of the human traffic scurrying through the plaza probably wondered why these women continue. It is now generally accepted in Argentina that the military liquidated all remaining political prisioners and their traces shortly before the nation hosted the 1978 World Soccer Cup. In all, it is estimated that anywhere between 8,000 and 30,000 people "disappeared" during the military's 1976-1979 "dirty war" against left wing extremism. It is also generally accepted that the vast majority of them were completely innocent and in fact had no ties to guerrilla groups...
...mothers now, three years into stable, democratic rule, flounder precariously between their status as a movement and a political pressure group. To the outside world, it is tempting to term their current situation an identity crisis, though the mothers would firmly disagree. Argentina is a nation where movements rapidly, sometimes underhandedly, sometimes violently, turn into governments. (The most outstanding example is that of dictator Juan Domingo Peron, who managed to unite the most curious mixture of labor unions, fascist military men, left-wing guerrillas and a host of other disparate elements into a movement that has lost its cohesion...
...parties and splinter factions, for reaction to current events. The mothers voiced strident and widely publicized opposition in July, for example, when the church and other anti-divorce groups held a moderately successful "march for the defense of the family" in anticipation of congressional debate on a divorce bill (Argentina is one of a small handful of countries where it is still illegal...
...having lost everything except their cause, they will not let Argentina forget...
...like so many others, turned to the mothers organization, which allowed her to pour her heart and soul into the quest for justice and posthumous vindication of her children. It also gave these women a support group, a voice, a way of forgetting loneliness while forcing Argentina to acknowledge, then remember, the horror. The mothers carried their despair to Pope John Paul II and to political leaders worldwide; they became the focus of a couple of movies and a handful of books (including Bonafini's autobiography); the world listened when Argentina...