DNA Test Ends a Mystery of Argentina's 'Dirty War'
The founder of Argentina's leading human rights group said Monday that
she had located the grandson taken from her daughter while a prisoner of
the military dictatorship in the 1970s, one of the long-unsolved
mysteries from the "dirty war" era that still haunts the country.
Surrounded by her large extended family, an emotional Estela Barnes de
Carlotto, founder of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, announced
that her long hunt for her grandchild had ended, while acknowledging
other families are still searching for hundreds of children taken under
similar circumstances.
"Thanks to God, thanks to life, because I didn't want to die without
embracing him and soon I will be able to," the 83-year-old grandmother
said at a news conference covered live on national TV. She has not yet
met him.
The now 36-year-old man came forward on his own to have a DNA test taken
and have the sample compared in a national database because he had
doubts about his own identity, said Guido Carlotto, a son of de Carlotto
who is human rights secretary for Buenos Aires Province.
The family didn't release the man's name, but Argentine media identified
him as Ignacio Hurban, a pianist and composer who is director of a
music school in the city of Olavarria southwest of Buenos Aires.
Carlotto said the DNA test revealed with a compatibility match of "99.9
percent" that the man is the son of Laura Carlotto, a university student
activist who was executed in August 1978 two months after she gave
birth while being held under the dictatorship's brutal campaign against
guerrillas and other opponents of the regime.
The announcement was major news in Argentina, drowning out coverage of
the recent default forced on the country by a legal dispute with U.S.
investors. De Carlotto is considered a symbol of the struggle for
justice for victims of the 1976-83 dictatorship that, according to
official statistics, "disappeared" at least 13,000 people. Activists say
the death toll was more than twice as high.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called de Carlotto when she
learned the news. "Cristina called me crying ... I told her, 'Yes,
Cristina it's true.' She said, 'What great joy,' and we cried together,"
the long-term activist said.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo believe around 500 children were
seized from people killed by the dictatorship and given to couples who
supported the government. The group has so far helped to identify 114 of
the illegally adopted children in a campaign that has stirred painful
memories.
The Grandmothers successful pushed for the creation of the DNA database
that enables people illegally adopted to determine their real identity.
Two former dictators were eventually convicted along with others of
systematically kidnapping children. Jorge Rafael Videla died in prison
in May 2013 while serving a 50-year sentence. Reynaldo Bignone remains
in prison.
De Carlotto said the parents who received her daughter's child "may have
done so innocently," not knowing the newborn's origins. "We don't have
the whole story yet, but we are going to get it," she said.
Laura Carlotto was a Peronist militant detained while pregnant in
November 1977 along with the baby's father, Oscar Montoya, a member of
the Montoneros guerrilla group. He also was killed in captivity.
The baby was taken shortly after being born in a military hospital and
his mother was executed soon thereafter, de Carlotto said, relying on
years of investigating the case.
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