"Lose no hope . Keep fighting.
Guard the memories .
We wear heascarves with the names of our
disappeared children.
We also bring the pictures of our children.
These prevent us from forgetting them.
We need to show that the disappeared are human
beings; they have names, faces and families."
Taty Almeida’s message to the Indonesian human rights movement, 25 April
2009
In April 2009, the Indonesian human rights community received a visit by
two special guests from Argentina. The special guests were neither the
famous football players like Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi. Nor were
they the popular first couple, President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner and
her husband, former Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner. The two special
guests were Señora Lydia
Taty Almeida and
Señora Aurora Morea of the
internationally known Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Linea Fundadora. They
came to Indonesia in order to commemorate the Indonesian Women’s Day
(known as Kartini Day) and the 11th anniversary of the Commission for the
Disappearances and Victims of Violence (KontraS).
From their physical appearance, they look like two 80
year old ordinary grandmothers. But from their stare and body language, we
can see that they are women of strong character and whose years of pain
and struggle have developed in them an inner confidence in their capacity
to struggle for a world without desaparecidos. Their senior years have
never ever diminished their persistence and courage in their struggle for
life – for truth, justice, redress and the reconstruction of the
historical memory of their beloved desaparecidos.
Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo Was Initiated by 14
Mothers….
Taty and Aurora are leading members of the well-known Las Madres de Plaza
de Mayo –Linea Fundadora. If translated to English, it means “The Mothers
of the May Square – the Founding Line.” It is an organization of mothers
whose sons and/or daughters were made to disappear when Argentina was
under the military junta from 1976 until 1983.
The establishment of the organization was started by those mothers who
searched for their disappeared children from the police office, the
military, ministerial offices, and even the churches. It was in these
places that they met each other. On one occasion, one of the mothers,
Azucena Villaflor de Devicenti, said to the others,
“If we do this alone, we will not get anything. Why
don’t we go to the Plaza de Mayo, and when we organize as a group, Jorge Videla will certainly want to meet us .... “
On Thursday afternoon, 30 April 1977, 14 women gathered
at the heart of Buenos Aires, in the Plaza de Mayo in front of the
Casa
Rosada.1 They were dressed in black with white scarves around their heads,
wherein the names of their disappeared sons and daughters are imprinted
and carried signs emblazoned with photographs of those whose whereabouts
are unknown.
In Argentina’s Christian culture, women are highly
valued and respected. Yet, despite their being women, their action was not
safe. The military junta was apparently angry with the mothers. It did not
only insult them by calling them the mad mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Las Locas de
Plaza de Mayo), but also threatened and terrorized them. Several
times, they had to be dragged to the truck of the army and arrested a few
days in the police office.
Furthermore, some of its leaders were also arrested,
tortured and made to disappear. One of them was its founder, Azucena
Villaflor de Devicenti who was made to disappear on 10 December 1979. In
July 2005, the body of Villaflor, together with those of two other
mothers, was identified by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo
Argentino de Antropologia Forense or EAAF). The bodies showed fractures
consistent with a fall and impact against a solid surface, which confirmed
the hypothesis that the prisoners had been taken in one of the many “death
flights” (vuelos de la muerte) recounted by former naval officer, Adolfo
Schilingo. In these flights, prisoners were drugged, stripped naked and
flung out of the aircraft flying over the Atlantic ocean.
Of the two mothers visiting Indonesia, Taty Almeida
joined Las Madres because her son, Martin Alejandro Almeida was taken by
military intelligence officers on 17 June 1975. When he disappeared,
Alejandro was 20 years and a medical student. Until this day, Taty does
not have any information about the fate and whereabouts of her beloved
son.
Aurora Morea joined Las Madres because her daughter and
son-in-law, Susana Perdini de Bronzal and her husband, disappeared and
later killed. Susana was 27 years old, an architect who was active in
political activities against the military junta. In an investigation and
exhumation of the EAAF on this case, Susana’s remains were found and
identified in 1999.2
A Success Story…
The long and difficult struggle of the mothers in Argentina and abroad
since 1977 has resulted in the development of the international human
rights mechanisms. In the late 1970s, issues of enforced disappearances
came to the attention of the United Nations, which ushered in the
establishment of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) in 1980. More than a decade later, on
18 December 1992, the United Nations unanimously adopted the Declaration
for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances.
Furthermore, the struggle of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, along with other
victims’ organizations including the constituents of the Asian Federation
Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and other international human
rights organizations also have successfully convinced the United Nations
to finally adopt a legally binding normative instrument, which is the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance (herein after referred to as The Convention) in December
2006. In fact, Argentina is the second out of the 11 states, so far, to
ratify the treaty. The Argentinean government has made clear its support
to the establishment of an independent committee to monitor the treaty’s
implementation. Other countries that ratified the Convention are Albania,
Bolivia, Cuba, France, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Senegal, Uruguay and
Mali.
Because of the struggle of the Mothers of the May Square, the new
president of post-military junta in Argentina, Raúl Alfonsín established
the National Commission for Missing Persons (CONADEP). After working or
one year, the CONADEP had successfully disclosed the practices of
disappearances by the military junta within the period of 1976 - 1983 and
issued a well-known report, entitled Nunca Mas (Never Again) which, as
American Legal Philosopher Ronald Dworkin pointed out, it is “a report
from hell.”
The Nunca Mas has successfully revealed the pattern of disappearances,
places of clandestine detention, methods of torture and the identity of
the victims and the perpetrators. In the working period of only a year,
CONADEP was able to identify 8,000 victims, from the 30,000 persons whom
they believe to have forcibly disappeared. The Nunca Mas was then used as
one of the references to try members of the military junta responsible for
the disappearances. The scheme of reparations for the victim was also
undertaken in Argentina with reference to CONADEP report.
Las Madres of Indonesia; Women Human Rights Defenders
Like Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, there are also many mothers of the
disappeared in Indonesia. Gross human rights violations occurred in 1997 –
1999, particularly during the disappearances of pro-democracy activists,
the May Riots and the shooting of students known as Trisakti, Semanggi I
and Semanggi II (TSS). Since then, the Indonesian mothers of the
disappeared began to struggle for justice and human rights in Jakarta, not
to mention those mothers in other parts of the country, such as Aceh and
Papua, who are also struggling for the same cause.
Starting at the end of March 1998, some parents began
to worry because of the news that their children were abducted by the
military. Among them were the parents of Faisol Riza; Raharja Waluya Jati;
Mugiyanto (the author); Nezar Patria; Suyat Petrus Bima; Anugerah; Andi
Arief; Herman Hendrawan and the wife of Wiji Thukul. The parents of Yani
Afri, Noval Alkatiri, Yadin Muhidin and Ucok Siahaan followed. They all
reported their missing loved ones to the Commission for Missing Persons
and Victims of Violence (KontraS), chaired by the late Munir.
They began to search for their disappeared loved ones
by visiting the Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), military
headquarters, police headquarters, military police headquarters, House of
Parliament, the Attorney General and different ministries of government in
order to relay one common question: “ Where are our children? ” Until now,
the question remains unanswered.
In the process of their search and continuing struggle,
the mothers are the most persistent and brave. There were times in 1999
when in front of the House of Parliament and the Ministry of Defense, the
mothers were those who defied the military which were completely armed and
did all what they could to force them to leave. As musician, Margaret
Wakeley mentioned about these mothers, “As long as mothers give birth to
children, they will give birth to courage.”
A Message to the Struggling Indonesian Mothers
While in Indonesia, Taty and Aurora always delivered
inspiring messages to their fellow mothers whose children have also
disappeared. “Keep fighting, never surrender, never forget!”
In an exclusive interview with leading Indonesian
English newspaper, the Jakarta Post, Taty said, “Lose no hope. Keep
fighting. Guard the memories. We wear headscarves with the names of our
disappeared children. We also bring the pictures of our children. In so
doing, we will never forget them all the more. We need to show that the
disappeared are human beings; they have names, faces and families.”
Like the goals of the madres in Argentina, the ultimate
goals of victims’ families’ struggle in Indonesia go beyond their own
personal interests. Transcending personal gratification, these goals are
indefatigably being fought for the sake of the country’s future so that
never again will enforced disappearances happen to anyone. “Let us be the
last victims,” Misiati Utomo, a mother of a disappeared, emphatically
said.
The appeal of “never forget” becomes very important and
relevant in the context of Indonesia’s upcoming presidential elections.
Some investigations by official state institutions, such as Komnas HAM,
found out command responsibility involvement of the retired General Wiranto and retired Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto in the cases of
enforced disappearances and other human rights violations. Both military
men are vice presidential candidates for the 8 July 2009 elections.
Especially for the victims’ families and the human rights community in
Indonesia, the candidacy of these persons is a threat to human rights.
They should never be holding public office and instead, be held
accountable for the atrocities they have committed.
For whatever reasons - ethical, moral, political,
cultural or social - justice and accountability are imperative. Founded on
this principle, one member of Las Madres said, “human errors can be
pardoned; what is beyond the frontiers of humanity cannot.”
The visit of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo has
inspired and encouraged human rights activists in Indonesia, particularly
the women human rights defenders. Their visit was a real expression of
genuine solidarity among victims of repression under military regime. As
aspired for by one Indonesian mother, “it Mugiyanto is the present
Chairperson of the AFAD. He is the founding Chairperson of IKOHI. He
himself has been a victim of enforced disappearance when he was kept in
secret detention, during which he was physically and psychologically
tortured by the Kopassus immediately after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
Three months later, he was released. would be very ideal to strengthen
such sincere international solidarity, extending it to other continents
that are experiencing similar sufferings and having the same dream for
justice.”
_____________________________
End notes:
1 La Casa Rosada, (Spanish for “The Pink House”), officially known as the
Casa de Gobierno (“Government House”) or Palacio Presidencial (“The
Presidential Palace”), is the official seat of the executive branch of the
Government of Argentina. Source: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
2 Annual Report 2000 of the Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense.
Mugiyanto is the present Chairperson of the AFAD. He is the
founding Chairperson of IKOHI. He himself has been a victim of enforced
disappearance when he was kept in secret detention, during which he was
physically and psychologically tortured by the Kopassus immediately after
the fall of Suharto in 1998. Three months later, he was released.
