Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Spanish: Madres de Plaza de Mayo) is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to abuses by the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla. Initially the association worked to find the desaparecidos, people who had disappeared without arrests, trials or judicial process; most were believed dead. Their mothers and supporters investigated to determine the culprits of what were considered crimes against humanity in order to bring them to trial and sentencing.

The Mothers began demonstrating in the Plaza de Mayo, the public square located in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in the city of Buenos Aires, on 30 April 1977. They petitioned to have their disappeared children, mostly young adults, returned alive. The women demonstrated in the square on a daily basis and held signs with their pleas, followed by carrying photos of their missing children, and wearing white scarves with their names. By declaring a state of emergency, police expelled them from the public square.

In September 1977, in order to make a larger opportunity to share their stories with other Argentinians, the mothers decided to join the annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Luján, located 30 miles (48 km) outside Buenos Aires. To stand out among the crowds, the mothers wore children's nappies (diapers) as headscarves. Following the pilgrimage, the mothers decided to continue wearing these headscarves during their meetings and weekly demonstrations at the Plaza. On them, they embroidered the names of their children and wrote their main demand: "Aparición con Vida" (Live appearance).

During the years of the Dirty War (the name used by the military junta in Argentina from 1976 to 1983 as a part of Operation Condor), military and security forces and right-wing death squads (the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, AAA, or Triple A) suppressed known and suspected political dissidents. They cast a new against anyone suspected to be associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism, or the Montoneros guerrillero movement.

As the Mothers publicized the disappearances of thousands of victims, they opposed the de facto government and suffered persecution, including kidnappings and forced disappearances of their own members. Most notably founders Azucena Villaflor, Esther Ballestrino, and María Ponce de Bianco, and French nun supporters Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, disappeared. They were later found to have been murdered, perpetrated by a group led by Alfredo Astiz, a former commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship.

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, known for having found and identified the remains of Che Guevara, later find the bodies of these women and determined that they had been killed via death flights, when they were thrown out of planes to die in the sea.

On the first days of December 1980, the first "March of Resistance" was held, consisting of mostly women marching around the public square for 24 hours.

Despite democracy being re-established in the 1983 general election, the Mothers movement continued to hold marches and demonstrations, demanding trials and sentences for the military personnel who had participated in the government that overthrew Isabel Perón in the 1976 coup d'état. This would eventually culminate in the Trial of the Juntas of 1985.

The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have received widespread support and recognition from many international organizations. They were the first association to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. They also helped other human rights groups throughout their history. The 1980 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was an active supporter of the association, for which he was harassed by the dictatorship.

Since 1986 the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have been divided into two factions, the majority group "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association" (presided by Hebe de Bonafini) and "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line". Ceremonially, every Thursday at 3:30 p.m, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo march around the May Pyramid at the central hub of Plaza de Mayo. At 4:00 p.m they give speeches from the Equestrian monument to General Manuel Belgrano, where they opine over the current national and global situation.