Argentine President Honors Scientists Disappeared in the Dictatorship

Buenos Aires, 24 Mar Argentine President Alberto Fernández led this Thursday a tribute in memory of the scientists who disappeared during the last civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983), established after a coup d'état that is now 46 years old. In an event on the occasion of the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, the president highlighted the “brutality” of the previous military government (calling itself the 'process of national reorganization'), which was responsible for the “greatest tragedy” in the history of Argentina. “If all dictatorships in Argentina had one thing in common, it is that they feared nothing more than thought. This is not an explanation I want to give, it is simply to highlight who were the immorals who took power on March 24, 1976 and made 30,000 Argentines disappear from the face of the earth,” Fernández said from the Cultural Center of Science, located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo. During his speech, the president expressed “shame” and “disgust” for the “deniers” who ignore the crimes of the dictatorship, stressing that this March 24 must be a day to “unite” all Argentines around a single slogan: truth and justice. “Every March 24, Argentina unites to repudiate what happened that day, and there are no differences there, there are no distances there. Some are more progressive, others are more Peronist, but we all know that there was a March 24 that persecuted, killed, murdered, disappeared, condemned to exile and postponed Argentina as never had a government postponed it,” said the head of state. “REPAIR” OF SCIENTISTS Before his speech, Fernández handed over the repaired files (documents with detailed information about an academic or student) of eight members of the scientific community, who were arrested and disappeared by the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship, to their families and relatives. The honored researchers were Alicia Graciela Cardoso, Dante Guede, Roberto Luis López Avramo, Liliana Élida Galletti, Mario Oreste Galuppo, Federico Gerardo Lüdden Lehmann, Manuel Ramón Saavedra and Martín Toursarkissian. This was made possible by the work carried out by the Memory Committee of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet), which conducted a search of its archives to verify what really happened to the researchers who were exonerated or discharged during the seven years of the dictatorship. The president of Conicet herself, Ana Franchi, acknowledged the “complicity” of this state institution with the “systematic violations of human rights” that occurred at that time, either by “action” or “omission”, and offered her “recognition” to the members of the scientific community who suffered persecution. Argentina celebrates this Thursday the National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, a day that recalls the events of March 24, 1976, when a coup d'état removed Maria Estela Martínez de Perón from power and established the country's last civic-military dictatorship. According to human rights organizations, until 1983 around 30,000 people - including political and social activists, trade unionists, university students or artists - disappeared after being kidnapped, tortured and killed by the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship.