Argentine rights leader finally testifies in stolen babies trial about her daughter’s demise

Argentine rights leader finally testifies in stolen babies trial about her daughter’s demise
By Associated Press, Monday, April 11, 10:51 PM

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A leader of Argentina’s human rights movement finally got the chance to testify in court about her daughter’s kidnapping and murder.

Former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are among eight people accused of organizing the theft of babies from pregnant detainees during the country’s dictatorship in the 1970s. Some 500 women gave birth in captivity before being killed.

Rights activist Estela de Carlotta pushed for this trial for decades. Testifying Monday, she described seeing the body of her daughter, who was slain after giving birth. She said the belly was destroyed by gunfire to hide evidence of the pregnancy.

De Carlotta says she’s never stopped searching for the grandson who would be 33 years old today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/argentine-rights-leader-finally-testifies-in-stolen-babies-trial-about-her-daughters-demise/2011/04/11/AF1i4SND_story.html

(AP got her last name wrong: it's de Carlotto, not de Carlotta.)

Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Estela_de_Carlotto.jpg/240px-Estela_de_Carlotto.jpg

Estela Barnes de Carlotto at the inauguration
of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the
Plaza de Mayo Garden, in Paris.

Enriqueta Estela Barnes was born in Buenos Aires in 1930. Her family relocated to La Plata in 1940, and by 1950, she had become a primary school teacher. She taught in Brandsen, and later in La Plata, where she eventually beacme a school principal. She married Guido Carlotto, a paint store owner, and they had four children.<1>

The Dirty War being waged by the military dictatorship against both violent and non-violent dissidents first struck her family in September 1976, when her son-in-law's sister, María Claudia Falcone, was abducted during the notorious Night of the Pencils assault against left-wing La Plata high schoolers. Her daughter, Laura Estela Carlotto, was a History student at the University of La Plata, and belonged to the Peronist University Youth movement (JUP), as did her siblings, Claudia, and Miguel Guido. The JUP was tied to the Montoneros guerrilla organization, and its members were targeted by both the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, and the dictatorship that took power in the March 1976 coup. Fearing for her safety, Laura Carlotto left the home she shared with her partner, Carlos, on August 1, 1977. Guido Carlotto was then kidnapped on August 5, and was released on August 25 only after payment of 40 million pesos (US$ 90,000), and after being severely tortured.<2>

Their daughter Laura was in turn abducted on November 16, 1977, with her partner, Carlos. She was three months pregnant at the time, and was taken to "La Cacha," a secret detention center in La Plata. The Carlottos were friends of Marta Bignone, whose brother, General Reynaldo Bignone, directed the Campo de Mayo training base (he would be selected President of Argentina by the dictatorship in 1982). Bignone refused to cooperate with the grieving family, however.<2>

Lauura Carlotto gave birth at the military hospital in Buenos Aires on June 26, 1978, and on August 25, subordinates of General Guillermo Suárez Mason (who as head of the Argentine Army First Section oversaw La Cacha) turned over her corpse to the Carlottos with her face and abdominal area mutilated. One of only a small number of missing dead returned to their families, she was buried on August 27 in La Plata.<1>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estela_Barnes_de_Carlotto