The following statement of unity was read by human rights organizations at the Playa de Mayo on Monday, March 24 during Argentina’s National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice. Thousands of people came out in support of the struggle for memory and justice and against Javier Milei’s authoritarian rule and devastating policies. Common Frontiers stands in solidarity with this important and heroic struggle against authoritarianism. (Translated from the original by Common Frontiers).
49 years since the start of the genocidal coup, we are here in the Plaza to say together:
¡There are 30 thousand detained and disappeared!
¡This was and is genocide!
¡We won’t forget, we won’t forgive and we won’t reconcile!
We continue on the path of the 30,000, who raised their banners of struggle against injustice and inequality and we say to Milei and Villarruel:
THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!
Enough with the layoffs of public and private sector workers!
We reject the government’s attempt to dismantle the state and privatize public goods and services!
We demand an increase in pensions now!
We condemn the brutal attack on the retirees and all those who demonstrated on Wednesday [April] 12th and Wednesday [April] 19th in front of Congress.
Today, we are moved to say that Pablo Grillo, although still hospitalized and in serious condition, is improving day by day! From this packed plaza, we send our solidarity and recognition, embrace his family, and demand: Justice for Pablo Grillo and punishment for those responsible! Bullrich out! Repeal the unconstitutional anti-picketing protocol!
Forty-nine years after the start of the last civil-military dictatorship, we continue to demand:
Trial and punishment for all those responsible!
Prison for life for all perpetrators of genocide and civilian accomplices!
No more house arrest for perpetrators of genocide!
The urgent declassification of all files from all areas of the State from 1974 to 1983 is essential to advance the investigations into those responsible for these crimes, the fate of the children of the disappeared detainees taken during their mothers’ captivity, and the fate of our missing detainees.
We continue to demand that they tell us: WHERE ARE THEY?
For almost 48 years, we have fought to restore the identity of the hundreds of babies stolen by the dictatorship. Taking children is forced disappearance, and until their true identity is known, it continues.
And it’s not just the grandchildren who have yet to be returned who continue to suffer: their sons and daughters too, perpetuating the false genealogy imposed by state terrorism.
Furthermore, their legitimate families, who have been searching for them for more than four decades, have the right to the truth and to reunion, as does the entire society.
The State must guarantee the restitution of the grandchildren’s identities.
As always, we ask anyone with information about possible grandchildren to contact the Grandmothers. We also encourage anyone with doubts about their identity to come forward; they have the right to the truth. In this long struggle, we have resolved 139 cases. Just two months ago, the identity of a grandson and granddaughter who had never suspected their origins was restored. We need the entire society to find them. It’s never too late.
We reclaim the historic role of our Mothers in leading the popular struggles for memory, truth, and justice.
And with them, we say:
Bring back Jorge Julio López! Punishment for those materially and politically responsible for his disappearance! Julio López, present!
Freedom for Milagro Sala and all political prisoners!
Enough REPRESSION AND institutional violence!
Enough trigger-happy police, raids and arbitrary arrests, PERSECUTION, disappearances, femicides!
We demand an end to the harassment, torture, and deaths in detention and prison settings!
More than 20 years after the Avellaneda Massacre, we demand trial and punishment for those politically responsible for the murders of Darío Santillán and Maxi Kosteki!
Justice for Santiago Maldonado, Rafael Nahuel, Facundo Castro, Elías Garay, Luis Espinosa, Facundo Molares, Florencia Morales, and other victims of state repression!
Justice for Iván Torres and Fernando Gómez, border workers murdered in Salta and Jujuy!
Comrades Mariano Ferreyra and Carlos Fuentealba, present!
48 years ago, Rodolfo Walsh published his Open Letter to the Military Juntas, in which he denounced the PLANNED MISERY, a consequence of the economic plan implemented at the time. We know well those who benefited from the blood of the 30,000: the Blaquiers, the Noble Herreras, the Pérez Compancs, the Roccas, the Macris, Ford, Mercedes Benz, the Martínez de Hozs, among many others. Today, these same economic groups are benefiting from the government of Javier Milei and Victoria Villarruel, implementing the same economic model of misery and exclusion for the majority of the people, with the exorbitant concentration of capital and the maximization of profits, devastating the rights won by our people.
That’s why we say:
Repeal Decree 70/23, the corrupt Basic Law, the delegated powers, and the RIGI (Revolutionary General Proclamation of the Nation’s Government)!
We denounce the social poverty in which more and more families live, the closure or elimination of social assistance policies for the most vulnerable!
That’s why
WE SAY NO to the destruction of public health! We reject the policy of closing and eliminating hospitals and health programs. As we said in the demonstrations for public health, and against the closure of the Estela de Carlotto maternity ward, the Laura Bonaparte mental health hospital, and the Posadas Hospital:
TO EMPTY IS TO CLOSE! No more layoffs! Reinstatement NOW!
Unconditional defense of public, free, and secular education at all levels! We denounce the underfunding of all levels of education through the pauperization of teacher salaries and the failure to provide and/or implement public subsidies for the operation, infrastructure, and knowledge production of educational institutions. We support the struggles of the student movement and of the 
teachers and administrative staff at all three levels of education. We proclaim once again: THE PEOPLE’S EDUCATION IS NOT FOR SALE, IT IS TO BE DEFENDED.
We denounce the dismantling and closure of many public solidarity and social assistance policies in various areas:
No to the surrender of common goods! Let us defend the land and water against extractivism, the RIGI (Revolutionary Land Use Plan), and the policies that burn or flood our territories and persecute our communities.
STOP the militarization of our territories! We demand respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, guaranteeing their bilingual intercultural education!
We defend the right to asylum and refuge, against all forms of persecution.
We demand justice for the Villalba girls murdered by the Paraguayan Army. Lichita must be found alive!
We defend child and youth policies that guarantee and expand the rights of all our children to science, education, health, and housing. For the effective enforcement of child protection laws, for children and adolescents free from all violence.
We reject the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility and the bills that criminalize adolescents!
OUT WITH THE IMF. The debt is owed to the people, money for pensions, medicine, employment, social protection, housing, health, and education!
We demand that the three branches of government repeal Decree 70/23, the Basic Law, and that in compliance with the National Constitution, they repeal the powers delegated to the president, and the decree enabling the armed forces in intelligence and internal security.
GENERAL STRIKE AND PLAN TO FIGHT BACK NOW BY ALL UNION CENTRALS. For wage increases, pension increases, and social programs!
We are in this plaza, with the 30,000 as our banner, with the Mothers and Grandmothers, with the survivors of the concentration camps, with the sons, daughters, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters of the disappeared detainees, and with all human rights organizations to tell Milei: MEMORY IS OUR TOOL!
We have the strength of our people’s history, and that is why Milei and Villarruel seek to deny the genocide and dismantle the gains made in the areas of Memory, Truth, and Justice.
Enough of the denialism and apology for the genocide perpetrated by the national government, armed and orchestrated by Villarruel!
We denounce the emptying and dismantling of the National Secretariat of Human Rights and the memorial sites! and the National Commission for the Right to Identity, and the harassment and precariousness of the National Genetic Data Bank.
We demand the preservation of the spaces for remembrance that operate in places where clandestine detention, torture, and extermination centres once existed, as well as the safeguarding of material evidence of the repression! We denounce the censorship and ongoing harassment of the few workers who remain to sustain these spaces, who are prohibited from carrying out activities essential to sustaining Remembrance.
For former political prisoners, exiles, children, and survivors who receive minimal pensions and lack social security. For the continuation of the trials of the genocide perpetrators.
Down with repressive legislation: the anti-terrorist law, the Bullrich protocol, and the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility. Repeal the unconstitutional reform of the penal code: the laws on repeated offenses, the anti-mafia law, and the decree enabling the armed forces to carry out intelligence and internal security.
Enough with the hateful and misogynistic speech of the Trumps and the Mileis.
For a free Palestine. We repudiate the genocide in Gaza.
The feminist, transfeminist, and LGBT+ movements won our rights in the streets, and we will defend them in the streets.
In defense of free, legal, safe, and free abortion, of the transvestite and transgender employment quota, of the ESI (Educational Services for Women), and of the laws that guarantee the right to gender identity.
Against racism, xenophobia, and the government’s fascistic policies. Stop attacking and persecuting migrants, youth, and Indigenous peoples.
ENOUGH, MILEI!
BULLRICH OUT!
Never again is never again!!!
NEVER AGAIN THE SILENCE!
30,000 detained and disappeared, present!
30,000 detained and disappeared, present!
30,000 detained and disappeared, present!
Now, and always! Now, and always! Now, and always!
Signed by mo
re than 70 Argentinian human rights organizations including:
Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo
Madres de Plaza de Mayo- Línea Fundadora
Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales
Comisión Memoria, Verdad y Justicia Zona Norte
Fundación Memoria Histórica y social argentina
H.I.J.O.S. Capital
Servicio Paz y Justicia
Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos
Movimiento Ecuménico por los Derechos Humanos
-AEDD – Asociación de Ex Detenidos Desaparecidos
-Asociación de Sobrevivientes, Familiares y compañerxs de Campo de Mayo
Photos: Gathered from people present at the Plaza de Mayo.
