news | Wednesday March 2, 2011

Argentina's Dirty War and Stolen Children

On February 28, 2011, a long-awaited trial began for two former Argentine dictators who allegedly oversaw a systematic plan to steal babies born to political prisoners three decades ago.

Jorge Rafael Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are accused in 34 cases of infants who were taken from mothers held in Argentina’s largest clandestine torture and detention centres, the Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires and the Campo de Mayo army base northwest of the city.

Also on trial are five military figures and a doctor who attended to the detainees.

The case was opened 14 years ago at the request of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a leading human rights group. It may take up to a year to hear testimony from about 370 witnesses.

Guillermo Verdecchia’s first play, Another Country was his response to his home country Argentina’s Dirty War in 1976–83, when leaders of the military junta held that their campaign against “leftist subversives and terrorists” was the beginning of the third world war with a mandate to “kill all the subversives”.