Human rights organizations, trade unions, and peoples’ movements in Argentina rallied in Buenos Aires on September 4 to reject a dictatorship-denial event organized by Victoria Villarruel, running mate of far-right libertarian Javier Milei. The vice presidential candidate held the event, titled “An Homage to the Victims of Terrorism,” in the legislature of Buenos Aires.
Villarruel and others claimed to fight for “truth and justice” for those killed by militant guerrilla groups the Montoneros and the Revolutionary People’s Army (ERP) during the 1970s. They also pledge to fight against the “lie” “promoted” by the majority of Argentine society and backed up by rigorous archives, testimonies, and research regarding the 30,000 people detained and disappeared by the military junta and the other human rights violations.
In response to the event, the historic human rights organization Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which fought throughout the dictatorship to demand truth and justice for their disappeared children and relatives declared, “We will not leave our daughters and sons alone.”
Organizations also harshly criticized the Buenos Aires legislature for permitting such an event in the first place. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line, the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared for Political Reasons, and the Argentine Historical and Social Memory Foundation, called for a rally outside the legislature ahead of the event. Hundreds of people and dozens of people’s movements joined these human rights organizations and demanded “not one step back, they will not pass!”
En la puerta de la legislatura, conferencia de prensa en repudio al homenaje a genocidas de la dictadura organizado por Victoria Villarruel, candidata a vicepresidenta por La Libertad Avanza.
No estamos dispuestos a retroceder.
NO PASARAN pic.twitter.com/DacD4H7Thi— CORREPI (@CORREPI) September 4, 2023
“The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo repudiate with all our strength the defenders of genocides, who are calling for an act in the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires to vindicate the Theory of the Two Demons and reinstall in the public discourse the political condemnation of the struggle of our sons and daughters,” stated the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
The mothers stated that for years they have been vindicating both the memory of the disappeared and their struggles and political objectives. They added that “we will not allow this historical, cultural and democratic milestone to be distorted by a group of politicians in an electoral campaign, who seek to summon through this act the most rancid sectors of national political life.”
Several trade union organizations such as CTA Autónoma, ATE Capital, and CTA de los Trabajadores joined the wave of repudiation and the protest on Monday in downtown Buenos Aires.
“We cannot build a better country if we do not start from truth and justice. The arrival to power of defenders of genocides endangers the very basis of the democratic system,” said ATE Capital.
Who is Victoria Villaruel?
Victoria Villarruel comes from a military family. Her father, Eduardo Villarruel, was a member of the Argentine Army and acknowledged having “intervened in the fight against subversion, both in urban and rural environments.”
Villarruel vindicates her father and maternal grandfather who was a Marino Mercante and affirms that they were the ones who instilled in her “that we had to fight for our values.”
Villaruel also appears in one of the notebooks of Miguel Echecolatz, former police officer during the dictatorship and convicted nine times for crimes against humanity. Currently, she is the honorary president of Oíd Mortales, which is the name given last year to the Tridentine Foundation for Classical Values.
The Tridentine Foundation was created in 2011 by Gustavo Corbi, a theologian who was in charge of the Religion section of the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) during the first months of Videla’s dictatorship.
With reports from ARG Medios.
