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Press conference by Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo on Friday (photo: Belvedere Alejandro/Télam)
Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo announced on Friday the identity of the 115th recovered grandchild, the granddaughter of one of the organisation’s founders.
Ana Libertad -the name given by her birth parents- is the granddaughter of Abuelas founder Alicia Zubasnabar de De la Cuadra, who died in 2008. Her parents, Elena de la Cuadra and Héctor Baratti, who were part of the Partido Comunista Marxista Leninista (PCML), were kidnapped by the military dictatorship on 23rd February 1977 in La Plata. Elena was five months pregnant.
They were both held at the Police Station number five in La Plata, where Ana Libertad was born. Whilst Elena remains disappeared, the remains of her partner Héctor, who was thrown from a plane into the Río de la Plata in one of the so-called ‘death flights’, were identified by the Forensic Anthropology Team.
Ana Libertad is currently living in Europe, and she underwent the DNA testing at her local Argentine consulate. The judicial case dates back to 2010, when the National Commission for the Right to Identity (Conadi) received an anonymous email with information about the young woman. The file was then transferred to the office of special prosecutor Pablo Parenti, who deals with these cases and who continued with the investigation. Upon finding out that there were legal proceedings in place, Ana Libertad decided to voluntarily undergo DNA testing. She gave a blood sample at the consulate of the country where she lives on 25th April, which arrived in Argentina on 8th May.
“This is not the first test that is carried out overseas. For years now those who have doubts don’t have to travel to the country. We have worked with the Foreign Affairs Ministry to create an adequate legal and scientific custody chain. Many tests have been carried out, including those of the families. This is the first case with a positive result, but it’s not chance or luck, it’s the result of years of hard work,” said Claudia Carlotto, head of Conadi.
Church Links
The links between the Catholic Church and the dictatorship were brought under the spotlight again as information surfaced on Ana Libertad’s case.
A survivor from the clandestine detention centre set up at the La Plata police station, Luis Velasco Blake, recalled a conversation between Chaplain Christian Von Wernich -convicted for his participation in crimes against humanity- and Ana Libertad’s father, Héctor Baratti. In a visit to the cells, Von Wernich told the prisoners: “You must not feel hate when you’re being tortured,” to which Baratti responded: “Why is my baby girl responsible? She was kidnapped and was born in custody.”
“Children have to pay for the sins of their parents,” replied Von Wernich.
Velasco was a witness in the trial against Von Wernich, where he demanded the priest give information as to the whereabouts of Ana Libertad. “My lawyer in the trial against Von Wernich, Guadalupe Godoy, was the first person that phoned me to tell me the news [about Ana Libertad having been found]. I was surprised. Of course, I am happy,” he said in an interview with the Buenos Aires Herald.
Though Von Wernich was sentenced to life in prison for a number of kidnappings, tortures, and murders, he has not been excommunicated.
It is also known that the family of Elena de la Cuadra had a meeting with the then-Jesuit provincial Jorge Mario Bergoglio -Pope Francis- shortly after her abduction, where they asked for his help in finding their daughter and granddaughter.
When in 2010 Bergoglio said he had only learned about the kidnapping of babies after the dictatorship ended, Elena’s sister, Estela de la Cuadra, criticised him, saying that “I think I have demonstrated with the letters we sent to the Episcopalian Conference in 1979 that there was awareness and concern; there are also documents about how the news of the disappearance of people and children were spread: no one can say they didn’t know.” Though she did not think Bergoglio knew where the disappeared were, “he has a lot to say about what happened and about the mechanism they used, and here’s the letter my father sent him [in the '70s],” Estela told newspaper Página 12 in 2011.
Ana Libertad is the first grandchild to have been found after the recovery of Estela de Carlotto’s grandson Ignacio Hurban (known as Guido) on 5th August, although her DNA test had been carried out over three months earlier. Abuelas have reported that the number of inquiries from people with doubts regarding their identity soared after Guido’s case became known.
The post Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo Find 115th Missing Grandchild appeared first on The Argentina Independent.