En Marcha!

Last Saturday was the 31st aniversary of the fall of the Argentine military dictatorship. I was invited by some kids from UBA, so I went.

Someone handed me a sign with Isabel Peron´s picture and the caption ´Prison Now!´ It seems that, just like her late husband, she spent her exile in Spain, and was just recently arrested for her role in allowing the military leaders to come to power. It´s a big deal because 31 years later, no one has yet been brought to trial for what happened during the junta.

There are 30,000 people still officially ´missing´. Nost likely they´re dead, but that doesn´t stop people (it started with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) from gathering in front of the Congress building and demanding their safe return (¨They were taken alive, we want them back alive!¨).

I don´t think I´ve ever that many communists, socialists and anarchists in one place before. Their particular complaint is that although Kirchner´s government is officially ´justicialist´(a combination of the words ´justice´ and ´socialism´; no it does´t sound any better in Spanish) he has, like the democratic governments before him, refused to disrupt the order of things by going after the junta leaders.

Supposedly, though, this year´s march was not half as big as last year´s.