Pope Francis urges to preserve the memory of the dictatorship in Argentina

On Wednesday, August 8, Pope Francis received Anita Fernández, granddaughter of Esther Balestrino de Careaga, murdered in the so-called “death flights” of the last military dictatorship in Argentina, at his residence in Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican. . In this context, the Holy Father sent a message urging people to preserve her memory.

At the meeting, the woman asked the Pontiff for a message for her mother, Ana María Careaga, who was also kidnapped during the dictatorship, when she was pregnant with her.

“Do not relax, preserve the memory of what you have received, not only of the ideas but of the testimonies, that is the message I give you on this day,” Francis expresses in a video.

The Pope’s message comes a few days after the photo of a visit that some legislators of the bloc Freedom Advances They made soldiers imprisoned for the crimes of the dictatorship, among them Alfredo Astiz.

It was Astiz who in 1977, posing as a relative of a missing person, infiltrated the group that was convened in the Santa Cruz Parish in the city of Buenos Aires, where twelve people were later kidnapped, among them Esther Balestrino de Careaga, a of the victims of “death flights”, a method used to dispose of the bodies of detainees, who were given sedatives and taken aboard planes, and then thrown into the sea, explains the Legal Vocabulary Bank of Argentina.

Balestrino had a very close bond with the current Pontiff: she was his boss in the laboratory where he worked before deciding his future as a priest.

This is what Francisco himself says in an interview with Sergio Rubin for the biographical book The Jesuit: “There I had an extraordinary boss, Esther Balestrino de Careaga, a Paraguayan sympathizer of communism who years later, during the last dictatorship, suffered the kidnapping of a daughter and a son-in-law, and was then kidnapped along with the missing French nuns: Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet, and murdered. Currently, she is buried in the Church of the Holy Cross. “I loved her very much.”

Some media echoed the Pope’s message and his exhortation to preserve memory, as a possible response to the visit by officials to the former soldiers in the Ezeiza Prison, and even the rumors about a bill that seeks their release.

Asked by ACI Prensa about the possible link between both events, one of the co-authors of the aforementioned biography, Sergio Rubín, expressed: “I have no information, other than what has appeared everywhere, but I think that an interview with the Pope is not It is arranged from one day to the next, but rather it is prepared with some advance notice. We have to go to Rome, right? So, I have the impression that the meeting (of the Pope with Balestrino’s relatives) was agreed upon prior to that visit (of the legislators to the prison).”

However, he clarified: “One thing does not take away the other. Of course the Pope has always been concerned about violence, wherever it comes from. And in the case of the dictatorship, he has clearly expressed his concern.”

“Many times he has helped many people, persecuted at that time, to leave the country. There are many stories. And, with Esther Balestrino de Carreaga he had a very affectionate relationship. He talked a lot with her, he hid her books from her, I think he also helped her look for her daughter, etc.,” he listed in reference to the years of the military dictatorship, when Father Bergoglio served as superior. provincial of the Jesuits.

“That is to say, one thing is his solidarity and closeness with this granddaughter, and his repudiation of everything that happened. And another thing is to establish a direct line, an automatic connection with the legislators’ visit to this prison,” he summarized.

“In principle I don’t find a relationship, that later this acquires a framework, it is now subject to interpretations. But I do not establish any automatic relationship between one thing and the other,” concluded Rubín.

The last military dictatorship in Argentina took place between 1976-1983, a period in which, following a coup d’état, a de facto government headed by a military junta made up of the commanders of the three Armed Forces took power.

This stage was characterized by the violation of human rights, the disappearance and death of thousands of people, as well as the systematic appropriation of newborns and other crimes against humanity.

Local human rights organizations historically demand “memory, truth and justice” for 30,000 missing persons, although the figure is uncertain as they involve kidnappings, detentions and crimes perpetrated clandestinely.

Documents declassified by the Georgetown University National Security Archive show that, between 1975 and 1978—five years before the return of democracy—the military estimated that they had killed or disappeared some 22,000 people, according to an article in The Nation.

The same article points out that the debate on the matter is not resolved, and the number of victims ranges from 8,000 to 30,000, “depending on who does the counting.”