The founder of Argentina’s leading human rights group, whose daughter disappeared during 1970s dictatorship, locates her long-lost grandson

The founder of Argentina’s leading human rights group has located the grandson taken from her daughter while a prisoner of the military dictatorship in the 1970s.

Surrounded by her large extended family, an emotional Estela de Carlotto, founder of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, announced that her long hunt for her grandchild had ended.

But she acknowledged other families are still searching for hundreds of children taken under similar circumstances during the ‘dirty war’ era that still haunts the country.

“Thanks to God, thanks to life, because I didn’t want to die without embracing him and soon I will be able to,” the 83-year-old grandmother said at a news conference covered live on national TV. She has not yet met him.

Identification of grandson is a form of reparation for the brutality of the dictatorship, but it is not an end to the struggle for justice

The 36-year-old man came forward on his own to have a DNA test taken and have the sample compared in a national database because he had doubts about his own identity, said Carlotto’s son Guido, who is human rights secretary for Buenos Aires Province.

The family did not release the man’s name, but Argentine media identified him as Ignacio Hurban, a pianist and composer who is director of a music school in the city of Olavarria.

Guido said the DNA test revealed with a compatibility match of “99.9 per cent” that the man is the son of Laura Carlotto, a university student activist.

She was executed in August 1978 two months after she gave birth while being held under the dictatorship’s brutal campaign against guerrillas and other opponents of the regime.

The announcement was major news in Argentina, drowning out coverage of the recent default forced on the country by a legal dispute with US investors.

De Carlotto is considered a symbol of the struggle for justice for victims of the 1976-1983 dictatorship that, according to official statistics, ‘disappeared’ at least 13,000 people. Activists say the death toll was more than twice as high.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called De Carlotto when she learned the news.

“Cristina called me crying... I told her, ‘Yes, Cristina it’s true.’ She said, ‘What great joy,’ and we cried together,” the long-term activist said.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo believe around 500 children were seized from people killed by the dictatorship and given to couples who supported the government.

The group has so far helped to identify 114 of the illegally adopted childrenin a campaign that has stirred painful memories.

The Grandmothers successful pushed for the creation of the DNA database that enables people illegally adopted to determine their real identity. Two former dictators were eventually convicted along with others of systematically kidnapping children. Jorge Rafael Videla died in prison in May last year while serving a 50-year sentence. Reynaldo Bignone remains in prison.

De Carlotto said the parents who received her daughter’s child “may have done so innocently”, not knowing the newborn’s origins.

Laura Carlotto was a Peronist militant detained while pregnant in November 1977 along with the baby’s father, Oscar Montoya, a member of the Montoneros guerrilla group. He was also killed in captivity.

The baby was taken shortly after being born in a military hospital and his mother was soon executed, De Carlotto said, relying on years of investigating the case.

Her daughter was killed with a shot to the head and to the belly as part of an attempt to hide the fact that she had been pregnant and may have given birth, she said.

De Carlotto was given the young woman’s remains in what was an unusual act for the military.

She has said she felt somewhat privileged in that she was able to bury her daughter’s remains, something many others who lost loved ones were not able to do.

De Carlotto said the identification of her grandson is a form of reparation for the brutality of the dictatorship, but it is not an end to the struggle for justice or a resolution of the issue of missing children.

“The search for the rest must continue,” she said.

The ‘dirty war’

• The ‘dirty war’ was an infamous campaign waged from 1976 to 1983 by Argentina’s military dictatorship against suspected left-wing political opponents.

• The military dictatorship, or juntas, organised and carried out strong repression of political dissidents – and perceived dissidents – through the government’s military and security forces.

• Between 15,000 and 30,000 citizens are estimated to have been killed.

• The term ‘dirty war’ was coined by the military junta, which claimed that a war, albeit with different methods (including the large-scale application of torture and rape), was necessary to maintain social order and eradicate political subversives.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.