DNA tests as Argentina seeks children of 'disappeared'

[Magda Hassan]

DNA tests as Argentina seeks children of 'disappeared'


Campaign groups allege Marcela's real mother was a political prisoner

An Argentine judge has ordered the heirs to a powerful media empire to take DNA tests to establish if they are victims of a forced adoption scheme.
Under the country's former regime, babies were often given to families considered loyal to the military.
Rights groups believe the two children of media mogul Ernestina Herrera de Noble were taken from political prisoners who gave birth in custody.
Felipe and Marcela were adopted by Ms Herrera de Noble in 1976.
They both gave their blood samples at a federal forensics agency, their lawyer said.
They made no comment after giving the sample, but a spokesperson said the family had nothing to hide.
The move to take the sample at the agency rather than the state-run National Bank of Genetic Data - which holds DNA samples of families of the disappeared - has angered campaign groups.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group, which seeks to find some 500 children born to prisoners or abducted along with their parents during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, has demanded that the DNA be collected at the data bank.
The group's founder, Estela de Carlotto, said on Tuesday that the tests would not be valid and said they would take further legal action to ensure a fully independent investigation.
Last month, the Congress backed a proposal from the group, allowing the forced extraction of DNA from adults who may be the children of political prisoners - even when they do not want to know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8434289.stm

[Keith Millea]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/24-10


Published on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by Associated Press Years after 'Dirty War,' Argentine Stolen at Birth, Now 32, Learns Identity

by Michael Warren

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The search is finally over for Abel Madariaga, whose pregnant wife was kidnapped by Argentine security forces 33 years ago.

Francisco Madariaga Quintela, center, is welcomed by his father Abel Pedro Madariaga and Estela de Carlotto, President of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo organization, during a press conference in Buenos Aires, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010. Madariaga Quintela, who was born in a clandestine prison after her mother was kidnapped by Argentina's security forces during the 1976-1983 Dirty War. (AP Photo/ Natacha Pisarenko)
After decades of doubt and loneliness, of searching faces in the street in hopes they might be related, Madariaga has found his son.
"I never stopped thinking I would find him," the 59-year-old father said, squeezing his son's arm during a packed news conference Tuesday.
"For the first time, I know who I was. Who I am," the young man said, still marveling at his new identity: Francisco Madariaga Quintela, a name he only learned last week.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights group believes about 400 children were stolen at birth from women who were kidnapped and killed as part of the 1976-1983 dictatorship's "dirty war" against political dissidents, which killed as many as 30,000 people.
Madariaga and his wife, Silvia Quintela, were members of the Montoneros, a leftist group targeted for elimination by government death squads. He last saw his wife - a 28-year-old surgeon who treated the poor in a Buenos Aires suburb - being pushed into a Ford Falcon by army officers dressed as civilians as she walked to a train on Jan. 17, 1977.
Madariaga managed to flee into exile to avoid the same fate. Ever since, he has made finding the children of those who disappeared his life's cause.
Returning to a democratic Argentina in 1983, he became the grandmothers group's secretary and first male member. He lobbied the government to create a DNA database and dedicate judicial resources to the effort, and developed strategies for persuading young people with doubts about their identities to come forward and get DNA tests.
All the while, his own son's fate remained a mystery.
As it turned out, Quintela gave birth to the son the couple had planned to name Francisco in July 1977 while imprisoned in one of Argentina's largest and most notorious clandestine torture centers, the Campo de Mayo in suburban Buenos Aires. Surviving prisoners later reported that the newborn was taken from her the next day, and she disappeared shortly thereafter.
A military intelligence officer, Victor Alejandro Gallo, brought the baby, his umbilical cord still attached, home to his wife, Ines Susana Colombo. They named him Alejandro Ramiro Gallo and never told him he was adopted. The marriage didn't last - Gallo was a violent man, Francisco Madariaga said - and he never felt like he belonged, looking nothing like his brother and sister.
While the Gallo family fell apart, the younger Madariaga escaped in his own way, twice touring Europe as a professional juggler.
Meanwhile, Gallo was convicted of murdering a couple and their child during a robbery in 1994 and served a 10-year prison term.
Francisco Madariaga's doubts increased, until finally he confronted his adoptive mother. "She broke down and was able to tell me the truth," he recalled, adding that he can't say he blames her. "There was so much violence - physical and mental - and she suffered. She also was a victim."
On Feb. 3, encouraged by his friends, the young man and Colombo approached the grandmothers group to tell their story. Fearful of Gallo, they rushed to take a blood test the next day, and DNA results arrived last week. Father and son finally met on Friday - the same day Gallo was arrested on suspicion of illegal adoption.
Colombo also has been detained and questioned, according to an attorney for the grandmothers group, Alan Iud. Colombo and Gallo are represented by public defenders who didn't respond to calls after hours Tuesday.
Trembling before the cameras, Abel Madariaga recalled his reunion with his son.
"When he came through the door that night, we recognized each other totally, and the hug that brought us together was spectacular," he said.
Over the years, the grandmothers group has succeeded in identifying 100 children of the disappeared. Madariaga has organized many news conferences announcing such victories. This time, his chest heaved as he presented his own son to the world.
"At times I wondered what the hell I was living for. I had to find a way to continue, thinking about everyday things, hoping for this moment of happiness," the elder Madariaga said. "Hugging him that first time, it was as if I filled a hole in my soul."
Francisco Madariaga stopped smiling only at the mention of the name he was given by the Gallos.
"Never again" will I use this name, he said. "To have your identity is the most beautiful thing there is."
© 2010 Associated Press

[Magda Hassan]

That's so beautiful Keith. Thanks for posting. It is such a nice change to get good news from such and atrocity. Look how alike father and son are. Those abuelas from Las Madres de La Plaza de May are really some thing else. Every week they would meet to find support with each other and more importantly to be visible to remind others of what had happened to their country. They would not go away or be silenced.

[Austin Kelley]

Am I the only one, or does all this seem like some weird Nazi experiment gone to seed?

We know that Mengele and others were deeply interested in genetic determinants of human characteristics. Doesn't it seem like fascists would want to know if rebeldía was an inherited characteristic, or whether it could be alleviated by being raised by a "good" fascist family? I can't see that these creeps were that desperate for some little kids to show some love to...

Please tell me if I seem to have fallen asleep too many times with Dave Emory tapes playing in the background...

[David Guyatt]

Now there's an intriguing thought.

Especially as Argentina was the rats chosen first new land on which to place their foul feet on their way to degrading the rest of Latin America. Mengele, Bormann and countless others far too numerous to list here.

Dave Emory rocks. Making so many important and out of print books digitally available, plus his archive of tapes is an act of service he must be rightly proud of.

[Jan Klimkowski]

There are definite elements of Lebensborn meets "MK-ULTRA" at play here. Most particularly regarding the need for these covert "moulding human behaviour" programmes to find human subjects on whom extreme experiments could be performed whilst maintaining a high level of security. Ie the experiments would not be leaked to the press.

I have interviewed several adults who were either born, or more usually adopted, as children into military or intelligence families. A couple have memories of extreme incidents taking place in South America.

In Nazi terminology, Francisco Madariaga Quintela was the genetic offspring of two members of the Montoneros, who engaged in ostensibly left-wing violent direct action. There are superficial and, perhaps, deep political, analogies between the Montoneros and Baader-Meinhof, which renders this looking glass territory. Everything is not as it seems.

Victor Alejandro Gallo, the adoptive father, was a military intelligence officer, who rushed the newborn Francisco, umbilical cord still attached, through the streets from the torture centre where his mother gave birth, and was probably subsequently murdered. This, I'm afraid, means young Franciso was prime human guinea pig fodder.

For a bastard Argentine Lebensborn-meets-MK-ULTRA programme.

Francisco needs a good and trustworthy deprogrammer. And almost none exist.

[Austin Kelley]

I have interviewed several adults who were either born, or more usually adopted, as children into military or intelligence families. A couple have memories of extreme incidents taking place in South America.

In Nazi terminology, Francisco Madariaga Quintela was the genetic offspring of two members of the Montoneros, who engaged in ostensibly left-wing violent direct action. There are superficial and, perhaps, deep political, analogies between the Montoneros and Baader-Meinhof, which renders this looking glass territory. Everything is not as it seems.

Victor Alejandro Gallo, the adoptive father, was a military intelligence officer, who rushed the newborn Francisco, umbilical cord still attached, through the streets from the torture centre where his mother gave birth, and was probably subsequently murdered. This, I'm afraid, means young Franciso was prime human guinea pig fodder.

For a bastard Argentine Lebensborn-meets-MK-ULTRA programme.

Francisco needs a good and trustworthy deprogrammer. And almost none exist.

Jan, are you able to say more about the extreme incidents in the lives of the "adoptees"?

Also, I do personally consider the Montoneros and Baader-Meinhof similar in that both were clearly infiltrated and co-opted by reactionary forces. And it may well be the same circle of bad guys, given the strong ties between Argentinian and European fascists in that era.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The more I reflect upon it, the image of the military intelligence officer ripping a newborn from the womb of a leftist guerilla, and rushing it through the streets to his family home, umbilical cord still hanging, is an image of archetypal fascism.

Jan, are you able to say more about the extreme incidents in the lives of the "adoptees"?

Perhaps. But I'm afraid not necessarily now. Some of my interviewees requested confidentiality about certain matters. Also there is a danger of evidence contamination if certain MOs become too widely known.

However, let's say that the claim is that participation in termination and in "disposal" of those we now call "the disappeared", was used as a test of "loyalty" and as a primary trauma to create dissociative states, which could then be manipulated.

This testimony extends to other regions too. For instance, South-East Asia.

Meanwhile, Colonia Dignidad is entirely relevant:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=1476

[Austin Kelley]

Shades of the Nazi concentration camps!

And "Satanic" Ritual Abuse, child soldiers in Uganda, the Latin American death squads etc. etc....