The following timeline, assembled by University Laboratory High School student Jocelyn Ross, is based on the events described in Rita Arditti's book, "Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina."
1955: Military toppled government of Juan Domingo Peron
June 1966: General Juan Carlos Onganía took power. Installed military regime and aristocracy. Banned political parties and activities, intervened in national universities, had military suppress workers, protests.
May 1969: Córdoba erupted into El Cordobazo, a popular protest. It foretold of the downfall of the Onganía regime.
1970: Two guerrilla groups appeared, the Montoneros, and the People's Revolutionary Army. Right wing groups emerge and kidnap students and union militants, by 1971 every 18 days. Onganía is overthrown. Then General Roberto M. Livingston served for 9 months, before Alejandro Lanusse.
1973: Perón returns to Argentina, in October began third term as president. Died before first year was completed, succeeded by wife.
November 1974: Declared state of siege, and gave military carte blanche to put down guerrilla activities. Started Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, killed 70 opponents this year, next year, 50/week.
September 1975: Highest level military approved coup
October 23, 1975: "In order to guarantee the security of the state, all the necessary people will die. --General Jorge Rafael Videla
1976: First junta came to power. Total insurgent forces were about 2000 people, 20% armed, not a real threat. The junta just used threat as excuse to impose own brand of state terrorism. The Doctrine of National Security: the enemy comes from within, is communism. Immediately after takeover: constitution replaced by Statute for the Process of National Reorganization. They had the power to exercise all judicial, legislative and executive powers; no habeas corpus, censorship was rampant, unions, political parties, and universities were under military control.
March 24, 1976: Military seized power in Argentina; General Videla became president. Campaign showed generals as saving Argentina.
March 1976: For two found murdered, there were 9 disappeared. Writs of habeas corpus were rejected, up to 80,000.
September 16, 1976: Teenagers captured from La Plata - Night of the Pencils. Had been campaigning to have student transportation fares reduced.
Six months after this seizure, electrical workers from Luz
y Fuerza union challenged the huge number of firings and plans
of the military to privates the industry. Longshoremen in Buenos
Aries and Rosario stopped both ports in protest of the new work
regulations. Telephone workers organized slowdowns, railroad workers
mobilized to protest firing and destroying of lines.
October 1976: Rodolfo Wash, respected investigative journalist, wrote document providing detailed info about the Navy Mechanics School and analyzing events prior to the coup and the repressive actions of the junta. He was machine gunned in 1977.
April 30, 1977: 14 mothers gathered at Plaza de Mayo to bring attention to their families' plight. Broke conspiracy of silence, found a way to channel despair into action. Mothers marches started happening weekly. Thursdays at 3:30 PM.
August 1977: Relatives of the disappeared found the Comisión de Familiares de Desaparecidos y Detenidos por Motivos Políticos (Commission of Relatives of Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons)
October 1977: Commission of Relatives of Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons drafted a petition with names of hundreds of disappeared and and detained. Demonstration, hundreds were beaten and arrested.
October 1977: Twelve mothers established the Association of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and asked that the children who had been kidnapped be returned to their families.
December 8, 1977: At a meeting held in Church of Santa Cruz to raise money for an ad in a paper with some names of disappeared on it, ESMA Task Force broke in and kidnapped nine of them.
1977: Patricia Derian (Carter's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights) visited Argentina several times to ask about the disappeared.
January 1978: Grandmothers mail Pope Paul VI a letter stating their concerns. It was never answered, they were never granted an audience with the pope.
Beginning April 1978: Mothers and Grandmothers gathered regularly around Buenos Aires and its outskirts where the CEA met for deliberations to try to deliver petitions.
April 1978: Grandmothers wrote to the OAS agency in Washington D.C. Agency brought the subject of the disappearance of children to the attention of the international human rights community.
July 1978: Grandmothers wrote to the Argentine Supreme court to reclaim their grandchildren. Asked Court to prohibit adoption of children who were registered as NN and require investigations of children of 3 and under who were given in adoption since March 1976. Court refused.
August 5, 1978: One of Buenos Aires' major newspapers published a letter from the Grandmothers to whoever had their grandchildren, called "Appeal to the Conscience and the Hearts. Put Grandmothers in the public eye.
1978: OAS resolved to consider children in next convention on disappearances. Grandmothers' work starting to pay off.
May 1978: International Labor Organization asked Argentina to explain large number of disappeared trade unionists.
World Cup of 1978: Media focused on the Mothers. Challenged notion of women as powerless, gained space in the public arena.
1978: Organization of American States (through Inner American Commission on Human Rights) asked to go to Argentina to learn about the disappearances, flooding their Washington office.
1979: IACHR went to Argentina. Interviewed about 5580 people (x denunciations?). Wrote a report saying that things were terrible, urged investigation, trial, and punishment of those responsible.
1979: New York Times Magazine broke silence about Argentina in the international press.
1979: Established connection with Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in the Souther Cone (CLAMOR). Connected Grandmothers with Argentine exiles living in Brazil and opened archives to them.
August 1979: Two disappeared children were found in Chile. Grandmothers meet, decide they children should stay with their adoptive families, but set up visiting regime. Published calendars with information about all the missing children and a complete list of missing people.
Fall 1979: Law No. 22.068, law of "presumption of death" is passed. Redefined the disappeared as officially dead despite the absence of any explanation about the circumstances surrounding their death. Also passed a law providing economic reparations to their families. Trying government was trying to quiet human rights groups, but it didn't work.
October 1979: Three women held a press conference in Paris detailing tortures they suffered and the acts they saw.
1979: General Luciano Menjamín Menédez (commander of 3rd Army Corps) staged revolt against freeing of Jacobo Timerman (supreme court ordered). Military was fighting within itself.
March 1980: Grandmothers found two sisters who were adopted by a nice family three years prior. Had trouble proving who they belonged to, found article about identification by blood, asked scientists abroad if they could help.
1980: Amnesty International reported on concentration camps. Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, but it was given to an architect who coordinated a human rights organization in Argentina.
August 1980: Ad in a major Buenos Aries daily paper signed by 175 well known people, asking for information on the disappeared. This group included the head coach of the national soccer team, a hero in eyes of the people.
1981: Grandmothers help found the Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared, in Costa Rica.
March 1981: Second junta came into power for 8 months, president General Roberto Viola
July 1981: 5 political parties got together and created the Multipartidaria to negotiate the return to civilian power.
March 30, 1982: Strike and demonstration organized by CGT Brazil against harsh economic situation and unknown fate of the disappeared, attended by thousands, .
October 1982: Human rights organizations organized nation march, "The March of Life." More than 10,000 people participated.
November 1982: Grandmothers visiting US contacted Dr Victor B Penchaszadeh, who put them in contact with Dr. Fred Allen who said a "grandparentage test" could be developed.
1982: Grandmothers applied for membership In UFER.
1982: A list with names of children, published by CLAMOR, appeared in a Buenos Aires newspapers. Received lots of information, suggestions, showed the organization had backing of the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo.
1983: Grandmothers were wildly accepted and appreciated by the public, which had previously not cared about them at all.
1983: Grandmothers put up posters and circulate leaflets, their activities were highlighted by radio and tv.
April 1983: Military wrote "Final Document of the Military Junta on the War against Subversion and Terrorism" to defend itself and distort its history. Caused outrage across the world.
June 1983: March to protest "Final Document of the Military Junta on the War against Subversion and Terrorism," with 50,000 participating.
September 1983: Government passes Law of National Pacification to give amnesty to the army for the past nine years of crimes.
October 1983: Grandmothers met Eric Stover regarding development of a blood test to match children with their natural grandparents and other surviving relatives.
December 10, 1983: Raul Alfonsín was inaugurated. Afterwards, he nullified the Law of National Pacification, created Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared to investigate and give information necessary to prosecute. CONADEP was criticized by many human rights activists.
1984: Grandmothers had gone abroad over 40 times,o attend worldwide United Nation sessions on human rights.
June 1984: American Academy for the Advancement of Science sent a forensic scientist to make recommendations regarding the identification of the disappeared. Dr. Ana Maria Di Lonardo had a lab with equipment needed for the process, so Mary-Claire King and Di Lonardo worked together to develop a formula for grandparentage determination based on blood analysis. Paula Logares was found, the first child of disappeared to be reunited with her natural family by genetic testing.
1984: CONADEP's Nunca Más, documents methods used to terrorize the population, along with a volume with the names of 8,961 disappeared. Three percent of the disappeared were determined to be pregnant women. APDH said it was about 12, 261. Emilio Mignone says 20,000, possibly 30,000 w/reappeared.
November 1984: Published list of 1,351 names of repressors.
April 1985: Civil trial of nine members of the first three juntas began after a failed military trial. 711 charges against these nine individuals for murder, illegal detention, torture, rape and robbery. Over 800 individuals testified. Went on for 5 months. "Your Honors, I shall renounce any pretensions to originality, by using an expression which is not mine, but which belongs to the Argentine people. Your Honors: Never Again." Five generals were condemned to sentences ranging from 4.5 years to life, four were found innocent. All were absolved of charges of theft of children and substitution of identity.
1985: Forensic scientists gathered by AAAS went to train Argentineans about opening graves, removing skeletons and determining causes of death. Training included the ability to determine whether skeletal evidence indicated that murdered women had given birth.
1985: Argentine government presented to the United Nations Working Group drafting a convention on the rights of a child and their rights to identity and life with families of origin.
1986: Grandmothers challenge closed adoption system because the secrecy made it possible for there to be illegitimate adoptions.
1986: Grandmothers wrote a report for the First Argentine Congress on Adoption about the differences between appropriation and adoption. Appropriation couldn't be adoption because it wasn't optional.
February 1986: Grandmothers met with Alfonsin and delivered demands that addressed delays and obstacles they encountered in their legal work and how this affected the children.
February 1986: Grandmothers meet with Alfonsin. Alfonsin, in turn, ordered all government officials to work toward restitution of the disappeared children, called on the population to actively help, and sent a proposal to create a National Genetic Data Bank.
December 24, 1986: Full Stop Law, no more military persecutions except those concerning rape, theft, and abduction and concealment of minors. Punto Final. The military rose against the government, demanding an amnesty law.
May 1987: Drafted a law that was unanimously approved by Congress. Data bank was developed to solve any type of conflict that involved issues of affiliation. Its services were free to relatives of disappeared, and every court had to order studies of genetic markers on any child with doubtful affiliation. This situation involving the Grandmothers became the first case in which science is used to further human rights.
1987: A child born in captivity was returned to her family after National Genetic Data Bank proved her identity.
1987: Law of Due Obedience gave amnesty to everything during the Dirty War, save rape, theft, and falsification of civil status.
1987: Grandmothers knew of at least 7 children who had been taken out of Argentina to live in Paraguay.
1988: Conference on disappeared children and restitution, the Grandmothers addressed their opponents. They said that the "laissez-faire way if the kid was happy wasn't good, because it ignored the trauma of history, it ignored history and future and only though about the moment.
April 1988: Theo van Boven (former director of the UN center for human rights) was appointed to create a group to ensure there were no more second disappearances.
November 1988: Grandmothers asked Alfonsin to pressure the government of Paraguay to appoint a special public defender to expedite the legal work on behalf of the disappeared children. A four member commission of federal prosecutors was developed.
1988: Two more military uprisings.
January 1989: Fifty members of Movimiento Todos por la Patria attacked barracks in Buenos Aries. President Alfonsín increased the Army's power in internal security and drafted a law limiting freedom of expression.
October 1989: President Carlos Menem pardoned high ranking officers who had not been covered by the previous laws.
November 1989: Convention of the Rights of the Child was adopted by the General Assembly. By September had the 20 ramifications to become an international law. By 1997, 191 had ratified, making it the most wildly accepted human rights treaty. .Argentina ratified it in 1990. As of May 1998, only US and Somalia had not ratified it.
May 1990: the People's Permanent Tribunal met in Buenos Aires to discuss Argentina as part of its sessions on crimes against humanity in Latin America. Pointed out danger that impunity has created in Argentina.
December 1990: All members of juntas tried in 1985 and still serving were pardoned.
December 30, 1990: 80,000 people attended a rally in Buenos Aires protesting the pardons. They didn't regret it, and the officers saw it as vindication. Amnesty laws didn't cover abduction and concealment of children, so the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo can still achieve some measure of justice.
1997: Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo documented disappearance of 88 children and 136 pregnant women. These children are called desaparecidos con vida (the living disappeared).
