A leading newspaper publisher in Argentina must pay the consequences if DNA tests prove the children she adopted three decades ago were stolen from prisoners of the dictatorship, a leading human rights activist says.
Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, spoke on Wednesday as Argentines anxiously await the results of tests being done to resolve a nine-year legal battle over the identities of the adopted children of Ernestina Herrera de Noble, the owner of Grupo Clarin and an opponent of President Cristina Fernandez.
The children themselves — Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera — have previously said they feel like hostages in the fight.
They said there is no concrete evidence they were stolen as babies from political prisoners and don’t want to see their 84-year-old mother go to jail.
De Carlotto denied her group is in an alliance with Argentina’s government — which has accelerated human rights trials — to destroy their mother’s media company. She said the grandmothers simply want truth and justice for victims of the dictatorship.
“We are not tied to this government. This institution is independent, with liberty and autonomy,” she said at the Grandmothers’ headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires. “This is a wicked thing, because they’re trying to throw mud at what for us has been a very painful process.”
Carlotto said that if the Clarin owner is proven guilty, she must be punished.
“If it’s discovered that these children were victims of state terrorism and that those who raised them under other identities are criminally responsible, they’ll have to pay what the law stipulates,” she said.
Hundreds of babies were born in clandestine torture centers during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, which human rights groups believe killed as many as 30,000 of the regime’s political opponents. The Grandmothers have helped recover 101 of these children so far, and believe the Noble Herreras are among up to 400 others who still don’t know their true identities.
Their DNA will be compared to that of nearly 240 other families who provided samples to the National Genetics Bank in hopes of recovering a grandchild, de Carlotto said. If there is no match, Argentine law provides for their DNA to remain on file in case other potential relatives emerge.
De Carlotto said if the Noble Herraras’ adoption didn’t involve political prisoners there would be no case — simple document fraud 34 years ago cannot be punished even if Herrera knowingly signed falsified adoption papers.
But if the DNA shows Marcela or Felipe were born in captivity in a clandestine torture center, then by definition, their adoption would represent a crime against humanity for which there is no statue of limitations.
“If they are children of the disappeared, this crime is permanent, and penalties can’t expire until the victims’ rights are recovered,” De Carlotto said.
Herrera’s lawyers unsuccessfully went to court trying to block the DNA tests, arguing the National Genetics Bank does not have appropriate safeguards, especially now that it is administered by the government’s science ministry.
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