Today is the National Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice in Argentina. This important date refers to the coup d’état of 24 March 1976 in Argentina. The aim is to generate collective memory and awareness so that coups d’état and human rights violations are not repeated “never again” and their perpetrators are prosecuted and punished.
This day marks the 45th anniversary of the 1976 military coup d’état in Argentina. A date that has gone down in history and that it is through the archives that truth, justice and the memory that is undoubtedly the heritage of the nation can be reached.
Iberarchivos, as always committed to the memory of Ibero-America, has co-financed some projects that preserve the memory of this historical event:
- 2014/001 Project for the recovery and enhancement of the Archive of the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Conservation and physical organisation (1st phase): The “Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo” Association is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1977 whose main objective is to locate the grandchildren born in captivity or kidnapped with their parents who disappeared during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976/1983). With the aim of restoring identities and reuniting families, this association devotes its attention to and follows up on complaints and claims to governmental, national and international authorities, presentations to the judiciary, requests for cooperation from the general public and personal enquiries and investigations. The Grandmothers have contributed and continue to contribute to the establishment of conditions that prevent the rights of children and their families from being violated again, and since their inception they have demanded the appropriate punishment of all those responsible for the disappearances.
- 2018/002 Preserving, organising on the basis of archival criteria and guaranteeing access to the archive of the Peace and Justice Service: An additional result of the project, which had the original objective of working on the materials produced, received and collected over more than 40 years of existence of the Peace and Justice Service, has been the processing of the personal archive of the organisation’s president since its foundation and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. This personal archive (100 boxes) was transferred from APE’s home to the institutional headquarters of Memoria Abierta for processing.
- 2009/007 Reconstructing Memory (2nd phase): The National Memory Archive of Argentina (ANM) aims to recover and preserve documentation related to the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in which the responsibility of the State is engaged, guaranteeing access to information and thus accompanying the policies of Memory, Truth and Justice.
- 2008/009 The origin of human rights organisations in Argentina. The history of resistance to the dictatorship through its primary sources: The journey sheds light on other aspects of the historical process: the relationship of the human rights movement with other movements and social actors, the role of its leaders and its relationship with politics.
Today it is important to remember that the state must protect and safeguard the archives as instruments of democracy, transparency and access to information.
