Marta Sacco
INTERVIEW 1

THREE WOMEN AND A FLOWER

(Translation: Ema Coll)

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Carmen Lapacó belongs to Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association Founding Line. Her daughter Alejandra Lapacó, activist for the University Peronist Youth (JUP) was 19 years old when she was kidnapped together with her mother, who was set free soon afterwards.
Alejandra Lapacó Case

Aurora Zuco de Belocchio belongs to Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association Founding Line, her daughter Irene Inés Belocchio disappeared together with her partner, Rolando Víctor Pisoni, on August 5, 1977. A day after taking them away the son of them Carlos Pisoni, , who was 36 days, was given back. Since then Aurora has devoted completely to him, and she says proudly that he belongs to the H.I.J.O.S Group , with sites in different cities in the world.
Testimonies CONADEP.
Proceedings Pisoni Belocchio case.

Cecilia Devincenti: is Néstor Devincenti's sister. who disappeared in 1976, and she's Azucena Villaflor de Devincenti's daughter , founder of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who was looking for him and was kidnapped some days after the French nuns Alice Domon y Leonie Duquet,
in December, 1977, by a task group of the Navy commanded by the former Captain Alfredo Astiz. At Puerto Madero's new neighbourhood, one of its main avenues has taken her name. In December, 2003 an Azucena Villaflor de Devincenti Human Rights Award is created

Interview carried out in the frame of the Street-girls-Pictures Exhibition, Centre of Museums of Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, adhering to March, 8, Internacional Women's Day.

 

Question 1: A German artist has launched a global calling [R] - [R] - [F] that forms part of a greater project about Globalization and Violence in which artists from different disciplines, curators and theorists from all the world participate. [R]emembering - [R]epressing - [F]orgetting. I ask each of you to choose one of these words and express what it arouses in you.

Aurora Zuco de Belocchio: [F]orgetting... I don't want to forget, I don't want to forgive, I'll never forgive and I'll never forget up to my last moment, up to my last breathe I'll be fighting in order to have the guilty ones be punished and to get to know where our dear disappeared are. Not only my daughter and my son-in-law, but also that beautiful youth. I'll be fighting until I breathe my last breath.

Cecilia Devincenti: [R]emembering. I think I've got the moral duty to remember my mother as my mother, but as everyone's mother. As a fighter, although I agree with Aurora's words, we should never forget, I think we should go on asking for justice. As I've got three children, I believe that remembering is in a way a little lighter, it's like living life, going ahead remembering my own story without forgiving and without forgetting.

Carmen Lapacó: [R]eppressing, no, that word ...I say "Repressing". We suffered repression in flesh and blood by the military dictatorship. But you can see us together, and we have been able to do so much being togetherŠ But not overcoming, it is never overcome. We have never repressed anybody, and we had all the right to take revenge. But we have always asked for justice. In that way, we suffered the repression but we faced it. The generation that they tried to silence is now ruling us. And that is very important for me.

Question 2: the fact that a universitary activist from the 70's , in a way a survivor of the genocide carried out from the 1976 coup d'état , is the Argentinian President, does it make a difference for you in this 28º anniversary of March, 24 coup?

Cecilia: Personally, I think it does, I hope that the universitary student of the seventies do justice in this country. Because his words and actions are good up to the moment. But I'm going to struggle on for justice and I hope he have justice. I wish I see all the genocides in jail, and I wish this government would really do its duty. I've got that expectation.

Carmen: Hope is really here, because in the interview that the human rights organizations had with the President, he asked me where my daughter had been an activist. I told him "in the JUP" (Universitary Peronist Youth) and he told me "me too". Then, he was quite moved because he was explained what my case had been, for I was kidnapped together with my daugher and I was liberated, so the president hugged me and said "we are going to fight to have them all in jail".

Aurora: I am totally persuaded that this president has shown, from the very beginning, that he is going to do all we had dreamt of being possible to happen, I don't know, we have been expecting for so many years and now I feel so much confidence and hope, that I can't express in front of other partners who have other ideas; we are an apolitical group, but I have the right to feel even affection. In an interview I congratulated him on his intelligence, his lucidity and his quick reflexes, and the president covered his ears as if saying "oh, how flattering". But I am delighted at the beheading of the leaders of the armed forces, the beheading of the Supreme Court, with everything he does in order to clean the police force, I'm delighted and I even see him good-looking (laughs). I see him handsome, I've got the pictures where he is kissing me in a trip we went on to Río Hondo and I told my partners: "Do you know I've got a boyfriend. I've got a photograph where he's kissing me." Then they said: "But, you didn't want a man other than you husband!", because I'm a widow (laughs).

Carmen and Aurora linger on reviving Azucena's anecdotes and talking over the memories they treasure up of their daughters and sons-in-law, about their outer and inner beauty and youth, and they coincide that just by watching the reminders published in Página 12 newspaper with their pictures and the dates when they were kidnapped: they were all beautiful people, and we are going to remember them this way.

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