Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 7, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press May Page 7 focus where Are the children argentines Hunt for children military seized in dirty War by Christopher Neal special to the free press Buenos Aires As Argen Tinas Federal court prepares to try nine former members of military Juntas for widespread human rights abuses during their dirty War against leftists Between 1976 and a strange and especially cruel legacy of their Rule the victims Are at least 180 Chil orphaned when the Argentine military disappeared their Par whom they suspected of being some of these Chil Dren have been found recently with false living As the adopted sons and daughters of their real parents in families of Mili tary and police the search for most of them Contin Oscar and Anamaria both Peronis labor Union Are trying to recover their eight year old Maria she disappeared in when a group of heavily armed men kidnapped her along with the Abdala neighbors of the Katicas who took care of her while her parents were at the Badalas have never been seen but years of detective work by the Katicas have borne last they located Maria Eugenia in the Home of Rodolfo Oscar a Buenos Aires police but Silva has refused to turn Maria Eugenia Over to her claiming himself the Childs the Katicas have launched a Legal Battle for but Silva has ignored court orders to provide blood samples which would establish the Case remains Happy ending the Katicas have already brought another search to a Happy their eldest be was seized with his Mother a month after Maria Eugenia Ana Maria was immediately separated from her son and held for a month at la a secret torture and detention Centre run by the Argentine military in la a City 56 Kilometres Southeast of Buenos when she was she and her husband exiled themselves in while their parents remained to look for their two disappeared the couple found Felipe a year a few months after the end of military Rule and inauguration of democratically elected president Raul Alfonsin in enabled them to return safely to Felipe was living under the name of adopted by a Buenos Aires physician and his who Are unable to have Chil Dren of their they thought Felipe parents had been said Ana but when we proved through blood tests that we were his Par it was settled Felipe still sees his adoptive Mother but he Calls me mama Felipe is one of 24 disappeared children who have been Vered four others have been established to be while an other Are still unaccounted leading the search for the lost children is a group of determined Gray haired ladies called the grandmothers of the Plaza de named after the mothers of the Plaza de who stage weekly marches in front of Argen Tinas government House to de Mand punishment for the military officials who tortured and killed their the grandmothers demand the but for Justice also demands the return of their grandchildren those kid napped with their parents by Para military squads and those believed or known to have been born while their mothers were in brutally inhumane survivors of military and police arrests during the dirty War Testi fied last year before an Alfonsin government appointed commission on the disappeared that captive women gave birth under brutally inhumane one witness described in Ines gave birth in a detention Centre to a boy she named after shed been in labor about 12 the witness they finally took her to the where she gave birth on a dirty blindfolded and in front of All the she was helped by a supposed doctor who did nothing but yell at her while the others both Mother and child have other witnesses said women in labor were taken to hospitals at usually and gave birth by caesarean almost Mother and child were separated immediately after Emilion a lawyer who Heads an organization pressing charges on behalf of the families of some disappeared says he thinks he knows Why the military sought adoptions for the offspring of their whose own was taken by police in 1976 and never seen recalls a comment made to him by the Dep Uty army chief from whom he was seeking information on his daughters he told me they had a problem with the children of they were looking for a he to prevent the kids from growing up hating the Mili the Mignone was to place them in military or police or with couples sharing the military regimes values and the Plaza de Mayo grandmothers try to untangle these from a Pink walled Buenos Aires sipping endless cups of they pore Over pictures of schoolchildren and wait for the phone to ring with Anonymous beside the door Al f d f 0 i poster shows photos of children who were taken when their parents and who Are still Are two styrofoam bulletin one is crammed with photos of infants and the disappeared children and pregnant the other is a happier tacked with snapshots of youngsters reunited with their smiling looking for the children is la painstaking and heavily dependent on strokes of the formed in 1977 by 13 grand began by seeking information from Hospital maternity police juvenile birth orphan Ages and group this rarely yielded because the Chil Drens captors normally concealed their identity to prevent questions being raised As to their parents the most useful leads have come from Anonymous callers who offer suspicions about a neighbor who has a child she says is her own but was never or who think an adopted child they know resembles one on handbills distributed by the feisty ladies of the 24 children located by the feisty Only one was in an All the others had been five of them by police or military ten have returned to their real families and ten remain with their adoptive families under amicable arrange the three others Are being withheld by adoptive couples with police one such is Niney Earold Carla who is living under the name of Gina Ruffo As the adopted Daugh Ter of Eduardo Ruffo and his wife Carlas a tilde says Ruffo is the former second in command of a righting death squad group known As the triple the Argentine anticommunist Carla disappeared with her Mother a student activist in when both were taken by bolivian police during a 1976 miners Graciela Hus a bolivian leftist party Mem was murdered later the same As Graciela and her daughter were Argentine they were deported to Buenos where they were separated by Argentine Graciela has never been but the Plaza de Mayo grandmothers helped Matilde artes locate Carla last the key to the Puzzle was a photo of Carla taken by a nun in a bolivian orphanage where Carla lived for five months before being sent to Matilde artes showed the picture around dozens of Buenos Aires schoolyards until she found children who told her that Gina she then obtained a recent school photo of the girl which removed All i thank god for the picture taken by that nun and sent Here to the said Matilde a deep voiced woman with the poise of her former Days As a stage artes is ready for a court with blood samples of Carlas four grandparents when matched with the Childs following a process developed by Fred Allen of the new York City blood can prove grandpa Ter but Legal proceedings must await whom artes says is a fugitive on the hiding with his son and Carla somewhere in i think his friends in the Mili tary Are protecting artes so that Why in anxious to see Justice applied in the trials of the Junta if that Hap other military officials will be afraid to protect people like Reagan attempts to heal wounds by Lou Cannon Washington Post West Germany whenever United states president Ronald Reagan finds himself in political his instinctive and time honoured remedy has been to solve his problem with a trying to Dampen one of the most troubling controversies of his Reagan gave two while neither measured up to the extravagant Advance Bill ing of White House the presidents performance served his purposes of demonstrating that he understood both the uniquely destructive nature of the holocaust and the critical importance of Post War at where his voice was muted and sometimes Reagan talked of the killing of Chil Dren and the murder of whose death was inflicted for no reason other than their very exis spirits Rose at Pitburg air where Rea Gans spirits Rose in the presence of bands and approving military he came As close As he Ever has in a major speech to admitting that he might have made a mis the president acknowledged that his decision to Lay a Wreath at a German military cemetery had opened old wounds during a visit that was supposed to be a time of he assured jews that reconciliation did not mean forgetting nazi earlier in the week Reagan had confided to an intimate that he was frustrated and angry Over being depicted As insensitive to the holocaust after 40 years of speaking up about nazi crimes against the Reagan called the Day one of Hope and but his uncharacteristically sober Mien seemed to say that it was also a difficult the words of Rea Gans speech at Bergen Belsen pro claimed that horror cannot outlast but Reagan appeared somber rather than before he spoke he had walked through the Camps document House and viewed the photographs of stacks of then strolled through a series of memorials above mass Reagan always has been sensitive to the notion that he is a former actor who can weep on at Bergen Belsen he appeared to be trying not to almost trying not to As he gave a speech recalling the incomparable Hor ror of the voice broke but his voice broke nonetheless As he read from a famous passage in the diary of Anne a 15year old dutch jew who died at the which i still believe that peo ple Are Good at in his subsequent Pitburg written a week Reagan read from another text describing his visit to Bergen Belsen and saying he had Felt great sadness reagans largely crafted by his Premier political speech Kenneth were notable for what they omitted As Well As what they at where More than including Reagan made no mention of the russian prison ers of War who died there earlier in the and at Reagan converted his Call for reconciliation into a familiar attack on communism when he recalled president John Ken Nedys declaration that he was a Berliner and went on to compare himself to a an a prisoner of the a Vietnam Ese a a cambo a cuban and a miskito Indian in Reagan did not mention the so Viets by he also did not mention Adolf although he portrayed the crimes of nazism As the evil work of one an act of deference to his German while some of the presidents aides publicly and effusively praised the speeches assistant Secretary of state Richard Burt called them a Brilliant performance the private expectations of the presi dents advisers were More sub when the White House launched its damage control Campaign last week to extricate Reagan from the Pitburg a senior offi Cial we cant make a plus of but we can ameliorate the dam the expectation of reagans strategists was that a satisfactory performance by the president in his two speeches and a Quick cemetery ceremony would subdue the Contro Versy and allow Reagan to proceed to other the White House has been buoyed by surveys taken by Veteran Reagan pollster Richard Wirthlin said to show the presidents popularity holding firm in the face of some other give conflicting two legacies while it probably will be Days or weeks before it becomes Clear whether Reagan has succeeded in putting Pitburg behind the controversy has left two one is a conspicuous deterioration of relations Between the president and the whom Reagan and his chief aides blame for blowing the incident out of the other is an unaccustomed defensiveness in the Reagan White which has suffered a string of defeats on budget matters and for eign reagans More sensitive strategists recognize that Pitburg could become the Symbol of a de Clining presidency if Reagan cannot reverse his Reagan at tories apply water torture to and government drip it May be the sound of a leaking faucet or a form of chinese water either it May drive the government perhaps crazy is a bit but tory revelations of various notto republished documents have had an irritating in the secret information has not been the Type which would Force a govern ment to resign or even set up a special neither was it about to explode into another at least one of the documents medicare and Manitoba 1971 to the present was downright but the Mere fact that the opposition had obtained it was enough to cause concern in the nip when one does not want to make something the revelation is an embarrassment especially when it occurs week after understandably the tories Are delighted with their Access to such Don Orchard has already received the medi care Gerry Mercier acquired the minutes from a 1983 Cabinet seminar which outlined the nip plans until the and Doug Gourlay obtained a copy of an agree ment Between Manitoba forestry resources and its John the which had apparently been locked away but was passed on by unhappy Manfor indicated that the chief executive officer would not Only receive a Basic income of an annual Bonus of and a monthly disturbance allow Ance of he was also entitled to living accommodations in Winnipeg and the a free a virtually unlimited expense account including membership at a Quebec country club and free nine weeks of Holiday and the right to pursue outside business under the dome Arlene Billinkoff when business development minister Jerry Stone admitted the govern ment was paying a substantial but believed it had been necessary in order to find someone who would turn around Manors dismal i feel As badly As anybody else that it takes that kind of Money to attract at least this salary was Low in comparison to other corporate payoffs and was not the gratuitous kind of salary that is being paid to individual tory Mem Bers by the new Federal that response Only accelerated the tory since they were familiar with the they knew How to turn the Storie did not have the same As he he had not been involved in the original nevertheless the minister was willing to table All information related to this As Well As remuneration and benefits that Are available to Crown corporation officers in the Federal government and the private when he believed the critics would realize this arrangement was not out of roaring with the tories pointed put that despite this Manfor was still in economic with an estimated loss of million in that was the reason Sweeney had been countered it was the proper course of at that the governments image had but the ministers openness was a redeeming the Situa Tion worsened the next Day when Filmon asked Howard Pawley about the generous the Premier admitted he was not thrilled by the but if the government wanted to run Crown corporations efficiently on a competitive it was were forced into a situation of the world of it was the wrong phrase at the wrong the tories won the carried away by that they were raring to go this Mercier had come into Possession of some fact sheets issued by the premiers acting communications and coordination printed on government and addressed to minis executive and special assistants and communications a note indicated the sheets had been prepared for use in the Dps Spring those which would be used in the party presented a message about the governments accomplishments Limestone Power program for services to farm health Homes and As one of those documents these actions taken by the Manitoba nip government speak louder than any unfortunately the words had been printed and Mercier read while there would have been nothing wrong if they had been printed on nip they were on official government equally disturb ing was the fact that this political document was being sent to communications who were supposed to be civil it was partisan political activity at the Public probably done on government charged if nothing the nip should instead of the Pawley insisted it was information about important he believed All executive assistants and even Las should have that there was a responsibility to let the Public know what was you can use it Vic Schroeder but the tories had already done the government was looking bad outside the Pawley continued to defend the but admitted it should not have been sent to communications people and printed on government it would not occur this error May not be but others Are As Mercier an other chapter will there would be rough times doonesbury by Garry Trudeau us the got jim00pipyou60 0ackto school Man 1 also to you you pip00py ;