- Development & Aid - Economy & Trade - Human Rights - Global
Governance - Civil Society Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - “The night of
Oct. 23, 1976, nearly 33 years ago, was the last time I saw my
son Pablo. He was 17 years old, and he was terrified. Since then
I have had no reliable news about his fate. My family and I have
been left at the mercy of the anguished torments of our
imagination.” This is the opening paragraph of the book “La
historia íntima de los derechos humanos en Argentina” (The
Inside Story of Human Rights in Argentina”) by Graciela
Fernández Meijide, a woman whose own life story was turned
upside down the day Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship seized
one of her three children, who was in his last year of secondary
school. Fernández Meijide, who was a French teacher, found
herself thrust into the role of activist, as a member of the
non-governmental Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH). In
1984, she was named secretary of the National Commission on the
Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), set