Thursday marked four months from the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, an elderly witness who has been missing since testifying in the trial against a police official from the last dictatorship. Displayed sporadically throughout the city are posters and graffiti serving as reminders that he is still missing. Despite these efforts, there seems to be little progress in actually finding the man. A commonly accepted belief, after this much time, is that Julio Lopez is dead and his body will never be found though the government has strongly rejected any such statements by the media.

The 18th of each month brings a march down Av de Mayo from the Congreso demanding he re-appears alive.

Different causes, same faces

Thursday was another hot summer day in Buenos Aires. By late afternoon storm clouds gathered overhead. While the rain didn’t come in the downtown area, except for a few sprinkles, strong winds blew along the streets.

As with other marches down Av de Mayo, the participants are mostly the same despite the reason for the march. The front lines may change depending upon the cause but the majority of protesters are leftist political groups and piqueteros.

There are always the familiar faces. Go to just about any street march in Buenos Aires and you’ll see this old guy banging on the metal street posts with his little metallic stick. He makes quite a racket.

And as with other marches, the TV cameras, reporters, and photographers are gathered at the front of the march and waiting at Plaza de Mayo. Yet, other than the disruption in traffic - which can be very problematic for those driving or taking the bus through downtown around 6 pm - I get the sense that no one pays any attention to all these marches.

Again on Wednesday evening several human rights groups led a march down Avenida de Mayo from Congreso to Plaza de Mayo to protest the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez. More info (in Spanish) can be found at www.30anios.org.ar, one of the organizers of the march.

18 of October: a month after 77 year-old Jorge Julio Lopez disappeared, a key witness in the recent trial against former police official Miguel Etchecolatz, who was sentenced last month to life imprisonment for his involvement in the last dictatorship in Argentina.

At one point during the demonstration I turned away from the crowd and saw a person in a black hood spray painting the words “Donde esta Lopez?” on the walls of the Cabildo. If you look closely at the photo, you can see the layers of white paint that covers graffiti from past demonstrations. Four policmen stood just within the closed gate of the Cabildo, clearly knowing that it’s easier to re-paint the Cabildo than try and stop the vandalism.

A few minutes earlier, across the street, a couple of girls sprayed a stencil on the walls of the Palacio de Gobierno de la Ciudad. The city used to station a line of riot police in front of that building but, this year, the city seems to have pulled most of the police away from that area during the demonstrations.

This particular march was not quite the carnival that was the march of a couple of weeks ago that also focused on the disappearance of Lopez. I still need to do a write up on that one.

The crowd last night was quite different. I didn’t stay to see the entire protest line, which stretched quite far, but last night’s demonstrations didn’t have the mass of poor residents bused in from the provinces. Overall, last night’s crowd was more middle class and working class than a lot of the demonstrations. There also was an extremely large number of students.

Every few days I see a story on the news or a sign on the streets commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of somone who was disappeared, such as this poster: an homage to a mother who fought for life and liberty.

Angela Maria Aieta de Gullo was born in Fuscaldo, Italy on March 7, 1921. She lived in the barrio of Parque Chacabuco and Flores and was the mother of four sons. One of her sons, Juan Carlos Dante was imprisoned in 1975 for being a leader of the Peronist Youth. On the fifth of August in 1976 she was taken from her own home and witnesses reported seeing her at ESMA, the Navy School of Mechanics, a notorious torture center. In 1979 her youngest son Salvador Jorge also was disappeared. Juan Carlos Dante Gullo was freed in 1983 with the fall of the dictatorship and is still active in politics.

It is believed that she was carried onto one of the death flights in 1976 that dropped the disappeared into the Rio de la Plata.

Last night, Saturday evening, a mass and tribute to all the disappeared from the barrio took place in front of her home. A statement on the web site of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo lists the names of 32 people who disappeared from the same barrio.

Trial in Italy

There’s more to this poster than the simple remembrance of a dear mother by her family.

Italy is using the death of Angela Aieta and two other Italian citizens who resided and disappeared in Argentina as the basis of an investigation and trial of five officers from the Argentine Navy: Jorge Acosta, Alfredo Astiz, Hector Frebrés, Antonio Vanek, and Jorge Vildoza. Lawyers for navy admiral Emilio Massera, who was a member of the ruling military junta, are pleading that he is now mentally unfit to stand trial.

Most of the former navy officers live in Argentina. Vildoza is a fugitive whose location is unknown.

They are being tried in absentia in Italy. Testimony from more than forty witnesses against the navy officers is scheduled to begin in October.