Cuban President Diaz-Canel Receives the Argentine Grandmothers, But Not the Ladies in White

Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. (EFE / Archive)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 18 September 2019 — Cuba’s Head of State, Miguel Díaz-Canel, received Estela Barnes de Carlotto, the president of the Argentine association Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in Havana this Tuesday.

The treatment offered to the Argentine activists contrasts with the systematic repression that the Cuban Government exercises against Cuba’s Ladies in White, who are harassed by State Security when they go out to demand the freedom of political prisoners.

Claudia Susana Carlotto, daughter of Estela Barnes, along with Daniel Ricci and Juan Carlos Barroso, representatives of university organizations, also participated in the meeting between the Cuban president and the Argentine human rights activist, according to a note released by the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN).

The president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo was invited to make this visit to the Island by the Federation of Cuban Women, whose head, Teresa Amarelle, was present at the meeting.

Barnes, whose daughter Laura Carlotto was arrested and killed during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983), in 1978 joined a group of women in the organization struggling to locate each of the missing grandchildren*.

In her case, the encounter with her grandson Guido, born in captivity when his daughter Laura was a prisoner, was possible after 36 years of searching, on August 5, 2014.

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo estimate that more than 400 children have been registered as missing and deprived of their identity, their right to live with their family and other rights recognized nationally and internationally as universal human rights.

*Source Wikipedia: “Children were either kidnapped or seized at birth from women in detention during the Dirty War. The vast majority were given or sold to adoptive parents, including numerous perpetrators and accomplices in the murder of their biological parents.”

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