Argentina: Headlines

A statue of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara has been unveiled in his birthplace of Rosario. Che is a towering icon of Latin American culture whose image has been appropriated to sell almost anything you can imagine all over the world.

...events had to be curtailed because of widespread protests by truck drivers and farmers blocking Argentina's roads.

Che would probably have approved of that kind of radical action far more than his new statue and certainly more than today's ubiquitous Che merchandising.

Yep, I think the writer has a point there.

Statue for Che's '80th Birthday' (BBC)

And, on Father's Day, Clarin carries an article about the fathers of the disappeared in Argentina, pointing that while the mothers and their organisation the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo are better known, male relatives were also active in the search for their loved ones. One of the reasons the men were not more obvious is that the families thought - wrongly, as it turned out - that perhaps women would be less subject to violent harrassment by the junta, ie, seen as less of a threat. But the fathers were still visiting state institutions, seeing lawyers, serving writs of habeas corpus, writing letters, looking after children, holding down a job, and supporting their wives through their more public fight for justice.

Siempre estaras en mi (Clarin, photo by Enrique Rosito)