Argentina: Angela Urondo

Pagina/12 runs an extensive interview with Angela Urondo, another child of disappeared parents. It's unfortunately too long for me to translate, but for Spanish speakers interested in these issues, it's worth reading in full.

Angela Urondo is the daughter of Argentine writer Francisco “Paco” Urondo and Alicia Raboy. Her father was killed in 1976 and her mother remains disappeared. Last week, five former members of the military received lengthy prison sentences for their part in crimes including the murder of Paco Urondo: Juan Agustín Oyarzábal, Eduardo Smaha Borzuk, Alberto Rodríguez Vázquez, Celustiano Lucero and Dardo Migno.

Angela herself was kept in detention centres as a small child for around a year after the disappearance of her parents, an experience she says she remembers in recurring dreams. She notes, "There's plenty of talk about appropriated children, but no one mentions detained-disappeared children".

“Todos me preguntan cómo me siento después del juicio y siento alivio --dice Angela-- Pero también me pasa... hasta ahora el Estado siempre me había quitado: asesinó a mis padres, me quitó mi nombre y me quitó la posibilidad del resarcimiento porque había sido adoptada. [...] Siento que el Estado me está devolviendo algo y eso de alguna forma desvictimiza. Si hubo dos crímenes, los asesinatos y las desapariciones y la impunidad, el primero no tiene forma de ser resuelto, el segundo sí, no por los 35 años que pasaron pero sí para el futuro”.

Everyone asks me how I feel after the trial, and I feel relieved," says Angela, "But also I think... until now, the State has always taken away from me: it murdered my parents, it took away my name and it took away the chance of compensation because I had been adopted. [...] I feel like the State is giving me something back and in some way stopping me from being a victim. If there were two crimes, the murders and the disappearances on the one hand and the impunity on the other, there is no way of resolving the first of those but the second, there is - not for the 35 years which have already passed, but for the future."

Angela Urondo is currently in the process of having her formal adoption dissolved and officially taking the name of her father: this is the other side of the coin to the disappeared child who wants to keep his name.

"Por primera vez el Estado me esta devolviendo algo" (Pagina/12)