The University of Leeds organised the third edition of Media and Governance in Latin America on the 25 and 26 July. I am very grateful for the experience gained at the conference. A great organisation, top scholar, and very friendly environment. I am looking forward to the next meeting.

1. Stolen children, social
inversion and media
P. Ariel Sanchez

2. Contextualization of the study
• Estimated 30,000 disappeared - 500 stolen children born from captive
pregnant women (also disappeared) during the Junta (1976 – 1983)
• Fact: 120 “resolved cases to date” – recovered children are
considered “justice”
• Individual and collective identity is at stake (discourses)
• The media possibly triggered the inversion in the action of seeking,
but certainly aligned to the cause (identifying corpses, finding
children)
• Grandmothers of May Park

3. Theoretical framework
Foucault ‘s genealogy
“...a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledge,
discourses, domain of objects, etc. without having to make reference to a
subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs
out its empty sameness through the course of history” (Rabinow, 1984, p.
59).
Genealogy in this case is oriented to the analysis of truths and justice, and
refers to power beyond the “purely juridical” concept that defines law as a
repressive, though power is rather accepted by its transversal core
(Rabinow, 1984, pp. 60 - 61). It needs to be considered as a productive
network which runs through the whole social body, much more than as a
negative instance whose function is repression” (Ibid).

4. Historical overview
• Main concepts: children of the disappeared – social inversion of “seeking”
• Social inversion: In the 1970s the family members of the disappeared were
seeking for their children and grandchildren. However, some children found
their family members. Some were raised by their abductors (former
military). It seems that there is a “social inversion” (Edkins, 2011: p. 156)
• Media campaigns:
• 1977 onwards: If you were born between 1977 and 1980” …we may be seeking for
you (Abuelas, n/d)
• 2007: National media campaigns: "If you are the family member of a [...] victim [...] a
simple blood sample from you can help to identify him/her” (EAAF, 2007)
• 2008: “Programme to Search For” (Law 26675, Bolletín Oficial, 2008)

5. National media campaigns 2007/8
• National media campaign: Latin American Initiative for the Disappearance of
Persons “... a simple drop of your blood can help to identify her/him” (EAAF,
2007).
•
• 2008: Program “To Search For” (Law 26675, Bolletín Oficial, 2008). Financial
reward (MJDH, 2008).

6. Media campaigns and nation state support
• In 2013 BUSCAR increased the rewards for the information that leads
to finding abductees by 10-times, from £6,892 to £68,297 for
information (Law 26,375; Boletín Oficial, 2008) to provide support to
Abuelas campaign
• As a result, 1,900 calls and 200 witness statements related to
abductees were received within a year (Télam, 2014).

7. Money matters?
• Abuelas argue that BUSCAR’s financial incentive for information had an
impact on their campaign as it encouraged and mobilised public response
in providing information in relation to the disappeared and their stolen
children; 1,900 calls were received between 2013 and 2014, which
according to them justified 10-times increase in rewards for information
(Télam, 2014).
• However, the EAAF, an adjacent institution to Abuelas, received 2,750 calls
between November 2007 and October 2008 (LIID, 2009, p. 48), when there
were no financial incentives mentioned.
• Therefore, public response rate in terms of calls made to Abuelas is despite
the 10-times increase in payment for information 30% lower than the
response EAAF received five years earlier.
• The role of the media?

8. Videla’s Trial: the case 35
..."the most significant human rights problem, because these children
were alive”
(TOF 6, 2012, p. 1101 - 1102, Osorio, 2012)

9. From the “bad” to the “worse” violation of HR: discursive root
Memorandum of conversation between the USA Assistant Secretary of
State, Elliot Abrams, and the Argentinean Ambassador, García del Solar
(Department of State, 3 December 1982):
“I raised to the ambassador the question of children in this context, such as
children born to prisoners or children taken from their families during the
Cold war. While the disappeared were dead. These children were alive and
this was in a sense the gravest humanitarian problem”

10. Research questions
1. Did the media influence such social inversion, if so to what extent?
2. How do children of the disappeared perceive the role of the media
in searching for self-identity and justice?

11. Methods
• Quantitative: secondary data analysis of Grandmothers of May Park
archive
• Sample: 120 identified cases (resolved)
• Case characteristics and descriptions
• Qualitative: interview analysis of children’s testimonies
• Interview databases: “Grandchildren: histories with identity” (Abuelas,
CONADI; Cultura Argentina) produced by national TV channel
• Sample 16 cases.
• Inferences, media and self representation, media and identity impact (self
representation and life changing events), justice – (in) justice

12. From some children to how many (407 cases)
120
197
10
Abuelas’s data: source Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (2016)
Found Born captive Abducted with parents

13. 120 resolved cases: 1978 – 2016
(1st case resolved 1978, child abducted on 26 Oct
1976)
13
32
19
7
0
4
13
31
1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Junta (1976 - 1983_
Alfonsín (1983 - 1989)
Menem (1989 - 1999)
De La Rúa (1999 - 2001)
Rodríguez Sá (2001)
Duhalde (2002)
Kirchner, N (2003 - 2007)
Kirchner, C. (2007 - 2015)
Macri (2015 +)
Resolved cases and Argentinean presidents

14. Finding “stolen” children
42
7
8
30
41
4
20
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Stolen by security forces
Abandoned - social service
Abondoned - neighbour
Illegal/unclear adoption
Abandoned - Adopted
Raised by parent's friends
Biological family
The children of the disappeared

15. Who is seeking whom?
65
32
13
7
3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Insitutions seeking them
Stolen children finding them
Death
Irrelevant
Family bridge

16. Media’s influence on social inversion
• Abuelas’ data (resolved cases) + national media campaign
• 6 cases where media was a cause of social inversion:
• 4 before 2007
• 2 post 2007
• 16 possible media involvement if considering “social inversion” only:
• 8 before 2007
• 8 post 2007

17. Horacio Pietragalla (source: Abuelas, 2016)

18. Horacio Pietragalla’s story (ID 75)
• DOB 11/03/76 – abducted in the Junta (August 1976)
• Parents killed (Liliana Corti in 1976, Horacio Pietragalla in 1975)
• Only interview with the intro: this is the violation (the rest
descriptions start with this is her/his history)
• 2 different videos available (CONADI, 2012, Abuelas, 2016)
• 2nd video mainly a cartoon (children public)
• Current MP (Frente por la Victoria, considered the Abuelas’
ambassador)

19. Horacio: cartoon version
“It always got my attention that my parents (abductors) were
very short, and I was tall... very tall...taller than my father...like
a basketball player. I felt stranger...like a toad from another
hold! /…/ Until one day I contacted Abuelas. /…/ When I was
27 years they confirmed what I always suspected: that my
parents were others and I was separated from then when I
was very tiny...”

20. Official interview version: the media and his
doubts
• ”I started doubting, I always said, when I was teenager. /…/ My ex
girlfriend started searching for Abuelas's website case by case. /…/
When I saw a photography of my mother initially I said no, but then I
held it, looked at it, and I started to understand what happened.”
• October 2002 – watching a TV program produced by Abuelas
triggered the final push, and contacted CONADI

21. Justice
• Identity puzzle: self awareness of difference
• After the introduction of DNA test, Horacio did three years of
research regarding his parents
• Changed his name from César Castillo due to two reasons: “It is
beyond me, it is about my mother's memory and my children /…/
Keeping my parents alive from generation to generation.”

22. Gabrial Matías Vasco (ID 69)
• DOB: 14 Oct 1976
• Abducted: 11 January 1977
• DNA test: February 1999
• Given by a police officer to a family friend
• “Legal adoption”: police doctor signed his birth certificate (false DOB)
• Media program triggered parents’ confession when he was 9 years
old, but not that he is a child of the disappeared: “You are our ‘heart
soon’, but not our biological soon.”
• Individual trauma until he discovered his biological roots

23. Gabrial Matías Vasco
“I did not have idea about the disappeared, or that I could have been
the child of a disappeared. /…/ When I finished the high school, I
started to know a bit more about it through some newspapers, some
news channels. /…/ At our dinner table, watching TV I heard: ‘Those old
women (Abuelas) should not be doing politics.’ /…/ By 1999, after
reading a lot articles linked to the disappeared, I did not want to give
problems to my family.”
• Parents faced criminal prosecution by default

24. Media and self-representation: life changing
events
• “The truth found him”
“I was watching a TV program from Rosin at midnight...in which there
was a testimony of one of the grandchildren...I started crying...” (Pablo
Javier Miranda, DOB 13 April 1978, DNA test 1 August 2012, Paraguay
National, adopted legally)
“I logged into Abuelas website more often than in my e-mail in the last
three years” (Fransico Madariaga Quintela, DOB 07 1977, DNA test 17
February 2010)

25. (In)justice
• “Recovered my identity” (all cases)
• Overall agreement that there were “fair trials” against their former
“appropriators”
• Keeping the memory of their disappeared parents through personal
items left to them
• “My dad left a tennis paddle/…/ My uncle’s face was like ‘I can die in peace
now’” (Marcos Suarez Vedoya, case resolved 85),
• “My mother's necklace /.../ goes with me everywhere” (Manuel Granada
Voncalves, resolved case 57).
• Keep searching for the rest of the victims: “I dare to dream that my
sibling is alive” (Sabrina Valenzuela, case resolved 96, adopted legally)

26. Images, media and identity
• Overall, images are vital in the individual desire of self identity, it proved to be the more
relevant factor far beyond the DNA test results
• DNA tests are a hard evidence and has a “peace in mind” effect. At this point the
participants interviewed were in the majority of the cases more traumatized.
• However, images (pictures from disappeared parents) produced a dual impact. The sense
of loss and reassurance.
• Images are the initial path of re-identification (mainly looking for physical similitudes).
This is more emotional than conflictive zone (clearly noticed in the body language of the
participants).
• Items that belonged to their parents also played a highly emotional and positive effect.
• Each recorded video in sum is a constant in Abuelas publicity (tensioning what they
rejected most, the “trophy” usages of this individuals though during the Junta).

27. Conclusion
• Media campaign appears to trigger more resolved cases post 2007,
but little link to social inversion
• Media role: more dominant in the reconstruction of identities and the
reinterpretation of ”justice” than in social inversion
• Value of media campaigns?
• Co-shaping political discourses
• Not linked to finding children directly (more children found prior to media
campaigns)
• Possibility of long-term cultivation effect and collective memory