|
Esther Ballestrino (20 January 1918 – disappeared 17 or 18 December 1977) was a Uruguayan martyr. Her forced disappearance (abduction and murder) occurred in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the "National Reorganization Process" (1976–1983). She helped found Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which organised protests by the mothers of missing children taken by the authorities. ==Life== Ballestrino was born in Uruguay but moved in her youth to Paraguay, where she obtained a doctorate in biochemistry. She became politically active as a member of the socialist February Revolutionary Party; she later founded and led the Women's Movement of Paraguay. Politics was dangerous under the military rule of Higinio Morínigo, and she had to leave the country in 1947. In Argentina she married and had three daughters. She worked in the foods section at Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory in Buenos Aires, where one of her subordinates was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would later become Pope Francis. He remembers working for her and her attention to detail. He later commented that Marxists could be good people and he saw Ballestrino as a major influence on him. Ballestrino is said to be the first woman to be the boss of a future pope. In 1976 two of her sons, Manuel Carlos Cuevas and Ives Domergue, were kidnapped and they disappeared. Ballestrino was credited with helping found the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo which came out of other mothers of missing children who met at the Plaza de Mayo.〔 The next year, her pregnant daughter Ana Maria Careaga was also abducted in December 1977 by the authorities and tortured. Ballestrino contacted her associate, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and asked that he come to give the last rites to a relative. The Catholic Bergoglio was surprised, as he knew that Ballestrino was a Marxist. When he arrived, he learned that Ballestrino's real intention was to have him smuggle out the family's collection of communist books. Ballestrino was worried that these books would lead to her arrest in the case of a house search. Bergoglio did as he was requested and smuggled out the books. In December 1977, Ballestrino, Sisters Alice and Léonie, along with other Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, prepared a request for the names of those who disappeared and for the government to divulge their whereabouts. The reply was publicized in the newspaper ''La Nación'' on December 10, 1977. Navy captain Alfredo Astiz had infiltrated the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,〔 and the authorities moved against the ringleaders.〔(''In memorian de Léonie Duquet'', La Vaca, September 27, 2005 ) 〕 Ballestrino and María Ponce were seized by the security forces in the Church of Santa Cruz in downtown Buenos Aires.〔 The women were taken to a detention centre by the Argentine security services, where they were tortured and then dropped into the sea from an aircraft whilst presumably still living. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Esther Ballestrino」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|