The violent murder of Susana Beatriz Montoyawidow of a disappearedand mother of a well-known human rights activist, has rekindled in Argentina the concern of human rights organizations and groups that continue to demand justice for the crimes committed by the military dictatorship. It is not the first time that an activist has been threatened, while the president Javier Milei and the vice Victoria Villarruel are openly deniers of the atrocities committed by the regime of Jorge Videla (1976-1983) and hostile to reparation policies that continue to be underfunded.
Susana Beatriz Montoya76 years old, was found lifeless in her home in Córdoba on Saturday, August 3, with blows to the head and cuts. Painted on the walls of the house, the message “We will kill them all. Now let’s go to take your son #police”. The investigation is ongoing and at the moment no hypothesis is being excluded. The victim was a memory activist and widow of Ricardo Fermin Albaredadeputy commissioner of the police of Córdoba and member of the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), an armed organization that opposed the regime. In September 1979, at the age of 37, Albareda was kidnapped and held prisoner in the clandestine detention center Hydraulic House where he was tortured. Since then, he is one of the 30 thousand people who have disappeared and, according to testimonies collected over the years, he bled to death after being castrated. For his death, in 2009 the soldier Luciano Benjamin Menendez and three police officers from the province of Córdoba.
Son Fernando Albareda is part of sons(Hijos for identity and justice against evil and silence), an organization of relatives of people who disappeared during the dictatorship who are conducting work for the memory. According to what he declared on TV ElDocein recent weeks her mother had received threatening calls and was very worried. For Albareda, the murder could be linked to a state compensation that her mother was about to receive as “repair” for the disappearance of her husband. Fernando Albareda had also been threatened at the end of last year: on the door of his house he had found six .22 caliber bullets and writings such as “You will die” And “You will end up like your father” accompanied by swastikas.
In a joint statement, human rights organizations, including The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayoexpressed strong concern over the murder of Susana Montoja, calling for clarity on the crime and the threats received by the family. “Hate speech, which continues to spread in our society, represents a latent danger until it actually takes effect,” the statement reads.
Montoya’s assassination increases public criticism against the government of President Milei, who has once again ended up at the centre of controversy also because of some deputies of his coalition, Freedom Advanceswho visited in July Alfredo Astiz in Ezeiza prison. Known as “Death angel” and “Angelo Biondo”, the former naval officer is serving a life sentence for the crimes of kidnappingmurder and torture. Among his victims, there are three mothers of Plaza de Mayowho were looking for their missing children, and the French nuns Alice Domon And Leonie Duquet. According to what was reconstructed by the news site Politics Onlinethe meeting in the federal prison would have also involved other former soldiers who operated in the clandestine center of the training school of the ESMA Navy in the capital Buenos Aires.
“We are alarmed and worried about the actions of some deputies Freedom Advances who went to visit people convicted of crimes against humanity, while the government is emptying the policies built in 40 years of democracy,” they wrote in a statement The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. “Alfredo AstizCarlos Suarez Mason, Raul GuglielminettiAntonio Pernías and Adolfo Donda have been tried for the kidnapping of our grandchildren. They have never shown remorse for their crimes nor have they provided any information about the whereabouts of our sons and daughters, nor the whereabouts of the approximately 300 grandchildren we are looking for.”
