The Argentine president, Alberto Fernandezhas led an emotional event in tribute to the victims of State terrorism of the Conicet, marking an important milestone on the national agenda just one month before the general elections on October 22. In this event, the president joins the political polarization that pits Unión por la Patria against the libertarian Javier Miley.
The ceremony, according to data from the NA agency, took place at the Scientific and Technological Pole, and was organized by the Council’s Memory Commission, commemorating the 65 years of the creation of CONICET. The main purpose was to pay tribute to the organization’s workers who were victims of state terrorism during the civil-military dictatorship of 1976.
This act is framed in the context of a national debate that has intensified recently. The candidate for vice president of La Libertad Avanza, Victoria Villarruel, publicly questioned the number of missing people and paid tribute to what she called “the victims of terrorism.” In addition, she proposed the review of the economic reparations granted to the families of the disappeared.
Alberto Fernández was accompanied at the event by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Daniel Filmus, and the president of Conicet, Ana Franchi. There was also the presence of Taty Almeida, a prominent reference for Human Rights and Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, as well as Roberto Rivarola, vice president of Technological Affairs of Conicet, and the members of the Memory Commission María Josefina Lamaisón, Fabiana Bekerman and Cecilia D’Alessio, the latter, a CONICET researcher and daughter of Enrique D’Alessio, who was exonerated by the Military Junta.
The files of the CONICET victims were delivered to relatives and loved ones of Eduardo Alfredo Pasquini, Héctor Saraceno, María del Carmen Sabino, Antonio Anselmo Misetich, Arturo Miguel Rosés, Luis Ángel Dadone Hansen and Horacio Alberto Giusti. In addition, commemorative plaques with their names were placed on the esplanade of the Scientific and Technological Pole and tribute was paid to the members of CONICET who were discharged by the Military Junta.
In an additional gesture of recognition to the scientific community, the book «El CONICET en dictatorship. Effects of State terrorism on Argentine science and forms of reparation. In addition, the exhibition “Science is sovereignty: a journey through the 65 years of CONICET” was inaugurated at the Cultural Center of Science.
How is Alberto Fernández’s political agenda continuing?
In the afternoon, President Fernández planned to inaugurate the last section of the Pilar-Pergamino highway, together with the Minister of Public Works, Gabriel Katopodis, in the city located in the north of the province of Buenos Aires, showing his commitment to development of infrastructure throughout the country.