(By Diana López Gijsberts) Some 157 medical students and teachers, who disappeared during the last civic-military dictatorship, will have their files repaired, 46 years later, from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), where it will be recorded that their status as victim of State terrorism was the reason why they never once more attended the classrooms of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of La Plata.
They are mostly students, and also teachers, non-teachers, graduates, who were murdered and disappeared during the last military dictatorship.
On December 5, at 9:30 a.m., that house of studies will carry out a reparatory act by delivering to the relatives of these people the files where their status as victims of State terrorism will be registered.
In this way, it will comply with Resolution 259/15 of the UNLP, which indicates that it must “leave a record in the files, of the real reasons that determined the interruption of the work or student performance of all those who were victims of the last civic-military dictatorship”.
“It is a repair for everyone. It repairs the silence lived for so many years. It is to bring them to the present with their ideas, projects, illusions. It is collective health from wounds that will never heal,” Susana Di Salvo, Pedro Alfredo’s sister, told Télam. Bocha” Disalvo, one of the missing students.
“Bocha” was 22 years old and was in 4th grade. year of Medicine when he was kidnapped at dawn on July 1, 1977 from his house in the Buenos Aires capital.
His sister recalled that Pedro “was absolutely vital; he loved everything and everything was a great challenge for him. He might play any sport, play an instrument, sing, draw and he did everything well, especially because of the grit he put on.”
“He was a yo-yo champion and an Argentine volleyball champion in university tournaments. A fun sidekick in a thousand childhood adventures. Bocha was a nice guy in every sense of the word,” Susana recalled as she reviewed photos of Pedro, with long hair brown hair, mahogany eyes and a wide and contagious smile.
With a loving tone, Susana shows photos, where a 9 or 10-year-old Pedro shared complicit glances with a small and smiling Susana or taught him how to do his homework.
“I infer that he was studying Medicine because his being so supportive led him to the desire to care, especially for the most vulnerable sectors,” remarked Susana, who is waiting expectantly to receive the repaired file from her brother.
The Secretary of Human Rights of the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Verónica Cruz, maintained that it is regarding “recording, in the files of the almost 800 people from the La Plata university who were detained, disappeared and/or murdered in the civic-military dictatorship, and in the previous stage of parastatal terror, of their condition as victims of State terrorism”.
“In the delivery of the files to their relatives and/or to those who carry their memory, with this reparatory act an institutional memory is built that historicizes the events that marked the life of the University during State terrorism, assuming that the university community was victim of genocide and, at the same time, that the institution acted as a victimizer due to the intervention it suffered – even prior to the coup d’état, and the successive efforts of the civic-military dictatorship where hundreds of members of the different cloisters suffered kidnapping, disappearance, homicide, expulsion and exile,” he explained.
Guadalupe Godoy, director of Memory and Reparation Policies of the UNLP, in charge of the File Reparation Program, explained to this agency that “only part of the dimension of the genocide is reflected here, because hundreds had to go into exile, go into exile and many and many survived and later fought for justice.”
“From the Directorate of Memory Policies we accompany the processes of each academic unit, all with their particularities and their ways of building meaning regarding the recent past,” he said.
He explained that, “in the case of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, the reparation process was possible following the change of management in 2018, the institutionalization of Human Rights policies and the request of the student movement for this reparation to be carried out.
Meanwhile, the dean of La Plata’s Faculty of Medical Sciences, Juan Basualdo Farjat, told Télam that “repairing and reconstructing the files is an act of unveiling history: naming the facts and people as victims; contributing to justice by situate that life, that biography, within the academic life of the Faculty, in short, our history”.
“Reconstructing the past makes it possible to build a present for the protection of human rights, to identify, in turn, which sites or practices it is imperative not to return to,” he remarked.
María Belén Gil Sanchez will also receive a repaired file on December 5. That of her mother, Elizabeth Graciela Sánchez, a medical student nicknamed Bettina since she was a child.
“The reconstruction of his life and his history has been a difficult path. I was able to recover from the stories of his life partner and fellow militants, his great commitment to the fight for a better world. His taste for art, for history, and his decision to study Medicine to contribute to improving society, was what I was able to rescue,” María Belén explained to Télam.
“It is an immense and very important job for families and society, which also points out the groups where the dictatorship emphasized with its extermination plan, the student and worker movement. I am grateful for this reparation work, which vindicates the memory of my mother and her struggle,” said the woman, mother of two girls, who is gradually telling them who her grandmother was and what happened to her.
The list of students, teachers and non-teachers whose file will be repaired can be consulted at the link https://bit.ly/3TYekcg; while from the Faculty of Medical Sciences it was indicated that those who are relatives, and colleagues of some of these people can contact the work team at [email protected].
Susana Disalvo, who keeps her brother’s collection of palindro tickets among other personal belongings, does not hesitate to affirm that “repairing the files makes them come back to be between you and us, they come into existence once more.”
“There is a poem by Daniel Viglietti that made a song and I love it. It says ‘Behind my voice/ Listen, listen/ Another voice sings/ It comes from behind, from afar/ It comes from buried mouths, and it sings/ They say they are not dead / Listen to them, listen”, he concluded with emotion. (Telam)