Post date: Aug 07, 2012 8:33:49 PM
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (AUGUST 07, 2012) (REUTERS) - The human rights group the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo announced on Tuesday (August 07) they had "recovered a grandchild" who disappeared 34 years ago with his parents when he was just one-month-old.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo reveal they have identified a man who was taken from his parents who were 'disappeared' by Argentina's military government 34 years ago when he was just one-month-old.
Pablo Javier Gaona Miranda is the 106th missing person identified by the Grandmother's group which is dedicated to finding missing children who were stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families, during the 1976 - 1983 dictatorship.
During a news conference the president of the Grandmothers, Estela de Carlotto, held photographs of Pablo Javier's biological parents, Ricardo Gaona Paiva and María Rosa Miranda who were 'disappeared' on May 14, 1978 after visiting Ricardo's parents just one month after Pablo Javier was born on April 13 that same year.
The newborn baby boy was taken from his parents and given to a family who raised him as their own for 34 years.
"The person who delivered him was a retired colonel, the cousin of the man who raised him, and who was also named the godfather. Pablo Javier always knew that he was not a biological son, though the story they told him was that they brought him from the province of Misiones," de Carlotto said.
Pablo Javier did not appear at the news conference for privacy reasons, but the Grandmothers group says he long had doubts and wondered whether he was the son of disappeared parents since 2001.
In 2008, they say, he finally asked the woman who raised him if his suspicions were correct, and she reportedly admitted it was true.
But it wasn't until June 29, 2012 that Pablo Javier approached the Grandmothers who crossed his DNA with a data bank and were able to identify him as the missing son of Ricardo and Maria Rosa that his biological aunts, uncles and grandmother had been searching for since his disappearance 34 years ago.
"And to all of my brothers I say to them we have a nephew. Another nephew who is the first grandchild, the first nephew. And well, now we are going to enjoy him. And that's all. Thank you for everything," Pablo Javier's biological uncle who was not identified by name for privacy concerns said.
Just over 100 missing children have discovered their true identities, but many families are still searching more than three decades later.
Activists say there could be several hundred more individuals who do not know they were taken as babies from their parents.
The legacy of the missing children remains one of the most painful legacies of the crackdown on leftist dissent during the "Dirty War" years in which rights group say up to 30,000 people were killed.