Children of the Disappeared.

[SeaCzar]

This (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) article was in today's Washington Post. I could not imagine this fate.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, the Argentine military government murdered thousands of leftists, but took their children and newborns to raise as their own. Only now are the children and their blood relatives coming to terms with what happened, and those who perpitrated said crimes are coming to justice.

Comments/opinions?

[yoginimama]

Well, it's horrifying. Utterly horrifying. My heart goes out to the original families, and most especially to the now-grown children, who were raised on lies.

I'm glad that the "child" profiled in the article appears to have found peace after the revelations that shattered the reality he thought he knew.

[plotthickens]

Dude.

Humans, when driven by ideologies, can be unbelievably inhuman.

[zibber]

Any kind of deliberate persecution of anyone left of fascism sends a chill down my Marxist spine..

Check out this little gem (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. an%20Rights%20Issue%2000009FF0.pdf), by the way. Another thing that sends chills down my spine is US support of fascist military coups.

[rahdam]

Any kind of deliberate persecution of anyone left of fascism sends a chill down my Marxist spine..

Check out this little gem (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. an%20Rights%20Issue%2000009FF0.pdf), by the way. Another thing that sends chills down my spine is US support of fascist military coups.

Would you pontificate on China and the Chinese goverment in light of this comment? Genuinely curious.

[ArtistTyrant]

leftists tend to gloss over the fact that Communism was responsible for more than 100 million murders in the 20th century...

[Sunshine]

Changelings.

[rahdam]

leftists tend to gloss over the fact that Communism was responsible for more than 100 million murders in the 20th century...

Those were authoritarian governments, not Communism as defined by Marx in the purest sense of the word.

[Scatterbrane]

and those who perpitrated said crimes are coming to justice.

Nasty. This means people may be turning on those who are/were perceived as their parents. Not saying they don't deserve it, but this situation has all sorts of unpleasant connotations.

Here's hoping the whole reparation process doesn't leave these people even more screwed up than they were by the murder of their biological parents and abductions to boot.

Those were authoritarian governments, not Communism as defined by Marx in the purest sense of the word.

Marxist communism has a particular place on the libertarian/authoritarianism scale?

[Mader]

This ugly business has been going on since Biblical times in all parts of the world.

A change in power requires eliminating the opposition, often literally.

Taking the children, or killing the children, prevents the family of the murdered person to come after you and kill you for revenge.

[Arminius]

Given the circumstances, this was probably the best thing that could have happened to these children. These officers had a bunch of kids on their hands they didn't know what to do with. They can't send them back to their biological families, since their biological families were either killed, or were going to raise the kids as die hard communists. These options lead to either the children starving, or having to kill the children when they grow up respectively. It is interesting to think, but these officers would be better off now if they had just killed these children. I find it fascinating these people are not being punished for killing their enemies, but are instead being punished for what are arguably their few acts of human mercy and compassion. It would seem that the quality of mercy is better off strained. Judging from the results, it is better to destroy your enemies completely, without showing mercy to even the children, than it is to spare a single one. I hope for their sakes, that all present and future governments heed this lesson.

[yoginimama]

They can't send them back to their biological families, since their biological families were either killed, or were going to raise the kids as die hard communists.

And you know that for a fact...how?

It's not even clear that all the imprisoned parents themselves, let alone their relatives, WERE really leftists. (Nor is it at all clear that anyone deserves to be executed just for holding that belief.) Due process was not exactly in full flower during the Argentine dirty war.

It is even less clear how the relatives would have raised those children if the children had been turned over to them.

Read the article again. The babies were kept as rewards and raised with lies. It was a crime, pure and simple.

[TigerL]

Interestingly, I first heard about this piece of history in a biology class. Mary-Claire King, one of the US's best geneticists, in the 1980s helped linked these children and their families back together. The tests she developed for this purpose became widely used later on.

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[Arminius]

And you know that for a fact...how?

It's not even clear that all the imprisoned parents themselves, let alone their relatives, WERE really leftists. (Nor is it at all clear that anyone deserves to be executed just for holding that belief.) Due process was not exactly in full flower during the Argentine dirty war.

It is even less clear how the relatives would have raised those children if the children had been turned over to them.
It is wasteful to target people who are not your enemies. There were undoubtedly innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time, as there are in all such situations, but it is more than likely that the majority of people killed were exactly what they were "arrested" for. It is also not too much of a stretch to believe that the family of a leftist guerilla, or supporter of leftist movements would raise the child as a leftist. It is not that leftists per se that should be executed, but in my opinion, people who have taken up arms to establish a marxist state should be shot. No doubt many will disagree with that opinion, and many leftists will no doubt hold similar views on those who are inclined to resist their "revolution".

Read the article again. The babies were kept as rewards and raised with lies. It was a crime, pure and simple.
I'm not sure how having to feed, clothe, and educate a child that is not your own could be construed as a reward. At best these children would be adopted for all the ordinary reasons people adopt children. At worst they would be adopted by someone trying to show loyalty to the regime. Even so, neither of these would be a reward.

"The handover of the children to members of the armed forces evidently was a mechanism by which each appropriator could show his commitment with the regime," Iud said.