Human rights organizations in Argentina, Chile, El
Salvador and Guatemala have been working togeth-
er to understand the effects of state terror in second
and third generations like Paula’s. In Buenos Aires, the
Mental Health Solidarity Movement (Movimiento Soil-
dario de Salud Mental) has spent more than ten years
conducting therapy and research with the children of
the disappeared. The Movement’s coordinator, Esteban
Costa, was interviewed in his Buenos Aires office by
Karen Robert and Rodrigo Gutirrez Hermelo.
Here in Argentina, what special challenges do the chil-
dren of the disappeared face during adolescence?
This transition when the child becomes an adult is
such a critical stage in any person’s life, when there are
many crises of values. For these kids, the element that
sets the limits to a person’s conductwhich is one of
the key issues of adolescenceis represented by the
parent’s absence. This is an issue for any orphan. But
here it is also an absence in the society, and most
specifically, in the government and the justice system.
The serious crisis has to do with the incapacity of the
society to assume its responsibility regarding the disap-
peared parent.
You’re referring to the fact that the military personnel
responsible for human rights violations were pardoned.
Exactly. If we live in an Argentina governed by
impunity, there is no social model to “replace” that
absent figure. The biggest consequence of this absence
is the problem of building a future. What we’ve found is
that for these youths, the future doesn’t exist. When
asked about their plans for the next year, or next five
years, they give answers like, “I’d like to be less crazy
than I am now,” or simply “I have no idea.” When they
tell their stories, they almost never mention the future.
Everything is in the present.
How do these adolescents feel about their parents?
Unfortunately, in very many cases it is a kind of
hatred. There is a huge weight of blame here. The
youths have a big problem identifying themselves with
their parents’ history. One 19-year-old did not even
know exactly which political group his father had been
involved in. And because the society doesn’t recognize
that parent as a victim, he or she figures as a kind of
idiot. “Why didn’t my father have the sense to leave
when it was inevitable that he would be killed?” The
contradiction at a personal level is that there is also a
process of idealization. The youths imagine an ideal,
unattainable figure to replace the missing parent. And
then many things in their lives also become unobtain-
able: love, social relationships, emotional commitments.
What are the possibilities and mechanisms for recover-
ing that history and building towards the future?
This brings us back to the social. There is no frame-
work to help them recover that history. There aren’t
even many people in a position to help them. In most
cases, the family members that raised these kids were
fantastic. But the children lived through the silencing of
the dictatorship. Even afterwards the adult caregivers
were afraid of them speaking out about their situation
and attracting further repression. So the history was
silenced even within the family. At the social level, if the
justice system were to recognize the disappeared as vic-
tims, through a monument or some public symbol, that
simple fact would be significant for these kids’ health.
This has occurred in some other countries, like Uruguay.
Here there is no recognition of any victims. There was
just a “war,” an “unfortunate” situation.
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