Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Susan Hawthorne #336 traffic




like traffic signals the signs
in this park signify terror
trafficking in children
is just another daily event

pregnant women abducted
the longest wait in the world
for this child not yet born
removed from her arms forever

here the markers show
history acknowledged unlike
Australia's own savagery
icons blaring the past

others were raped in detention
kept until they too had the child
forced from her    how can this end
as we sink into formal depravity?

we know these stories because
of bravery by grandmothers
and mothers who still walk every
Thursday at 3.30 pm around

Plaza de Mayo we know because
survivors gave evidence at trials
the speak with hesitation
words trembling truth: desesparacidos






My translation of text*
There were a lot of women who were pregnant at the time of their detention. It was no obstacle to carry out torture. The delivery was carried out in inhumane conditions, often inside the same Centre of Secret Detention. After the birth, many of these women were disappeared and their children, in the majority of cases, delivered into the hands of the military or civilians related to the armed forces. This would not have been possible without the participation of doctors and nurses who were part of this system of appropriation and disappearance.


This is a permanent outdoor art exhibition in the Parque de la Memoria, Buenos Aires. It is filled with street signs representing the various horrors and the history of state terrorism (that's how they refer to it on the signs).

5 comments:

  1. Horrendous. Thanks Susan for writing about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a permanent outdoor art exhibition in the Parque de la Memoria. It is filled with street signs representing the various horrors and the history of state terrorism (that's what they call it).

    ReplyDelete
  3. yes yes yes and yes! never forget and testify...

    ReplyDelete

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