Tireless human rights activist Taty Almeida, founding member of Madres de Plaza de Mayo, dies at 95

Taty Almeida, iconic human rights activist, tireless campaigner and president of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, has died at the age of 95.

An unforgettable, indefatigable figure in the history of Argentina's human rights movement, Almeida devoted much of her life to seeking justice for the crimes and state terrorism committed in the lead up and during the country's 1976-1983 civil-military dictatorship.

"With profound sorrow, we must share the saddest of news: today our beloved Taty Almeida, president of Madres of Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, has left us," the human rights group said in a statement.

"Thank you for teaching us that to love is to resist, that the only struggle that is lost is the one that is abandoned, and that there is no force greater than love," it added.

The activist passed away on Sunday at 7.20pm at the Hospital Italiano in Buenos Aires, where she had been receiving treatment for the previous three weeks, her family confirmed in a statement.

Almeida's life changed forever after the disappearance of her son Alejandro, aged 20, in 1975 at the hands of the far-right Triple A paramilitary organisation.

For decades, she demanded answers from the state as to his fate, which were never forthcoming.

The activist’s daughter, Fabiana Almeida, told reporters that she and her brother Jorge realised early Sunday morning that their mother "wasn't doing well.”

"We told her: 'Mum, come on, let go. Alejandro is waiting for you up there. Embrace each other and keep watching over us from above'," she said, her voice breaking with emotion.

The mother-of-three’s death prompted tributes from leading figures in Argentina's human rights movement, politics and cultural life.

"She was a fighter," a visibly moved Estela Barnes de Carlotto, the leader of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, told the C5N news channel after hearing the news.

"We carry on with the struggle. It is a struggle with more pain now, but we must not give up," added the veteran rights campaigner.

"A lifelong fighter who honoured life itself. Farewell, dear Taty," former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wrote on X.

 

Tireless campaigner

Born in Buenos Aires in 1930 as Lidia Estela Mercedes Miy Uranga, Almeida – popularly known as ‘Taty’ – was a teacher and mother of three children from her marriage to fellow teacher Jorge Almeida.

After divorcing in 1970, she took on two jobs: one as a doctor's secretary and another conducting surveys. Taty asked her children – Jorge, Alejandro and Fabiana – to organise their studies so they could also contribute to the family income. Through one of her uncles, she eventually secured Alejandro a job at state news agency Télam.

In 1974, Alejandro was working at the Instituto Geográfico Militar, but he was also active in the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores-Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (PRT-ERP) guerrilla organisation.

He was abducted on June 17, 1975 by the far-right Triple A paramilitary group, operating under the Isabel Perón government, before the 1976 coup that brought the dictatorship to power.

Almeida often remembered the last time she saw her son. Before heading out, he told her: "Mum, I'll be right back," she recalled.

Alejandro, then in his first year of medical school, has remained missing ever since. Almeida never recovered his remains.

The daughter and sister of military officers, she did not formally join the Madres de Plaza de Mayo until 1979.

"I didn't dare go. Given my background, I could have been considered a spy. Once I was part of the organisation, I told them the truth," she once recalled.

Her husband came from a military family and her sisters married Air Force officers. The initial search for her son took Almeida to the doors of military figures close to her family, including Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, Albano Harguindeguy, Ramón Camps and Orlando Ramón Agosti.

When the military junta seized power in March 1976, she initially believed it would restore order and help her find her son. It did not.

In 1979, when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arrived in Argentina to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity, Almeida stood in line to testify about Alejandro's disappearance. She later gave evidence to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).

"I feel as though Alejandro gave birth to me. He took me out of the bubble in which I had lived all my life. And I am very proud that he was the one who gave birth to me," she said in an interview with the Memoria Abierta oral history archive.

"I was an extreme anti-Peronist. I changed completely. All of that happened after what happened to my son."

Almeida transformed her grief into an unrelenting collective struggle as a founding member of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora and a national symbol of memory, truth and justice.

"We transformed that anger into love and into peaceful struggle," she said in a 2017 interview with the AFP news agency.

With her white headscarf always tied around her neck, she became a tireless presence at demonstrations demanding the truth about crimes against humanity. She was also a steadfast supporter of trade union and student movements, lending both her presence and her distinctive voice to their causes.

In the five decades that followed Alejandro's disappearance, Almeida never stopped searching for what she called "legal justice" – for the Argentine state to tell her where her son was and what had happened to him.

"They tell you time heals wounds, but that's a lie. I miss him more with every passing day," she said in the Memoria Abierta archive. "I would give anything just to have even a single bone of Alejandro's."

She never received those answers. Until her final day, Almeida lived in the same Palermo flat where she had been preparing dinner when her son left home in 1975.

 

Memory, truth and justice

Following internal divisions within the movement, Almeida became president of the Línea Fundadora faction of the Madres. She rarely missed a public event and, following the death of fellow campaigner Nora Cortiñas, had become one of the movement's most recognisable figures.

In recent years, she helped unite Argentina's human rights organisations ahead of this year's March 24 demonstration marking 50 years since the 1976 military coup.

"There are only three mothers left now, and two grandmothers," Almeida said in April while receiving an honour from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).

"We've already passed the baton. Little by little. Because despite the walking sticks and wheelchairs, us crazy women are still standing."

She also maintained an openly confrontational stance towards President Javier Milei's government, criticising its austerity measures and challenges to longstanding state policies on memory, truth and justice.

Milei's government disputes the 30,000 disappeared estimate promoted by human rights groups, arguing the figure is closer to 9,000 and maintaining that excesses were committed by both sides during the political violence of the 1970s.

"Strength, courage, her laughter and sparkling gaze, her indispensable voice at every gathering – that was Taty. To anyone who listened to her, in the many different places where she shared her testimony throughout half her life, she would say: 'Do not forget,'" the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo said in a tribute.

For generations of Argentines, Almeida became one of the enduring faces of the struggle for memory, truth and justice. Her own search for answers about Alejandro never ended, but her decades of activism helped countless other families uncover the fate of their loved ones.

She will be remembered for the phrase that became her lifelong creed: "The only struggle that is lost is the one that is abandoned."

Almeida's wake will be held at the FOETRA telecommunications workers' union headquarters on Avenida Hipólito Yrigoyen in Buenos Aires City. The site will be open on Monday, June 15, from 2pm until midnight, and on Tuesday, June 16, from 8am until noon for members of the public to pay tribute.

 

– TIMES