March for Jorge Julio Lopez

La Plata, Argentina: August 18, 2007

I was fortunate to attend a protest march this weekend in La Plata, which is the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, with Cachito Fuchman, one of the survivors of the military dictatorship. Cachito invited me to go with him to attend this march protesting the disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez, a key witness in the 2005 trial of Miguel Etchecolatz. It was truly an amazing experience to be a part of. I met other members of Cachito's organization: Asociacion Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos. Check out their website here. These are remarkable people who survived kidnapping, torture and slave labor during the dictatorship. They are still fighting for justice to this day. September 18, 2007 marks the one-year anniversary of Lopez's disappearance. There will be a big march in Buenos Aires which I will be sure to take lots of pictures of!

Here's Cachito at the beginning of the day. A bunch of representatives from Buenos Aires city met up downtown. Then, we caravaned to La Plata together-- there were about thirty cars in total.


Police escort as we drove through downtown. You can see the Obelisk in the background.


Cachito organizes a lot of the events for the Buenos Aires contingent, so our car actually led the procession.


After we got to La Plata, we processed to one of the big squares downtown on foot and in cars. It was really cold so we drove this part!




Then we parked the cars and assembled in the Plaza Italia.


Members of the Asociacion. Osvaldo (center) is a close friend of Cachito's. They were both held in the ESMA military detention center outside of Buenos Aires.


View as we marched to the main government square in La Plata.


More members of the Asociacion.


Arriving in the government plaza.

Here's a short video of the presentation the leaders gave once we arrived at the main government building:



After the rally was over, we walked back to our cars and headed home. Needless to say, this was an amazing event to be a part of and I am so grateful to everyone I met for being so welcoming. I'm really looking forward to the march in September.