Usually, the phrase "16-year-old girl" is used to
denote vain, vapid teenage girls that populate social networking
websites (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc) and do obnoxious things like
post pictures of themselves, fangirl to Bieber or Selena Gomez and
angst about clothes, popularity and/or boys. However, that'€™s not
always the case.
Maria Claudia Falcone (1960- disappeared 1976) was a high school
student and political activist from the city of La Plata, Argentina
(around an hour or so away from Buenos Aires). She was active in the UES
(Union of Secondary Students) and participated in health and education
projects in the poor neighborhoods that surrounded the city. She was
also active in the Peronist Youth movement (which emphasized the
left-wing tendencies of Peronist ideology).
Perhaps the issue most tied to Claudia Falcone is that of the high
school student bus pass. She, along with many other high school students
in La Plata, fought for a discounted bus fare for all high school
students. The student pass intended to help out those who lived far away
from the city and did not have as much money. The struggle was not just
for the students of that era, but also for the students of the future.
After many demonstrations, protests and petitions to the government,
they finally achieved their goal of obtaining a discounted bus fare for
all high school students.
However, in 1976, a new military junta took power in Argentina. The
junta was extremely right-wing and sought to "€˜eliminate"€™ anyone or
anything they saw as "€˜subversive."€™ In the same year, on the night of
September 16, Claudia was kidnapped from her home, along with five
other students who had participated in the struggle for the student bus
pass (all between the ages of 16-18). This episode is now known as "The
Night of the Pencils (La noche de los lapices)." She had just turned 16 years old.
Claudia, along with the rest of her friends, was first taken to a
clandestine prison (Pozo de Arana) on the outskirts of La Plata. There,
she and her friends were tortured and kept in inhuman conditions.
Torture for Claudia, as well as other women who had disappeared,
included rape and sexual assault. A week or so later, they were taken to
another clandestine prison (Pozo de Banfield) in a suburb of Greater
Buenos Aires.
The last time Claudia was seen alive was on December 28, 1976, by her
friend and fellow student activist Pablo Diaz. Diaz was later freed and
his testimony provides the basis for the Argentine film €œLa noche de los lapices,€ which was released in 1985.
Claudia and her 5 friends still remain missing to this day.
Article taken from here.
Maria Claudia Falcone, 16, was among the victims
On 16 and 17 September 1976, masked men raided their homes under cover of darkness, taking them away to clandestine detention centres in what became known as the "Night of the Pencils".
Six were never seen again.
Emilce Moler was one of four who survived the ordeal.
"A group of armed men stormed into my house looking for me. When I came out of my bedroom, in my nightclothes, they seemed very surprised as I looked much younger than my 17 years," says Emilce.
Beaten senseless Like most of the others, Emilce belonged to the students' union, which had links to an urban guerrilla group known as the Montoneros.
It is not clear what actually provoked their abduction. What is clear, however, is that in the repressive atmosphere of the time, the military regarded them as subversives.
"That night, when they saw my sister, who was older than me, they wanted to take her too. But fortunately there was no space in the car and they left her behind," Emilce says.
With a hood over her head, Emilce could not see what was happening nor where was she being taken. Only years later did she manage to reconstruct the events that began that night.
"He didn't even ask me coherent questions."
She avoids going into specific details, but another student, Pablo Diaz, gave graphic testimony to an inquiry into military abuse and helped to bring their case to wider attention.
"In Arana, they gave me electric shocks in my mouth, my gums, and on my genitals. They tore out a toenail. It was very usual to spend several days without food," says Pablo, who was 18 at the time.
The other survivors were Gustavo Calotti, then 18, and 17-year-old Patricia Miranda, who unlike the others was not a political activist.
The murdered victims, aged 16 to 18, were Francisco Lopez, Horacio Ungaro, Maria Clara Ciocchini, Claudio de Acha, Daniel Racero and Maria Claudia Falcone, whose face became one of the best-known images to keep the students' memory alive.
The abuse the students suffered became one of the emblematic events of the dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 to 1983.
Their story was told in a 1986 film directed by Hector Olivera, called The Night of the Pencils, regarded as a powerful depiction of events.
During military rule, an estimated 30,000 political dissidents were murdered by the security forces. It is believed some 250 people under 18 years of age were among them.
The Commission Against the Disappearance of Persons (Conadep), which in 1984 carried out an inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by the military government, found that some of the victims were as young as 13.
Unanswered questions
Emilce lost many of her friends from that time
Emilce can still vividly recall the events of 1976.
"After about a week at our first detention centre, we were all taken to another place in a truck. At some point we stopped and some of my friends were taken out. Those are the ones that disappeared," she says.
Emilce was taken to two more clandestine jails until several weeks later she was formally declared a prisoner - a sign that she would be allowed to live - and imprisoned for two years.
The question that remains is not why she was allowed to live but why her teenage friends had to be murdered.
"I did not do anything to survive and they certainly did not do anything that meant they should die," Emilce says.
At a trial that began this week in Buenos Aires, 25 former police or military officers and one civilian were accused of committing crimes against humanity for the "Night of the Pencils" and hundreds of other cases.
Prosecutors say one of the policemen, Miguel Etchecolatz, now aged 82, tortured 90 prisoners. It will be his second trial, as he is already serving a life sentence for other crimes committed under military rule.
Emilce has rebuilt her life, thanks, she says, to the help of her then boyfriend and now husband who waited for her to be released. They have three children.
But memories from those times are still painful.
"I hardly have any of the friends I had when I was young. Most of them were disappeared, or those who survived suffered torture or imprisonment."
Article taken from here.
From the Desaparecidos Memory Wall. María
Claudia was a good girl and generous. She was 16. She was an activist
in the Union of Secondary Students (UES) and worked in education and
health clinics in the towns. She studied Fine Arts in La Plata. She read
and followed Mario Benedetti Sui Generis, and her straight bangs fell
over her big blue eyes. She worried about being nice, she liked to dance
and had a hippie boyfriend.
She was abducted from the home of her aunt, located on 56th Street No 586 of La Plata, along with her friend, María Clara Ciocchini, during the "Night of the Pencils", during which seven high school students who had protested school vouchers were arrested and disappeared.
She spent time in several clandestine detention centers: Arana; Pozo de Banfield; Pozo de Quilmes; with Chief of Police of the Province of Buenos Aires and Commissioners of 5a., 8a., and 9a. de La Plata and 3a. Valentin Alsina, in Lanús; and the firing range of the Headquarters of the Province of Buenos Aires. There she was tortured and subjected to all kinds of abuse and rape, as a form of torture and cruelty.
María Claudia was last seen, by Pablo Diaz, on the 28th of December that same year in Banfield. She is still disappeared.
Her parents were also subsequently arrested and disappeared twice, though they were both later released.
No.7 EMEM School of Palermo was named by students as a school María Claudia Falcone.
Argentina marks 'Night of the Pencils'
Maria Claudia Falcone, 16, was among the victims
They
were young idealistic high school students who were unaware of what
horrors they were about to face: imprisonment, torture and, in some
cases, death.
Thirty-five years ago, one of most notorious episodes of
abuse committed during military rule in Argentina took place - the
abduction of 10 students by security forces in the city of La Plata near
Buenos Aires. On 16 and 17 September 1976, masked men raided their homes under cover of darkness, taking them away to clandestine detention centres in what became known as the "Night of the Pencils".
Six were never seen again.
Emilce Moler was one of four who survived the ordeal.
"A group of armed men stormed into my house looking for me. When I came out of my bedroom, in my nightclothes, they seemed very surprised as I looked much younger than my 17 years," says Emilce.
Beaten senseless Like most of the others, Emilce belonged to the students' union, which had links to an urban guerrilla group known as the Montoneros.
It is not clear what actually provoked their abduction. What is clear, however, is that in the repressive atmosphere of the time, the military regarded them as subversives.
"That night, when they saw my sister, who was older than me, they wanted to take her too. But fortunately there was no space in the car and they left her behind," Emilce says.
With a hood over her head, Emilce could not see what was happening nor where was she being taken. Only years later did she manage to reconstruct the events that began that night.
Emilce Moler''I hardly have any of the friends I had when I was young - most of them were disappeared, or those who survived suffered torture or imprisonment”
"We were taken to a clandestine
detention centre called Arana, in La Plata, where we were made to suffer
the worst conditions a human being can bear.
"They tortured us with profound sadism. I remember being
naked. I was just a fragile small girl of about 1.5m and weighed about
47kg, and I was beaten senseless by what I judged was a huge man," says
Emilce. "He didn't even ask me coherent questions."
She avoids going into specific details, but another student, Pablo Diaz, gave graphic testimony to an inquiry into military abuse and helped to bring their case to wider attention.
"In Arana, they gave me electric shocks in my mouth, my gums, and on my genitals. They tore out a toenail. It was very usual to spend several days without food," says Pablo, who was 18 at the time.
The other survivors were Gustavo Calotti, then 18, and 17-year-old Patricia Miranda, who unlike the others was not a political activist.
The murdered victims, aged 16 to 18, were Francisco Lopez, Horacio Ungaro, Maria Clara Ciocchini, Claudio de Acha, Daniel Racero and Maria Claudia Falcone, whose face became one of the best-known images to keep the students' memory alive.
The abuse the students suffered became one of the emblematic events of the dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 to 1983.
Their story was told in a 1986 film directed by Hector Olivera, called The Night of the Pencils, regarded as a powerful depiction of events.
During military rule, an estimated 30,000 political dissidents were murdered by the security forces. It is believed some 250 people under 18 years of age were among them.
The Commission Against the Disappearance of Persons (Conadep), which in 1984 carried out an inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by the military government, found that some of the victims were as young as 13.
Unanswered questions
Emilce lost many of her friends from that time
"After about a week at our first detention centre, we were all taken to another place in a truck. At some point we stopped and some of my friends were taken out. Those are the ones that disappeared," she says.
Emilce was taken to two more clandestine jails until several weeks later she was formally declared a prisoner - a sign that she would be allowed to live - and imprisoned for two years.
The question that remains is not why she was allowed to live but why her teenage friends had to be murdered.
"I did not do anything to survive and they certainly did not do anything that meant they should die," Emilce says.
At a trial that began this week in Buenos Aires, 25 former police or military officers and one civilian were accused of committing crimes against humanity for the "Night of the Pencils" and hundreds of other cases.
Prosecutors say one of the policemen, Miguel Etchecolatz, now aged 82, tortured 90 prisoners. It will be his second trial, as he is already serving a life sentence for other crimes committed under military rule.
Emilce has rebuilt her life, thanks, she says, to the help of her then boyfriend and now husband who waited for her to be released. They have three children.
But memories from those times are still painful.
"I hardly have any of the friends I had when I was young. Most of them were disappeared, or those who survived suffered torture or imprisonment."
Article taken from here.
María Claudia Falcone
Desaparecida Septiembre 16, 1976From the Desaparecidos Memory Wall. María
Claudia was a good girl and generous. She was 16. She was an activist
in the Union of Secondary Students (UES) and worked in education and
health clinics in the towns. She studied Fine Arts in La Plata. She read
and followed Mario Benedetti Sui Generis, and her straight bangs fell
over her big blue eyes. She worried about being nice, she liked to dance
and had a hippie boyfriend. She was abducted from the home of her aunt, located on 56th Street No 586 of La Plata, along with her friend, María Clara Ciocchini, during the "Night of the Pencils", during which seven high school students who had protested school vouchers were arrested and disappeared.
She spent time in several clandestine detention centers: Arana; Pozo de Banfield; Pozo de Quilmes; with Chief of Police of the Province of Buenos Aires and Commissioners of 5a., 8a., and 9a. de La Plata and 3a. Valentin Alsina, in Lanús; and the firing range of the Headquarters of the Province of Buenos Aires. There she was tortured and subjected to all kinds of abuse and rape, as a form of torture and cruelty.
María Claudia was last seen, by Pablo Diaz, on the 28th of December that same year in Banfield. She is still disappeared.
Her parents were also subsequently arrested and disappeared twice, though they were both later released.
No.7 EMEM School of Palermo was named by students as a school María Claudia Falcone.
