Today on the 40th anniversary of our founding, the Latin American family of the detained-disappeared gathered in the Plaza of the White Headscarves in the historic center of Tegucigalpa.
We are here to launch our proposal for a Regional Center for Historic Memory, based in Amarateca, Honduras, with the support of Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, México, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other sister countries.
All of these countries share the experience of having been victims of Operation Condor, the White Hand and the 316 Battalion, authors of genocide in this continent under the tutelage of United States foreign policy.
A regional center for memory is an offering for the sacrifice of thousands of women and men who were victims of this crime committed by States under pressure, blackmail or complicity with the terrorist policies of the Pentagon.
It will be a regional school of memory based in a country considered to be a “keystone” in the hegemonic initiatives of the State Department, with a military citadel of aircraft carriers, a naval base supposedly for counternarcotics and a diplomatic headquarters of disproportionate size.
In counterpoint to this hegemonic vision, this historic vigil stands in solidarity and sisterhood with delegations participating in the 19th Congress of the Latin American Federation of Associations of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM), taking place in Tegucigalpa.
The presence of the FEDEFAM Congress, of which Cofadeh is a member, is a gesture of accompaniment with the 40 years of our work as an organization of victims seeking justice, educating, denouncing and securing freedom.
Today, as always we are grateful for life and to be here with our white headscarves as a symbol of peace, with our old banners so that we never forget and with our permanent demand for truth, and justice from the State. The hate campaigns promoted by those responsible for forced disappearance, the robberies, infiltrations, attacks and attempts against us have not and will not stop this struggle for dignity, freedom and life.
The 40 year long struggle begins again today, as if it were the first day, because we were born to live, because we live in the home against forgetting, in the National Museum of Memory and we advance on the Ruta Histórica, educating so that Never Again.
We call on the United Nations and on this government that defeated 13 years of organized crime dictatorship and on countries that our allies in our cause, to join us in this effort with the courage of women against death. Do not be afraid anymore of implicating yourselves with the effort to eradicate injustice and reparation of damages causes by forced disappearance in our society.
We are gathered here to say thank you for the time dedicated to these 40 years and to ask you to continue to be present, without calculating the risk of holding up these banners of dignity.
In the spirit of those who are missing and with the smile of those who survived, for the crimes and for those responsible: no forgetting and no pardon.
Cofadeh, Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. December 2, 2022
