The association has reported death on social media: “Always, Hebe. The Mothers' Association of the Plaza de Mayo reports that our President, Hebe de Bonafini, has changed his home, as he always said, of the members who had gone before. Continue on the Plaza de Mayo forever. Do not retreat!” Since then, messages and declarations have multiplied in Argentina and around the world.

The members of the Mothers Association of the Plaza de Mayo of May celebrated on 30 April 1977 in the Plaza de Mayo de Buenso Aires an excursion for the children that caused the disappearance of the current military dictatorship. The police wanted to expel, but the mobilization remained until today. By then Bonafini had a missing son, Jorge Omar. In December 1977 the military took the second, Raúl Alfredo, and then his wife and daughter-in-law María Elena.

Bonafini lost not only his relatives, but also his militants for the repression, since in December 1977 the dictatorship made three mothers disappear from the association. Opening fear, the mothers of the association sought to abandon the struggle, but they did not: Hebe de Bonafini and the association of mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are a reference in the fight against oblivion in Argentina and in the world. But they not only joined their children, but also other struggles and demands.

Solidarity with the relatives of Basque prisoners

The Mothers Association of the Plaza de Mayo reiterated its solidarity with the families of Basque political prisoners and prisoners, who were persecuted at various times. In 2000, a political and media campaign against the association was launched in both Argentina and Spain. Thus explained Bonafini to journalist Alvaro Hilario Pérez De San Román in the report published by ARGIA: “On the one hand, we lost all the help we had in different parts of the Spanish state, an interesting economic aid. But refusing with the support of Basque mothers is refusing to have our children. We lost everything, but mothers didn't change their minds. TVE called me: if you publicly regretted what you said, you would go on with the projects. I told them that it had no price, that the projects were made with money, but that what we do mothers cannot buy.”

“The day I die have to make a party in the square”

The association dismisses Bonafini on Thursday and in the Plaza de Mayo itself and announces that the president’s ashes will remain in the square. The association has released a video in which Bonafini expresses how he wants to be remembered and how he dismisses:

“I want you to remember me as the mother who fought for 30,000 missing, 30,000 kids or many more, a real amount that we may never know. A normal woman dedicated to cleaning, ironing and cooking. I'm nothing from the other world. Above all, do not differentiate me from what I have done. I wouldn't like it. That's why I say that the day I die don't have to cry, dance, sing, party in the Plaza. Because I did what I wanted, because I said what I wanted, and I gave myself everything in the fight for what I wanted.”