Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo Fundation receives the Peace Prize of UNESCO

Paris, September 14, 2011
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The Foundation Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo received the Unesco award for promoting peace with the presence of its leader Estela de Carlotto and Argentina president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Cristina gave a speech which highlighted the performance of Carlotto. “Today I am here on both counts; I’m not just as president of Argentina but as a citizen of Argentina. I’m sure in my citizen capacity representing millions of fellow who see our Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and the figure of Estela, overcoming a very tragic and very painful moment for Argentines,” the president said.

“I say to overcome because no one can recover from the loss of a child, in fact I am sure that Estela would have preferred being a school principal in the city of La Plata, be with her children and grandchildren as a grandmother again, as millions of citizens who are invisible and at some point, perhaps for historical reasons, in this case for very tragic, they become visible,” she said.

The president praised Estela de Carlotto who first was with the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and then “decided to recovery the grandchildren and give them identity to105 children who eventually know who they are today.”

“As president of Argentina I have the pride of representing a nation that today is a model of what should be a rule of law respecting the observance of human rights, without restriction” Cristina said.

She also highlighted the figure of her husband, the late former president Nestor Kirchner, who “was crucial to abolish the Law of Due Obedience and Full Stop”.