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Argentina: Media mogul may be adoptive mother to children stolen from political prisoners
From Time:
This is the tale of the enmity of three women: the first is perhaps the richest in Argentina; the second is the President of the country; the third, a grandmother in search of the children of desaparecidos,” the 30,000 or so mostly young people who disappeared in the military junta’s death camps from 1976 to 1983. The object of their contention are two adopted children, a brother and a sister, who stand to inherit an immense fortune — or see it shrink if their genes betray a past that might help dramatically diminish their mother’s business empire.
Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera, both 34, were adopted in 1976 by Ernestina Herrera de Noble, the owner of the media conglomerate Clarín, which owns hugely influential and profitable properties, including the newspaper that is said to have the largest circulation in the Hispanic world, the most visited Spanish-language news website and a vast television, cable and radio empire.
Estela de Carlotto, the head of Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo (Spanish for “Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo”), a human rights group that since the end of the military dictatorship in 1983 has managed to locate and identify through DNA testing 101 children who were born in Argentina’s death camps to pregnant political activists. The country’s junta allowed pregnant detainees to live long enough to give birth, after which the mothers were murdered and the infants handed over to military families to raise as their own. In a small number of cases, the newborns were given to unknowing civilian families for adoption. Carlotto, who has been searching for her own grandson for decades, believes Marcela and Felipe were born in the camps, and Abuelas has sued their adoptive mother to find out for certain.
If Marcela and Felipe are indeed the offspring of prisoners, and if Noble’s enemies can dig up evidence that she knew they had been born in the camps, then she may be charged with what Argentine laws call crimes against humanity. At least one prominent member of the government is already alleging that part of her empire, specifically involving the newsprint company Papel Prensa, was built in collusion with the junta. If substantiated, this additional assault on Clarín may help the Fernandez administration finally break up Noble’s empire by arguing criminality at its inception. Argentina’s new foreign minister, Hector Timmerman, was ecstatic at the possibility. Two weeks ago, in Washington where he was finishing up his stint as the country’s ambassador to the U.S., Timmerman tweeted: “Media law, done. Papel Prensa, almost there. Origin of Felipe and Marcela, any moment now.” Carlotto, however, says she only wants to see justice done. “For Abuelas this is not a fight between the government and a newspaper,” she said earlier this year. “I ask Mrs. Noble to free the children so they can think for themselves.”
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