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 or
almost two decades, the Western media has described Argentina's
Madres de Plaza de Mayo as a model of "civil society"
in the Third World. The group has been lionized in books written
in the United States, supported by groups established all over Western
Europe, and become rich enough from donations from Western sympathizers
to establish "The Popular University of the Mothers" (UBA),
an unrecognized pseudo-educational entity in Buenos Aires. The group,
and its founder and leader, Hebe de Bonafini, have long been seen
as a "natural" for the Nobel Peace Prize. Little attempt,
however, has been made to look beneath the surface at the actual
nature, ideology, goals, and statements of Bonafini. Like Rigoberta
Menchu before her (Nobel Peace Prize winner, 1992), Bonafini's totalitarian
past and present have been papered over in the name of political
correctness and misguided sympathy.
But like much
else, this too may change as a result of September 11th. In her
characteristically direct fashion, Bonafini created mass confusion
and panic among the global human-rights establishment by stating
that "in the Twin Towers died the powerful. And the powerful
are my enemy; because it is the same that killed my children"
(a reference to members of the Montoneros terrorist group killed
during Argentina's civil war in the mid-1970s). Asked about the
fact that office workers of African, Muslim, and even Argentine
origin also were killed, she answered, "What does that have
to do with anything? . . . It is true: I am happy and celebrate
the fact that this savage capitalism which destroys us has for once
been hit. I do not feel sorry over them."
While admitting
that there are a few good Americans — like Noam Chomsky and
unreconstructed Leninist James Petras — Bonafini made it clear
that she hates the American people. Men like Chomsky and Petras
are few, while the great majority of Americans are guilty and deserve
what they got in September. She concluded: "Now things are
clear. Revolution is the only way people can succeed. . . . You
are either imperialist or Marxist" (For the complete text in
Spanish, click
here.)
Bonafini's
sincerity and consistency in her comments cannot be doubted. At
least twice she has condemned the United States for "genocide"
while on the soil of its adversaries: on visits to Baghdad after
the Gulf War and Belgrade during the Kosovo war of 1999. Add to
this her sycophantic support for Fidel Castro, and it is clear that
she can find no enemy of the United States, no matter how murderous,
that she cannot love, as long as it is totalitarian. It is not easy
to place oneself to Castro's left, but Bonafini has done just that,
since even Fidel condemned the September attacks.
Bonafini's
stance provoked a strong reaction among her colleagues, who were
perhaps fearful of being tarnished by association. Horacio Verbitsky,
a former Montonero supporter himself, a committed Leftist, and one
who lost family members to the military crackdown against that terror
group, publicly condemned Bonafini's statements — at which
point she accused him of being an American agent because his group
receives money from the Ford Foundation. Moreover, she added, Verbitsky
is a Jew, the implication being that all Jews are American agents.
To their credit, twelve faculty members of her own "university"
resigned in protest. It is not the first time that manifestations
of totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism are all
wound together; it is what makes Bonafini a kin of Osama bin Laden.
Bonafini's
ravings shed light on the oft-overlooked fact that particularly
in Latin America, but elsewhere as well, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) that ostensibly advocate human rights have largely become
the refuge of the Left — the unemployed and unemployable Marxist
radicals "victimized" by the shrinking subsidies to the
dysfunctional public sector, and especially public universities,
and now subsidized by rich Western foundations, socialist governments,
and Protestant or Catholic elements. September 11th and the likes
of Hebe de Bonafini helped, if anything, to bring these people out
of the woodwork.
In a far less
repugnant but still very troubling way, more mainstream groups such
as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are effectively
asking that the United States prosecute its war in Afghanistan with
one hand tied behind its back, by issuing rules for comportment
for both sides that it can never conceivably expect the Taliban
to follow. Issuing demands that the Taliban allow distribution of
humanitarian aid and that the United States cease using cluster
bombs is just not very fruitful. Framing the conflict in such a
way suggest a false moral equivalence that will only damage the
NGOs' own reputations. Does Amnesty International or Human Rights
Watch really believe that the likes of al Qaeda would accept their
"rules"? After all, Osama bin Laden has just described
the United Nations as a "criminal organization" and condemned
the Muslim governments participating in it as lackeys of the "infidel."
Nor do such
AI and HRW demands as the trial of the victorious Northern Alliance
leaders — now seen as liberators by many Afghans — for
real or alleged past abuses, or the placing of "human-rights
observers" in a country still at war and without a functioning
government do any good to their image as hopelessly utopian and
arrogant.
Ultimately,
the human-rights establishment is faced with two equally important
and vital problems: how to deal with the Bonafinis in their ranks
and how to make themselves relevant post-September 11th.
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