Nora Morales de Cortiñas, a founding member of a group of mothers who searched for their children disappeared by the Argentine military dictatorship in the 1970s and who became a leading global voice in defense of human rights, died Thursday in Morón, Argentina. She was 94 years old.
Ms. Cortiñas, commonly known as Norita, underwent hernia surgery on May 17 at Morón Hospital, west of Buenos Aires, and later suffered complications as a result of preexisting conditions, said Dr. Jacobo Netel, director of the hospital.
The group the mothers founded helped focus international attention on abuses committed by the military dictatorship and continued to pressure the Argentine government for answers after democracy was restored.
Mrs. Cortiñas led a quiet life until her son Carlos Gustavo suddenly disappeared on April 15, 1977. He studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires and was an activist in a left-wing political group, which made him a target of the right. dictatorship that took control of Argentina in 1976 through a coup d’état.
“He was 24 years old, with a wife and a very young son,” Cortiñas later recalled in an interview that was published as part of a book in 2000. “He left one cold morning and never returned. He was kidnapped at the train station when he was on his way to work.”
The dictatorship that led Argentina until 1983 is widely considered among the bloodiest of the U.S.-backed military governments that took over several Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s.
Human rights groups say approximately 30,000 people in Argentina were illegally detained and disappeared without a trace as the government rounded up those it considered subversives, sent them to torture camps and often killed them.
Ms. Cortiñas embarked on a desperate search for her missing son, searching public offices for information where she found evasive answers and military officials and government workers who pressured her to stop searching. The fate of her son is still unknown.
“The priority was to go out and look for my son and I entered a spiral of madness,” he said in an interview with a researcher at the National University of San Martín on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. “They called me, threatened me and told me they would imprison me.”
A month after her son disappeared, Cortiñas joined a small group of mothers who had begun gathering to demand information about their missing children.
He then participated in what became weekly vigils in the Plaza de Mayo, a square in front of the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the capital. The women, desperate for answers and not knowing who to turn to, began walking in circles while carrying photographs of the missing.
The dictatorship subsequently disappeared three founding members of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, but that did not stop Cortiñas and others from gathering in increasing numbers as they tried to capture the attention of a society that often seemed indifferent.
“The people passing through Plaza de Mayo did not see us for many years,” Cortiñas said in an interview with the National Library of Argentina. “As if we were invisible. Nobody came up to us to ask us what we were doing, because I think that is what produces state terrorism, that fear of knowing what we were doing there.”
Even after the military dictatorship ended in 1983, Cortiñas made it clear that his fight was not over as he continued to demand action from democratically elected governments and later expressed his disappointment with Raúl Alfonsín, the first president elected after democracy was restored. .
“During the campaign, Alfonsín always promised that the files would be opened, that we would have some news, that something would be clarified,” Cortiñas said in an interview with an alternative media outlet. “The truth is that it hasn’t happened yet; The files have not been opened.”
In 1986, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo dissolved amid internal divisions, with one side pushing for a more combative agenda. That led to clashes with other members, including Ms. Cortiñas, over what demands they should make under a democratic government.
Ms. Cortiñas became a leader of a branch known as Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora.
In later years, he continued to attend meetings in the Plaza de Mayo and also had a constant presence at other street demonstrations while emerging as an activist for numerous issues, including the legalization of abortion.
She was rarely seen without a white headscarf, which symbolized the diapers her children had worn when they were babies and which made the group recognized around the world.
“We are facing a dictatorship and we are still fighting. Why would we stop now?” Cortiñas told The New York Times in 2017 during a rally opposing leniency for those convicted of dictatorship-era crimes.
Nora Irma Morales was born on March 22, 1930 in Buenos Aires, the third of five daughters, to Mercedes Vincent and Manuel Morales, Catalan immigrants who met in Argentina. Mr. Morales ran a printing business from her home, while Ms. Vincent was a housewife who also worked as a seamstress.
Nora attended school until sixth grade, which at that time was when girls often interrupted their formal education. At 19 she married Carlos Cortiñas and she began teaching sewing and doing small jobs as a seamstress. Cortiñas worked for the country’s Ministry of Economy and died of cancer in June 1994 at age 71.
Ms. Cortiñas is survived by a sister, her youngest son, Damián Cortiñas, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Ms. Cortiñas returned to school later in life and studied social psychology, graduating in 1993, when she was 63 years old. She later taught courses at the University of Buenos Aires, one of several universities that awarded her honorary degrees.
After Cortiñas’ death was confirmed Thursday night, dozens of people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in his honor.
“I want to change this unjust world,” Cortiñas wrote in the afterword of a 2019 biography. “Every day, when I wake up, I feel the need to fight. “I don’t see it as an obligation but as a commitment.”