Argentinian finds stolen granddaughter 39 years on

The long-lost granddaughter of a founder of an Argentine rights group that fights to find babies stolen by the 1976-1983 military dictatorship has been found, her organization said Thursday.

Clara Anahi Mariani, who was abducted at three months old when regime agents killed her mother, is the 120th stolen baby to be found since her grandmother Maria "Chicha" Mariani helped found the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to look for them in 1977.

"After 39 years of tireless searching, Chicha Mariani and her granddaughter Clara Anahi have found each other," said a statement from the Anahi Foundation, which Mariani created in 1989 after stepping down as president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

It said DNA testing had confirmed with 99.9 percent certainty that the woman identified as Clara Anahi is Mariani's granddaughter.

An estimated 500 babies were stolen by Argentina's military regime, which abducted, tortured and killed opponents and suspected sympathizers.

Some 30,000 people were killed or "disappeared" during the dictatorship.

Babies born in captivity to political prisoners or orphaned by assassinations were given to families sympathetic to the regime or even taken in by their parents' killers.

- 'I knew you were alive' -

The case of Clara Anahi drew international attention through a series of open letters that Mariani, who is nearly blind, had written her.

"They tried to convince me that you were killed along with your mother, but I knew you were alive," she wrote in one letter last March.

"My dream, at 91 years old, is to hug you and recognize myself in your eyes.... The greatest wish that keeps me going is for us to find each other at last."

Clara Anahi was abducted by a police officer on November 24, 1976, when regime agents killed her mother, Diana Teruggi de Mariani, in a raid on their house in the town of La Plata, 60 kilometers (35 miles) outside the capital Buenos Aires.

Diana was a member of the Montoneros, a leftist guerrilla group that opposed the regime, and was killed alongside three other members in a hail of bullets.

Her husband, Daniel Mariani, was not at home when regime forces struck that day, but was killed eight months later.

The Anahi Foundation bought the house where Diana was killed in 1998 and has opened a museum there dedicated to chronicling the regime's abuses.

The walls are still scarred with the bullet holes left there 39 years ago.

Mariani's story recalls that of her fellow activist Estela Carlotto, the current president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who found her missing grandson in August 2014 after a 36-year search.

Such stories revive deep emotions in Argentina, where the wounds of the so-called "Dirty War" have not completely healed.

The Grandmothers group said calls from people seeking information on DNA testing increased from an average of 15 a day to 300 after Carlotto found her grandson.

In 2012, former dictators Jorge Videla, who has since died, and Reynaldo Bignone were sentenced to 50 years and 15 years in prison, respectively, over the regime's theft of babies.

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