Argentina The Argentine dictatorship wanted to snatch her identity: today signs the DNI

His name is Eduardo, name chosen by his parents, Lucila and Enrique.He nicknamed ", as her baby mother said.And Pedro's last name, like his dad.But Eduardo "Wado" of Pedro, the Minister of Interior of Argentina - assumed on December 10 with the rest of Alberto Fernández's cabinet, the new president of the Argentines - could today have any other identity.Another name, another nickname and another surname, such as the hundreds of babies taken by the atrocious and bloody military dictatorship (1976-1983).

Its history, after all, is perhaps the best synthesis of the triumph of memory, truth and justice in a country that, in its struggle to build a present and a future without forgetting its past traumatic, continues to look for children -today adults - that in those years of horror they were stolen.Many were already recovered.The numerate rose to 130 in 2019.

However, the grandmothers of Plaza de May.

Pedro was missing a year and three months.They took it when he was two years old, after an operation in which his mother was kidnapped, tortured and killed.His father had already been killed two years before.The military found him in the bathtub of his house and left him in the care of some neighbors.However, that same night, men aboard a Ford Falcon Green - a coches used by the dictatorship - they were presented before those neighbors announcing to be uncles of the child and took it.In January 1979, thanks to a family friend who knew a hierarchy of the Armed Forces, De Pedro was delivered to a priest, who, immediately, contacted his true aunt.

That boy raised with the love of his uncles today is 43 years old and occupies one of the main offices of the Casa Rosada, the headquarters of the Executive Power led by Fernández, the Peronist politician who dethroned former President Mauricio Macri, the liberal businessman whoruled the last four years.Among its functions as Minister of Interior is to sign the identity documents.The paradox moves and excites: the baby who wanted to snatch his identity when they kidnapped and killed their mother is responsible for guaranteeing the identity of those Argentines who process their DNI.

In recent days, De Pedro shared in his social media accounts the photo of one of the first identity documents he signed.He attached the logo of the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo and wrote a short text in which he did not hide his emotion: “For my story I always understood identity as a right.Today the turns of life make it responsible for signing the DNI of the Argentines.If you have doubts about your identity, communicate at (011) 43840983 ".

His story

Eduardo de Pedro nació en Mercedes, provincia de Buenos Aires, el 11 de noviembre de 1976. Su papá, Enrique “Quique” de Pedro, estudiaba Derecho y militaba en la Juventud Peronista y en Montoneros, dos de las agrupaciones políticas más violentas y combativas. Fue asesinado en abril de 1977. Tiempo después, un grupo de tareas (como se conocía a los militares que ejecutaban los operativos de secuestro) encontró la casa de la madre, Lucila Révora, en el barrio porteño de Floresta. La mujer logró acomodar a su bebé de once meses —al que llamaba “Wado”— en una bañera para protegerlo del tiroteo. Révora desapareció aquel 11 de octubre de 1978. Estaba embarazada de su nuevo compañero, Carlos Fassano (presidente del Centro de Estudiantes de Derecho de la Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires), fusilado ese mismo día.

The Argentine news portal Infojus rebuilt the history of the Interior Minister through a report entitled “Eduardo‘ Wado ’of Pedro, the man who was born three times”.No one knows where that baby walked after being taken from the hands of his mother first and those of the neighbors, then.The only certainty is that Lucila's family desperately looked for him.An uncle found a merchant in the neighborhood with links with Suárez Mason, a colonel with interference in the military dome.After many comings and turns, on January 13, 1979, someone led "Wado" to Mercedes Cathedral.It was then that his family managed to recover it.Grew surrounded by uncles and cousins.This is what he tells in his Facebook profile: “A typical life of a quiet people from the Argentine interior.While growing in that city where my mother had raised.As the years passed, I began to interest myself more and more in the history of my parents ”.

He studied Law at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and made a master's degree in public policies at the University of San Andrés.At the end of the 90s he began military in the Children's group (acronym for sons and daughters for identity and justice against oblivion and silence), of which he is one of its founders.

His last name appeared for the first time in mold letter in a newspaper during the crisis of December 2001, a social outbreak that ended with the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa.On the morning of December 20, De Pedro had to carry some flyers of the Union of Judicial Employees of the Nation - where he worked - to the National Electoral Chamber.Along the way he observed that the police prevented the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from gave their usual round of Thursdays in front of the May Pyramid.

It brought between agents and mothers, so he was handcuffed and beaten by members of the Federal Police.They introduced him to a patrolman under threat of death."Shut up, son of a bitch, because as soon as we arrive we will kill you".The blows continued until, miracle, the police mobile crashed into another car.Several people approached.Pedro asked for help.He was transferred to a hospital, where he regained his freedom after being discharged.

His political career began in 2004 when he was appointed Chief of Cabinet of the Undersecretariat of Tourism of the City of Buenos Aires. En 2006, junto al hijo del por aquel entonces presidente Néstor Kirchner, Máximo Kirchner, fundó la agrupación política “La Cámpora”​, una formación juvenil que ocupó espacios de poder durante las dos presidencias de Cristina Fernández (2007-2015)

In 2009 he was appointed member of the Board of Directors, and subsequently Vice President of Aerolineas Argentinas and Austral Airlines, firms nationalized after staying many years in the hands of private capitals.Later, in 2011, he was elected national deputy for the province of Buenos Aires and in 2014 he was appointed member of the Council of the Magistracy of the Nation.In February 2015, the president Cristina Fernández appointed him Secretary General of the Presidency of the Nation, a position that exercised little time, until December 10, 2015, when the Government of Mauricio Macri assumed.In the last four years, in his role as opposition leader, he held a bank in the Chamber of Deputies.

His surprise was capitalized when President Alberto Fernández offered him the position of Minister of the Interior.He immediately accepted.It has been officially being excited for weeks and is still excited to see his signature in the back of the new DNI.