Human rights organizations of Argentina met with the Argentine Ambassador to Paraguay, Domingo Peppo, and the Director of Human Rights of the Ministry o Foreign Affairs, Cecilia Meirovich. In this meeting, we voiced a series of concerns and demanded investigative measures for Lilian Mariana Villalba and Maria del Carmen Villalba, both 11-year-old Argentina nationals, who were assassinated by the Joint Task Force of the Paraguayan Army on September 2.
The groups also expressed their dismay at the disappearance of another 14-year-old girl, Carmen Elizabeth, cousin of the aforementioned girls.
The participating organizations -APDH, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, APDH La Matanza, Madres de Plaza de Mayo línea Fundadora, CELS, MEDH, Familiares y compañeros de los 12 de la Santa Cruz, Fundación Memoria Histórica y Social Argentina- agreed that the two events that occurred in Paraguay, both the murder of the Argentine girls and the most recent disappearance of their cousin, are human rights violations reminiscent of the worst practices of authoritarian governments of Latin America.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Argentine Ambassador in Paraguay expressed the enormous concern of the Argentine government and listed the actions carried out from the day that followed the discovery of the girls’ execution. For the Argentine government and contrary to the paraguayan government’s views, the girls’ nationality was never in discussion and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team is actively demanding the right to enter Paraguay to review the children’s autopsy.
All present agreed to emphasize the recent statement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who strongly calls for an investigation into these events, and denounces the violation of international treaties on this issue in Paraguay.
Several requests made by the families of the executed girls and by the lawyers of the Gremial de Abogados, who are their sponsors, were analyzed and we offered our willingness to support them. We also highlighted our relationship with social and human rights organizations in Paraguay, and proposed a series of measures to be promoted at the regional and international level through the networks and federations of civil society.
Buenos Aires, February 5, 2021
Madres de Plaza de Mayo línea Fundadora
Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo
Asamblea Permanente por los derechos humanos (APDH)
Familiares y compañeros de los 12 de la Santa Cruz
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)
Fundación Memoria Histórica y Social Argentina
Movimiento ecuménico por los derechos humanos (MEDH)
Familiares de desaparecidos y detenidos por razones políticas
Asamblea Permanente por los derechos humanos La Matanza