HOMAGE TO OUR
WOMEN MARTYRS
In early September, four women comrades of the Argentine Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers party) were murdered near La Plata, along with four male comrodes. (See INPRECOR, No.34, September 25, for biographies of the murdered militants.)
The following article, paying homage to these women comrades, appeared in the September
13 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly of the PST, on the page normally devoted to
Editeur responsoble: René Groslambert, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 Bruxelles/Imprimerie spéciale de l'editeur.
ARGENTINA the women's struggle, This page is devoted to extending, defending, and orienting the struggle of one of the most oppressed sectors of society: women. We have frequently and forcefully expressed the ideas of our party about the thousands of problems women face because of their oppression. We do not do this accidentally or for conjunctural reasons. We are not among the opportunists who talk about the "eternally forgetten and abandoned'" just because 1975 is International Women's Year. We are not among those who have formed temporary women's commissions "this year, " commissions that will undoubtedly be dissolved next year. Our party has always had a consistent practice in favor of women. That is why we presented Nora Ciapponi as a candidate for vice-president; that is why she argued for the rights of women during her electoral campaign, and that is why we have always taken part in all the struggles and actions undertaken by women in our country. We do this because our party, workers and socialist, struggles for the rights of all the oppressed. One of the most important consequences of this political practice as regards women is that a great many women comrades join our ranks and identify not only with our general positions but also with our positions on women. If some day we write our history, women will hold an outstanding place in it. And today, in this note, we want to begin to write a part of this history, which, like the history of all those in struggle, has its martyrs. out by savage murders. Our homage will be simple. We do not intend to write exhaustive biographies, nor do we want to put forth grandiose exaggerations about our comrades after their deaths. 32
What we do want to point out about them is the merit they deserve for the simple reason that they took up the cause of socialism. For a woman, the merit is double. For any comrade, to take the road of struggle involves risks and sacrifices in addition to satisfactions; but this is doubly true for a woman, for she has to overcome all the obstacles forced on her by the education of this society. Our murdered comrades had chosen their road well, and the proof of that is the cruelty of the enemy. Some of these comrades, like Ana Marfa, were leading militants in the workers movement. She fulfilled this role, which we would like to see all women workers play, with great capacity, as is testified to by the ninety-six-hour strike of her fellow workers in protest against the murders. We are struggling for an equality that society denies us. We are struggling to be able to take up all political and trade-union posts, to make household tasks easier for women, to change their current status as "second class citizens. " And this society, whose laws and social norms close this road tous, is the same society that protects the murderers of our male comrades. From this we must conclude that while we are denied equal rights in life, we have equality in death. The murderous hands that massacred the bodies of our comrades made no distinction of sex when they pulled the triggers. Despite our sadness and pain, this fills us with pride, for it means that we socialist women are recognized as consistent fighters, even by the enemy. Of the fifteen martyrs that our party has suffered so far, Adrianita, Ana María, Lidia, and Patricia are the first women to be added to the macabre and heroic list. That is why, from this moment on, the demand for the punishment of those responsible will become yet another banner of struggle for all socialist women.