Two huge milestones in Argentina

the mothers of plaza de mayo making their LAST march today closes one of the final chapters of a terrible history and the fact that they are now in a place where they feel they can stop is huge testament to the progress argentina has made in working through the legacy of its "dirty war..."

on top of that, given the intense feeling that is still generated over the falklands/malvinas islands war with the uk, the friendly visit of a uk royal navy vessel to an argentine port is huge...

both events are progress in the best sense of the word...

Many eyes today will be rightly on the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo making their 1,500th (and last) weekly march in that main square, a ritual encapsulating almost three decades of traumatic history but now ending because the Mothers do not perceive the current government as hostile or indifferent to the fate of the “dirty war” missing. Yet it is also worth bringing attention to another event this week a few thousand kilometres to the south — the visit of the British icebreaker HMS Endurance to Ushuaia on Tuesday. HMS Endurance would seem to be an icebreaker in every sense of the word because this visit represented the first time a Royal Navy vessel has entered an Argentine port since the 1982 South Atlantic War.

applause is in order...

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