Argentina Mothers build homes for poor

White head scarves became the symbol of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as they battled a dictatorship that killed their children. Now they've donned hard hats, filling a new role as homebuilders for the poor.

The women are still fighting for the prosecution of agents of Argentina's 1976-83 military regime. But as their hair goes white and their numbers thin, they are trying to build a human rights movement that will outlive them. Their latest project: to build more than 1,200 apartments for low-income residents.

Backed by center-left President Nestor Kirchner, with private donations and more than $10 million from the city of Buenos Aires, four projects are under way, employing the jobless and offering them a future.

The Mothers drew the world's attention in April 1977 with regular marches in front of government headquarters demanding an official accounting for sons and daughters who were secretly arrested and murdered under military rule. The dictatorship was then in force, and some of the women were "disappeared" as well, but the group kept up its gutsy protests, inspiring anthems by Sting ("They Dance Alone") and U2 ("Mothers of the Disappeared").

One of their leaders, Hebe de Bonafini, says the new venture is an extension of their original crusade: "I think the first human right is the right to work. Because when people work, families eat ... children have homes, children are happy."

Some construction workers will stay on as security guards, cooks or day-care workers after moving out of flimsy plywood homes into rent-free 800-square-foot apartments they have built.

"I used to scavenge and had to go out on the streets with my kids in the cold and heat," said Marisa Cortes, a mother of seven earning a paycheck on the project. "Now my children go to bed on a full stomach at night."

Sergio Mauricio Schoklender, who represents the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Foundation, says more than 1,000 people have been hired _ half of them women.

Soon, the group will hand over the first 36 apartments _ each painted a cheerful red and furnished down to the kitchen tablecloths _ creating an island of relative tranquility inside the capital's "Hidden City" slum. An abandoned hospital is becoming a community center, health clinic and school and day care center.

"The search for our children was the start of our struggle," said one of the mothers, Evel Petrini. "We know we will never physically get our children back. But these young people are our children today."

The original "Mothers" numbered 14 when they began their marches, and swelled to hundreds at their peak. Today they number about 70, all aged over 75. And they still make their half-hour protest every Thursday.

Some 13,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing from the military's crackdown on perceived enemies including leftist politicians, labor unionists, student activists and academics. The Mothers contend the real toll is closer to 30,000.

Among the dead from the Dirty War is Azucena Villaflor, one of the founding Mothers who launched the marches and was abducted in December 1977. Her skeletal remains and others were found in an unmarked grave years later and she was reburied at a monument in the Plaza de Mayo in December 2005.

In 1986, three years after the dictatorship gave way to democracy, the Mothers split into two camps. One stayed focused chiefly on tracing the missing, while the other, led by de Bonafini, embraced a more overtly leftist agenda.