Children of 'disappeared' to submit to DNA test

The adoptive children of Ernestina Herrera de Noble, the largest shareholder of the Clarín media group of Argentina, submitted to DNA tests on December 29 to determine their true parentage. This follows two decades of legal wrangling that has pitted their adoptive mother and her allies against human rights groups. The issue at stake is whether or not they are the children of the prisoners of Argentina’s infamous military government, “the disappeared” of the 1970s and 80s who were killed in prison.

The leader of the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers – a human rights group that advocates for the reunion of the children of the disappeared with their natural parents or relatives – denounced the DNA test because it was not done at a hospital where Argentina’s National Genetic Information Bank is located in Buenos Aires.

Herrera de Noble, 84, has been a widow since 1969 since the death of her husband Roberto Noble - the founder of Clarin. Led by Estela de Carlotto, the Grandmothers in 1985 managed to identify 100 of the 400 children of the disappeared who were given up for adoption by Argentina’s military and other parties. It was then, following the return of democracy to the Latin republic, that the first demands emerged over the adoptive children of Herrera de Noble. The media magnate has claimed that she found the two children in 1976 abandoned at the door of her home. These two children became Marcela Noble Herrera and Felipe Noble Herrera.

With the Grandmothers as party to the case, two women filed a complaint in 2001 to demand that the true identity of Marcela and Felipe be established. In 2002, Judge Felipe Marquevich detained Herrera de Noble on the charge that she had falsified the adoption papers of Marcela and Felipe. A chorus of businessmen, journalists, politicians, labor leaders, and Catholic Church officials came to the defense of Herrera de Noble who succeeded in obtaining her release following 66 hours under arrest. Judge Marquevich was later taken off the case and ejected from the judiciary in 2003 by the Council of Magistrates for irregularities committed in the arrest of Herrera de Noble.

Since 2001, political realities in Argentina changed. In 2003, Felipe and Marcela Noble Herrera agreed to submit to a DNA test – albeit not under the conditions demanded by the Grandmothers. In 2008, relations between Grupo Clarín – the most powerful media chain in the country – and President Cristina de Kirchner soured during disputes between the government and the agricultural sector that was heralded by Clarín flagship newspaper. In 2009, Argentina’s Congress passed a law devised by Kirchner’s government that has come in for criticism from media observers and human rights advocates and that will require Clarín to divest itself of some of its media holdings.

Also in 2009, Congress approved a law that requires that DNA tests to establish the identity of the children of the disappeared must be conducted at the National Genetic Data Bank. However, Judge Conrado Bergesio decided on December 28 that Felipe and Marcela Noble Herrera should both submit to a DNA test at the Forensic Medical Corps in Buenos Aires. Their attorney defended the judges actions saying that it was the best way of harmonizing the rights and constitutional guarantees for all parties involved.

Carlotto, the leader of the Grandmothers, told the press that her organization “will not consent to this illegal test nor that exceptions be made to the law.” Results of the tests will be known in 15 to 45 days. Carlotto added that “legal recourse will be interposed so as to guarantee that, for once and for all, an efficient and independent investigation be carried out.” Besides the identity of Felipe and Marcela Noble Herrera, what remains to be seen is: whether their adoptive mother acted illegally in their adoption, and the identity of their kidnappers.