By Kristie Robinson

A couple from Argentina have been jailed for illegally adopting a girl born to parents disappeared by the military government.

The groundbreaking case was brought by the very child they adopted, after she was able to determine her true identity.

María Eugenia Sampallo Barragán’s real parents were among the estimated 30,000 killed during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, known as the ‘dirty war’.

On April 4th Sampallo’s adoptive parents Osvaldo Rivas and Cristina Gómez Pinto were convicted, along with Enrique Berthier, a retired army captain who gave the couple the child.

The biological parents of Maria Eugenia Sampallo.
Image courtesy of Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo.

The couple were sentenced to eight and seven years respectively, for falsifying documents and hiding María Eugenia’s identity. For being the facilitator, Enrique Berthier received a harsher sentence of 10 years.

Human rights organisations criticised the sentences as not being sufficient given the gravity of the crimes.

A Turbulent Upbringing

María Eugenia’s mother, Mirta Mabel Barragán, and father, Leonardo Rubén Sampallo, were arrested in December 1977 when Barragán was six months pregnant. Their three-year-old son Gustavo was left in a police station when they were arrested by the military junta and was eventually collected by extended family.

During the junta an estimated 30,000 left-wing dissidents, trade unionists, intellectuals, students and others were ‘disappeared’, kidnapped on the street, arrested and taken to clandestine torture centres, where they were eventually killed.

Held at El Atlético clandestine detention centre, and later El Banco, Mirta and Leonardo awaited the birth of their second child in captivity. María Eugenia was born at the end of March or beginning of April 1978 and no more is known about the fate of the parents.

Osvaldo Rivas and Cristina Pinto brought Maria into their family when she was only 2 – 3 months old. Their friend Captain Berthier, who ‘found’ the child, gave María Eugenia to the Rivas couple.

María Eugenia discovered she was adopted when she was seven years old, but her true identity was kept hidden. Given various accounts of her background over the years, she was made to believe that her parents had been killed in a car accident, and then that she was the daughter of a domestic employee.

María Eugenia insisted on questioning the couple, and one day a family friend told her that Berthier had brought her to the Rivas’ house.

In 2001 she found out her true identity via the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo’s DNA bank. It was then she learned that her grandmother and older brother Gustavo had been looking for her for 24 years.

María Eugenia Sampallo in a press conference.
Photo courtesy of Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo.

“The question is if a person who stole a newborn, who hid the fact that the baby was robbed, who perhaps kidnapped or tortured its parents, who separated it from them and its family, who always lied about its background, who – more frequently than one would like to think – mistreated it, humiliated it, deceived it; if a person who did all, or some, of this, can know and believe that this is parental love. I answer no; that the bond with this type of person will remain determined by cruelty and perversion.” - María Eugenia

In bringing the case, María Eugenia asked that the maximum sentence be given to her adoptive parents.

“What is important is that these three accused have been convicted; in this sense it is very positive. That they have been found guilty is very important, and María Eugenia is happy to have arrived at this after a seven year process, but obviously for us the sentences should have been longer.” - Tomás Ojea Quintana, Maria Eugenia’s lawyer

A Difficult Task

María Eugenia’s history is not unique in Argentina. She is one of hundreds of children raised by surrogate parents after theirs were disappeared. Of the 87 families who have been reunited, some of the children have elected to live with their biological families and become integrated into the family, whilst others are still living with the families that have raised them. Others have refused all contact with their blood relatives, viewing their adoptive parents as their family.

In extreme cases grandchildren have refused to give blood to facilitate the DNA identification, claiming they are not interested in finding out their true identities. In such cases, the Abuelas have sought out court injunctions forcing DNA samples to be provided. This occurred most recently in September 2006 when 28-year-old Alejandro Sandoval Fontana was found. Despite Fontana’s resistance, the Abuelas received a court order to enter into his home and take samples of his hair from a hairbrush to prove his identity.

Such cases have given rise to the question of whose human rights are more important – those of the blood relatives, who have had to cope with the disappearance of their child, or those of the grandchild, who as an adult has the right to self determination.