Plaza de Mayo

Overview of Plaza de Mayo

The Plaza de Mayo (Spanish for May Square) is the main square in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, at 34°36′30″S 58°22′19″W; it is flanked by Hipólito Yrigoyen, Balcarce, Rivadavia and Bolívar streets.

Several of the city's major landmarks are located around the Plaza: the Cabildo (the city council during the colonial era), the Casa Rosada (home of the executive branch of the federal government), the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, the May Pyramid, the current city hall or municipalidad, and the headquarters of the Nación Bank. The Buenos Aires financial district (microcentro), affectionately known as la City (sic) also lies besides the Plaza.

Political significance

The Plaza de Mayo has always been the focal point of political life in Buenos Aires. Its current name commemorates the May Revolution of 1810, which started the process towards the country's independence from Spain in 1816.

On October 17, 1945, mass demonstrations in the Plaza de Mayo organized by Evita and the CGT trade union federation forced the release from prison of Juan Domingo Perón, who would later become president of Argentina. For several years the Peronist movement gathered every October 17th in the Plaza de Mayo to show their support for their leader (and October 17 is still "Loyalty Day" for the traditional Peronists). Many other presidents, both democratic and military, have also saluted people in the Plaza from the balcony of the Casa Rosada.

File:000 0239.jpg

Monument to General Manuel Belgrano (Argentina) in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and Manuel Santa Coloma

Years later, in 1974, Perón, then president for the third time, expelled from the Plaza the members of the Montoneros, an armed organisation that tried to influence the political orientation of the national government.

Crowds gathered once again on April 2, 1982 to hail de facto President Leopoldo Galtieri for starting the Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur). Since the late 1970s, this is where the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have congregated with signs and pictures of desaparecidos, their children, who were subject to forced disappearance by the Argentine military in the Dirty War, during the National Reorganization Process. The Argentine military was anti-Communist, and people perceived to be supportive of such ideas would be illegally detained, subject to abuse and torture, and finally murdered in secret. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo took advantage of the symbolic importance of the Plaza to open the public's eyes to what the military were doing.

Protests have continued on taking place, with the major last one being during the December 2001 riots when five protesters were shot to their deaths and several others injured by police as they rioted around Plaza de Mayo.

Today, Plaza de Mayo continues to be a tourist attraction for those that visit Buenos Aires.