The memory of the final that Independiente beat Talleres 45 years ago gives Red fans pride for having carried out the greatest feat in the history of Argentine soccer. But that January 25, 1978, full dictatorship, also marked the beginning of horror for the Meza Niella family. That night began a nightmare caused by arrests, torture and mock firing squads that after ten days were unlocked by a neighbor who was a Boca player.
On the black and white television that the Meza Niella family has at their home in Caseros, Bochini has already reversed the injustice of Talleres’ goal with his hand and the three expulsions, Independiente accomplished the feat and the players are preparing to go back to the Olympics . There are no traces of the pizzas left on the table, and the family is about to close the ritual of getting together to watch soccer games. When surprisingly they hear strange noises on the terrace. It is the announcement of horror.
Fortunata and her six children, terrified, lock themselves in her room. They hear two shots, running on the sidewalk and a shout: “Come out with your hands up!”
And they go out. Walter is the first. He is 14 years old and suspects that they are looking for his father Néstor, a Peronist resistance militant and member of the Montoneros, who is not at home at the time. One of the task force grabs Walter by the hair, hits him with the butt of a FAL, and loads him into a pickup truck. “You broke because Independiente came out champion,” laughs another repressor. They do the same with his mother, two brothers, two sisters and his brother-in-law. Destination: the clandestine center El Campito, within Campo de Mayo. Five children between the ages of 1 and 5 remain in the house: the repressors leave them until hours later when some neighbors who live across the street rescue them.
“My father was in Corrientes working in a relative’s field. He came and went. He had been at our house until the day before,” recalls Walter. Although they did not arrest him that night, they never heard from him again. “We are not certain about his fate. They told us that he was in Campo de Mayo, that he died in a confrontation, there are different versions. While the military maintain the pact of silence, we will not be able to find out what happened to my father,” Walter laments.
The Meza Niella family has been missing for ten days in El Campito. She suffers torture, starvation, interrogations, mock firing squads. Until they are released. They get into a sold truck with their hands tied. They do not know if it is to release them or to shoot them. They are terrified. But in the end they leave three brothers in Haedo and Walter, his mother, a sister and her brother-in-law on some tracks in El Palomar.
They will never know the exact reasons why they were released, but all roads led to Aníbal Cibeyra, a Boca player who lived in the house across the street, where the children were rescued the night of the operation. Cibeyra was a striker who had debuted ten years earlier at River, then went through Unión and Atlanta, until in 1977 he arrived at Xeneize. “Thanks to the fact that he played in Boca, he had contacts, and he came to speak with Viola’s son. It is probable that this management has saved us”, comments Walter today.
This week marked the 45th anniversary, an anniversary that intersects a glorious end with the beginning of the fright for a family. Football also has these things: it goes through history, it merges with complex episodes, it is witness to intense joy and intolerable torment. And from time to time it is encouraged to raise the flags of memory, truth and justice.
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