Half a million people have marched across Argentina in memory of the thousands killed during the country's brutal dictatorship on the 30th anniversary of the coup that brought the military to power.
President Nestor Kirchner used the anniversary to urge Argentina's Supreme Court to quickly rule on whether blanket pardons granted to the surviving junta leaders in the 1980s and 1990s were constitutional.
"How can we live together while there is still impunity?" President Kirchner asked at the ceremony. "Only by punishing the guilty will the innocent be freed from blame."
President Kirchner's government has overturned the amnesty laws, and said it will overturn presidential pardons given to junta leaders who were tried in 1985.
However the government is waiting for courts to rule whether the amnesties were constitutional before ordering prosecutions.
Marches
The main march in the capital, which gathered more than 150,000 people, was led by groups representing relatives of the dictatorship victims.
Thousands also took to the streets in cities such as Cordoba in central Argentina, La Plata in the south and Tucuman in the north.
Earlier at the Plaza de Mayo in central Buenos Aires thousands watched films on the dictatorship on a giant screen ahead of the main demonstration.
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who have held weekly protests against the dictatorship in the square since 1977, held an all-night vigil to mark the grim anniversary.
"We all want to be present to say 'never again' to military dictatorship," said Argentine Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel.
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