The Argentine government has authorised courts to order DNA samples to be taken from people to establish their identity, even though they are not suspected of any wrong-doing. The decision comes after years of lobbying by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who want to find grandchildren who may have been adopted illegally by members of the military or police during Argentina's “dirty war” on leftist militants in the 1970s.

The new law legalizes the extraction of "minimal amounts of blood, saliva, skin, hair or other biological samples" to establish a person's biological identity. If a person refuses, a judge can issue a warrant for genetic material from a hairbrush, toothbrush, clothing or other objects.

Not everyone wants to cooperate. "If an adult doesn't want to know his origins, you have to respect it," says Julio Strassera, a former prosecutor who put top military leaders on trial. But others say that people must know their true identities. "The state cannot leave in the hands of a young person, raised by a member of the military, manipulated by guilt, the decision of whether or not to learn his true identity," Horacio Pietragalla told Associated Press. He learned in 2003 that he had been taken as a baby from his biological mother. Under the new law, the state “tells you the truth. After that, you have to decide what you want to do with that truth," he said.

The fate of the “desaparecidos”, the one who have disappeared, and their children, has been a bitter and highly emotional issue in Argentina for years. The Argentine government estimates about 13,000 people died in a crackdown on urban guerillas, although the grandmothers claim that the it could be as many as 30,000. ~ AP, Nov 20