Then he watched on as two mothers, Ilebe de Bonafini and Evel Pertini, were forcibly led away by FAO uniformed guards. They had sneaked into the Plenary hall and unfolded a banner reminding the delegates of the unresolved plight of Argentina's 30,000 political prisoners ''disappeared'' after their arrest by security forces between 1976 and 1983.

Out in the corridors, angry uniformed and plainclothes police violently tried to prevent journalists from taking pictures and talking to the two mothers, ignoring calls for moderation from a UN official.

''The (Argentinian) government (of President Carlos Menem) has no right to speak here because there are still human rights abuses and tortures,'' Bonafini said outside the FAO premises. Added Pertini: "It is a criminal government."

Bonafini and Perini represent the movement of mothers of disappeared political prisoners who used to meet at the Plaza de Mayo, in central Buenos Aires, in the years of the Argentinian military dictatorship (1976-1983), and have since become a world symbol of peaceful resistance against human rights abuses.

"After 21 years of suffering and struggle, we are denied a voice and are now being thrown from the United Nations," a bitter Bonafini said as the two walked away, wearing the traditional white scarf of the mothers that once made dictators quiver.

Sergio Schoklender of the Women's Caucus said he had been told "the mothers are not allowed here anymore".