By Walter Bianchi

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Victoria Donda, born to political prisoners during Argentina's dirty war, then robbed of her identity, vows to push for new laws against human rights abusers when she takes her seat in Congress next week.

Of more than 80 people who have recovered their identities after being born in captivity during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship and then adopted by military families or their friends, Donda is the first to become a lawmaker.

Donda was born in Argentina's most infamous torture center, the Naval Mechanics School, or ESMA, where the military government housed up to 5,000 leftists and dissidents during the eight-year regime.

Her mother and father were leftists and her father was active in the Montoneros guerrilla group. They both disappeared after being detained.

Donda was taken by a family that brought her up as Analia. She did not discover her true identity until 2003 when human rights investigators told her they believed she was a so-called child of the disappeared.

"I believe I'm going to be a rather abnormal congresswoman and I feel a lot of responsibility since it's a very important institution and an area that we (victims of the dictatorship) are recovering," Donda, 28, told Reuters in an interview at the ESMA, her birthplace.

Donda said that once in Congress she would push for a national human rights law and a law that would bar human rights abusers from holding public office.

RISING WITH THE KIRCHNERS

Her rapid political rise has coincided with President Nestor Kirchner's efforts to try military and police for crimes against humanity during the dictatorship. Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, takes office on Dec. 10 after sweeping to the presidency in October elections and is expected to continue to push a human rights agenda.

Donda won her seat running for the Kirchners' political party and will represent Buenos Aires province.

Human rights groups say up to 30,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and killed during the military regime. A report by an independent commission put the number at about 11,000.

According to a human rights group's report earlier this year, 243 people were under arrest awaiting trial for crimes from the dirty war. So far there have been fewer than 10 convictions.

Rights groups also estimate that 400 babies were born to women political prisoners in captivity and illegally adopted by military families or their friends.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an offshoot of the famous Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo who marched for years demanding to know the whereabouts of their missing children, have recovered the identities of 88 people such as Donda.

Donda lived for 25 years with the family that took her. She prefers not to talk about them but says they have a good relationship.

She blames her paternal uncle -- now in prison awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and stealing political prisoners' property -- for turning her parents in to the military and handling her adoption. Her uncle was a naval officer and worked in the ESMA.

"I was expropriated. I was not adopted... Next to his office, I was being born," said Donda, who has been reunited with her biological grandmother, several aunts and uncles as well as her older sister since 2003.

For Donda, discovering her true history had been a difficult process. "Your identity is built day by day and what I recovered is my biological identify," she said. "I'm still trying to understand the entire process." (Translated by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Stuart Grudgings)

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