Saturday 17 March 2012

Argentina: 20 years since the Israeli embassy attack

It's 20 years today since the terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, when 29 people died, two years before the even more deadly AMIA attack (the official commemorations took place yesterday so as not to clash with the Jewish Sabbath). Iran has long been linked to the attack but the perpetrators remain at large and the government acknowledged yesterday that justice has not been done.

Justice minister Julio Alak summed up the state of events by saying "I'd like to talk about memory, truth and justice, but unfortunately, I can only talk about memory. Not about truth. Or about justice." He characterised the attack as "a wound which will never heal". He's quite right that focusing on memory without justice is completely unsatisfactory.

It's a disappointing situation and this is reflected in the media coverage of the anniversary events:

Dos décadas sin justicia (Pagina/12)
El Gobierno admite que no hubo justicia por el ataque a la Embajada (Clarin)
Call for justice marks 20th anniversary of Israeli embassy attack (Buenos Aires Herald)

(Image of the trees planted in memory of the victims from Wikipedia)

No comments: