ARGENTINA 2002-3
No significant change was observed in
the number of antisemitic events recorded in 2002. Apart from a few acts of a
violent nature, the majority of antisemitic incidents in 2002 were manifested
in wall slogans and graffiti, threats to individuals and to Jewish
institutions, and notably, in utterances of official figures. While there seems
to have been an aggravation of the latter trend, significant sectors of society
and the state urge greater pluralism and reject antisemitism as “politically
incorrect.”
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
The Jewish population of Argentina of about 180,000, out of a total
population of 37 million has been declining since the 1960s. Some 80 percent
live in the city of Buenos
Aires and the Greater
Buenos Aires area. Cities with a large Jewish presence include Rosario, Córdoba, San Miguel de Tucumán, Mendoza, Bahía
Blanca, La Plata and Santa Fe.
The Jewish community maintains many
educational, cultural and religious institutions, including a Hebrew and a
Yiddish press, publishing houses and an educational system from kindergarten
through university. The leading Jewish organization is DAIA (Delegación
de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas), which represents communities and
organizations to the authorities and is responsible for safeguarding the rights
of members. AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) is the main
community organization. The Vaad ha-Kehilot is the umbrella organization of all
the communities in the provinces.
The pauperization of Argentina’s middle
classes as a result of the collapse of the country’s economy had a direct
impact on a significant portion of the Jewish community. Social welfare
organizations have been hard-pressed and there has been a steep rise in
applications for aliya to Israel and for emigration to other parts of
the world (see also ASW 2001/2).
extremist organizations
A number of extremist organizations and publications
profess antisemitism. However, their following is small and they have little
impact on the majority of citizens. Moreover, neither Alejandro Biondini nor
Alejandro Franze, the leading far right figures, can be compared to Jean-Marie
Le Pen in France or Jörg Haider in Austria, as they and their groups have not attained
the popular support or national organizational level of the extreme right
European parties.
Partido Nuevo Orden Social
Patriótico (New
Social Patriotic Order Party – PNOSP) and Partido Nuevo Triunfo (New
Triumph Party – PNT) are the chief antisemitic organizations. According to
observers, neither the PNT nor the PNOSP has a following of more than 300
throughout the country. Both parties hold conspiratorial notions about the
Jewish presence in Argentina, largely derived from The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In mid-2002, PNT leader Alejandro
Biondini announced on his web page the formation of the Frente Nacional de
la Argentina, made up of nationalists and Peronist admirers. In a November
2002 interview, Biondini said his political model was French far right leader
Jean-Marie Le Pen, although, he added: “he is not exactly my ideal because I
believe in domestic solutions.” Nevertheless, he pointed out, “Le Pen is an
example for French nationalists and for true nationalists throughout the world.”
Principal motifs found in PNT
communications media during 2002 included identification of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center as “a foreign organization that wants to interfere in local
politics [and is] devoid of any kind of moral authority”; repeated reprobation
of several Jewish journalists; exaltation of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s
leadership; and accusing the DAIA of “leading the persecution of the PNT.”
In mid-2002 a new ultra-right
nationalist group, Comando Nacionalista Ricardo López Jordán,
emerged – apparently named after a 19th century caudillo. In a press release
the group announced that it had planted explosive devices in several foreign
exchange banks. There was an explosion at the French Bank in the neighborhood
of Abasto, but no one claimed responsibility and there was no concrete evidence
that the group was involved.
ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES
No significant change was observed in the number of antisemitic
events recorded in 2002, compared to the years 1999 to 2001. Apart from a few
acts of a violent nature, the majority of antisemitic incidents in 2002 were
manifested in wall slogans and graffiti, threats to individuals and to Jewish
institutions, and utterances of official figures. The fact that most incidents occurred
in the City of Buenos Aires and to a lesser extent in Greater Buenos Aires may
be due to a greater tendency on the part of the population there to file
complaints to DAIA’s Department of Legal Issues, which is seated in the
capital, and to the importance that the national media ascribe to antisemitic
events in this region.
While DAIA received most of the
complaints, some were also lodged at the National Institute against
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI). A total of 149 incidents was
recorded in 2002: 62 percent in Buenos Aires City, 13 percent in Greater Buenos Aires,
13 percent in other provinces and 12 percent unspecified. Physical assault on
individuals, vandalism of Jewish institutions and cemetery desecration made up
9 percent of the total; the rest comprised various forms of antisemitic expression
(including utterances by executive, military and Church officials, anonymous
threats to individuals and institutions and graffiti) and discrimination.
Antisemitic slogans and graffiti in
the streets of Buenos
Aires and other cities
were among the most prevalent type of antisemitism. Examples included: “Defend
human rights. Kill a Jew”; and “The country is in ruins, the Jews are getting
rich.” Much of the graffiti was adorned with swastikas.
There appear to be two tendencies: on
the one hand, aggravation of antisemitic expressions, especially by leading officials
or other representatives of the public; on the other, significant sectors of
society and the government urge greater pluralism, rejecting antisemitism in
all its forms and encouraging the full integration of Jews in society. The
latter trend, presenting antisemitism as “politically incorrect,” strengthened
after the terrorist attacks on the Israeli embassy (1992) and the AMIA Jewish
community center (1994).
Violence, Vandalism and Threats
One of the most violent incidents was the abduction of
a Jewish citizen. Although the motive was to obtain ransom from his family, his
captors abused him with antisemitic insults and cut off one of his fingers. In
addition, some tombs in the Jewish cemetery of Berazategui were damaged in January 2002; a red
light bulb was thrown at a Jewish institution in August; and an anti-tank
grenade, together with an antisemitic leaflet, was found in November in front
of the Max Nordeau Cultural Center in La Plata.
Throughout the year many prominent
Jewish persons and institutions received threatening phone calls and mail, as
well as in-your-face insults. The president of the Central Bank, Mario Blejer,
received antisemitic threats in May. Members of the community, too, were the
targets of threats or verbal abuse, such as the Jewish employer assailed by her
employee in December with the words: “How wonderful that Hitler killed so many
Jews!” Reminders of the Jewish fate in the Holocaust were expressed in many of
these messages.
Discrimination and Antisemitic Expressions
On 11 July 2002, the
Official Bulletin published Decree 1223/02, “Designation of a special
representative for subjects related to the Jewish community in civilian
affairs.” After the decree had been proposed by Foreign Affairs Minister Dr.
Carlos Ruckauf, the government appointed Saúl Rotsztain as honorary
ambassador, creating a de facto liaison function with the national and
international Jewish community. Jewish community representatives immediately
appealed to the president to abrogate the decree on the grounds that it was
discriminatory, and because neither the Jewish community nor any other
community required an intermediary of this kind. Moreover, they protested, in Argentina, a racially mixed country, it was
apparently only the Jews who needed to prove their national “innocence” and
“loyalty,” and required a special envoy to deal with their issues as if they
were foreigners. The decree was subsequently cancelled.
A clear intention to discriminate against
Jews was expressed by Monsignor Luis
Héctor Villalba, archbishop of the province of Tucumán. Referring to the upcoming elections
in the province, the archbishop proposed on a TV discussion program that in
regard to the future governor’s religious faith, the articles of the Tucumán Constitution should be enforced “at
any cost.” Article 80 of the constitution states that the governor-elect and
the vice-governor must swear by “God, the Country and the Holy Gospels.” If the
archbishop’s proposal were to be accepted by the electoral council,
Justicialist Party Senator José Alperovich, a Jewish candidate, could
not have been sworn in. After intervention by the DAIA and other institutions
such as INADI, the First Arbitration Court ordered
the Electoral Council not to apply the confessional clause.
TV and radio shows featured
antisemitic stereotyping. One of the participants on a TV program, broadcast on
the national Azul Channel on 4 July, said: “There are people that have no
sentiments in their soul, like the Jews who go through the world thinking only
how to make money.”
During the IV Catholic Book Fair held
in La Plata (Buenos Aires Province) from 28 October to 11 November 2002, and sponsored by the archbishopric
of La Plata, the book El Kahal Oro,
written circa 1935 by Gustavo Martínez Zuviría was
exhibited for sale. This work, written under the pen name Hugo Wast, speaks of
the Argentinean Jewish community and its assumed relationship with money. A
typical extract from the book reads: “… the Kahal [members of the community...
precursor of the Antichrist… is the reason why, everywhere, the cry… ‘Death to
Jews!’ has become synonymous with ‘Long live our country!’” The book provoked
protests from the Jewish community and the City Council of La Plata, which
lodged a complaint. The organizers of the fair supported sales of the book,
arguing that its exclusion would constitute discrimination.
A number of extremist/nationalist
publications published antisemitic content in 2002 (see also ASW 2001/2).
·
The
monthly Catholic integralist Patria Argentina is the oldest (founded 1985)
and most consistent in its antisemitism. In 2002 it discussed alleged Jewish
domination of US political and economic power and the
Jews’ “utilization” of the Holocaust to justify crimes of any kind.
·
El
Fortín,
which is linked to the fascist Evolean study center (Centro de Estudios Evolianos y de la
Concentración Nacionalista Argentina) through its editor Marcos Ghio, repeated the canard
alleging Jewish participation in the attacks of 11 September 2001 in order “to obtain
more US support in the Middle East”; discredited the notion of the Nazis’
“Final Solution”; and claimed the existence of an organization called Zion
Priority, allegedly a new version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
·
The
traditional, nationalist Cabildo is distributed in the city of Buenos Aires and in Greater Buenos Aires, and has
a website. Its antisemitism tends to be theologically based. During the year
2002 the periodical criticized the emigration of Argentinean Jews to Israel;
accused Jews of “profaning the holy sacred place where the Savior of the World
was born” (referring to the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in
May); sharply attacked political columnist and human rights activist
Héctor Timerman in the affair involving army chief-of-staff Ricardo
Brinzoni (see above); and cast doubt on the number of Jews who died in the
Holocaust.
The
antisemitic periodicals El Mosquito, El Ataque and Fuerza
Nacional did not appear in 2002.
Responses to antisemitism
Legislation and Legal Activity
Serious doubt, bordering on the criminal, has been
cast on the handling of more than twenty files by the national Supreme Court of
Justice following an investigation by the Political Justice Commission. One of
the most significant cases mentioned by the commission is the delay of the Supreme
Court proceedings investigating the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The National Executive Power, through
Decree No. 1279/97, has declared that “the Internet service is considered to be
included in the constitutional guarantee that protects freedom of speech, and
thus is subject to the same considerations granted to other social mass media.”
However, the anti-discrimination law can be applied to the Internet since it
punishes “those who take part in an organization or create publicity based upon
ideas or theories of superiority of a race or of a group of a specific
religion, ethnic origin or color, with the purpose of justifying or promoting
racial or religious discrimination in any way.” An attempt to restrict content
of the web is draft law 25690 published in the Official Bulletin on 3 January 2003.
Following a retrial of the case involving
three neo-Nazi skinheads convicted of assaulting a young man because they
thought he was Jewish (see ASW 1999/2000,
2001/2),
the higher criminal court confirmed the sentence against two of the three
accused. Some months previously, the third accused, Andrés Paszkowski,
had surrendered to the authorities and was immediately imprisoned.
The AMIA Investigation
The oral public proceedings investigating the 1994
terrorist attack on the AMIA building began on 24 September 2001 (see ASW 2001/2). During 2002, the first of three
steps – reconstructing the event – stipulated by the three federal judges forming
the tribunal was completed. Following testimony by 800 witnesses, it was confirmed
that a car bomb had been used to cause the explosion.
The two remaining trial steps are to
investigate extortion by members of the Buenos Aires police force and the process of preparation and final
delivery of the vehicle to perpetrate the attack. There are five accused: a
civilian (Carlos Alberto Telleldín) and four ex policemen of the province of Buenos Aires (Juan José Ribelli, Mario Norberto Bareiro, Anastacio
Irineo Leal and Raúl Edilio Ibarra).
Public Activity
The impact of tensions arising from the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2002 did not appear to affect relations between
Argentina’s Arab and Muslim communities and
the Jewish community, as they did in Europe.
Representatives of both communities (DAIA and FEARAB) have made several joint
declarations, one of them explicitly referring to the desire to reach a
peaceful solution in the Middle
East.
During the year 2002, the DAIA was
active in combating antisemitism on various fronts. It was successful in having
the group Hitler, Christ and Me excluded from a scheduled appearance at
a rock festival in the province of Buenos Aires.
Following a soccer game between the Atlanta
and All Boys teams, during which antisemitic chants were heard and a flag with
an antisemitic emblem was exhibited, the DAIA demanded that the Argentine
Football Association punish those responsible and propose a regulation in that
regard. The All Boys authorities issued an apology to the DAIA and promised to
publicize it.
Representatives
of the Jewish community, together with other educational and religious communities
(FEARAB, Armenian Apostolic Church, the Episcopal Vicariate) protested
a draft law drawn up by the city of Buenos Aires legislature declaring secondary studies as mandatory but
allotting a subsidy only to public schools for this purpose. As a consequence,
the law was modified to embrace all secondary schools in the education system.
The Argentine Lutheran Church issued a declaration to the Jewish
community for the first time condemning the persecution suffered by the Jewish
people throughout history and antisemitism. It repudiated discriminatory texts
in the doctrines of their founder Martin Luther, and regretted the harmful
effects they had had on the generations that followed. As a result of this
initiative, the DAIA organized a joint event with the Lutheran Church.
The DAIA
promoted several events in the province of Córdoba as part of its effort to combat
racism and antisemitism. The provincial legislature organized a meeting to commemorate
the victims of the AMIA bombing and published a unanimous resolution paying
tribute to the victims.
