ANTISEMITISM IN ARGENTINA

FROM THE MILITARY JUNTA TO THE DEMOCRATIC ERA

Graciela Ben-Dror[*]

Argentina’s history in the 20th century was characterized by changes of regime, fluctuating between democratically elected governments followed by military coups that overthrew them. Military leaders took over in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1966 and 1976 and antisemitic manifestations were evident during all their periods of rule. However, under democratic governments, too, outright antisemites were able to attain key positions, from which they could spread their nationalistic ideology, whose central element was antisemitism.¹

The aim of this essay is to investigate the rise of antisemitism between 1976 and the turn of the millennium, that is, from the assumption of power by the military regime through the bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) community center and the widespread desecration of Jewish cemeteries during the democratic era which began in 1983. We will try to establish the existence of antisemitism in state institutions, mainly the executive arm and security and police forces. Furthermore, we will demonstrate the role of officials and officers of Argentina’s security services in acts of violence perpetrated against the Jews of Argentina throughout that period.

The growTH of Antisemitism in the mid-1970s

The mid-1970s saw an increase in antisemitic manifestations in Argentina. While antisemites had long occupied key positions in Argentina, in July 1974, when Peron died, the leadership was assumed by his widow, María Estela Martínez de Perón (nicknamed Isabelita), who during his lifetime had served as vice-president, and under whom the influence of antisemitic factors grew even stronger.

José López Rega, known as an extreme antisemite, was Perón’s personal secretary and also secretary for welfare, who played a key role in this escalating process. In the course of the struggle between the forces of the left and the right in the country at the time, Lopez Rega, Isabelita’s close adviser, became a major right-wing figure and strong man of the Peronist movement, and played a considerable part in the formation of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA).² This was a rightist, paramilitary, terrorist organization with close ties to the government, which aimed at eliminating the leftist urban guerrilla forces of which the Montoneros and the ERP (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo) were the leading representatives.³

Throughout 1975, dozens of antisemitic publications and leaflets appeared. They contained traditional Catholic religious antisemitism, modern political antisemitism, Holocaust denial and antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism, possibly influenced in part by the 1975 UN resolution which equated Zionism with racism.⁴ Antisemitism was also manifested in a mass of publications distributed among the security forces, and produced by extremist nationalist figures and organizations that enjoyed the protection of the authorities. Here, antisemitism may rightly be said to have advanced a stage, sometimes finding expression in official frameworks. This was clearly evident in the antisemitic tone that characterized radio and television broadcasts and the provincial press, as well as in distinctly antisemitic orders issued by the police. In the city of Rosario, for instance, the Jewish radio program Hora Hebrea (Hebrew hour), which had been broadcast for 25 years, was cancelled and replaced by the Arab programs La Voz Árabe and Panorama Árabe, which were filled with antisemitic accusations.⁵

This trend reached its nadir with the cancellation of an official memorial ceremony for the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising which had been scheduled to be held in Cordoba on 13 April 1975, in the presence of senior Argentinean officials, as well as Dr. Nehemia Reznisky, head of the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas – the nation-wide organization representing the Jewish community) in Argentina, and Luis Jaimovich, head of the DAIA in Córdoba.

The order banning the ceremony was indicative not only of the serious harm being done to the Jewish community, but also to democratic government. It reflected contempt for senior statesmen such as former President Dr. Arturo Umberto Illia, Palacio Deheza, a Peronist member of the Congress, and Victor Martínez, leader of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR), known also as Partido Radical (Radical Party), who were to have spoken on the occasion. The announcement, made only hours before the event was due to begin, claimed that for ‘technical reasons’ the police had been unable to provide proper security.⁶

A day after the cancellation, 14 April 1975, Domingo di Nubila, who was in charge of films shown on the official television channel Canal 13, in Buenos Aires, was forced to resign, because he was personally held responsible for the ‘blunder’ of screening QB VII. This movie was defined by rightist elements as “obviously pro-Zionist and anti-Nazi” because of its sympathetic attitude toward Holocaust survivors alongside a critical attitude to the Nazis. The film was also banned from screening in other provinces.

the military regime and ‘special treatment’ of Jewish prisoners

As the influence of the nationalist right grew stronger within the elected Peronist government, antisemitism intensified to the point of undiguised violence under the military junta, which seized power in 1976 on the pretext of a political, social, and economic crisis, whose declared aim was the restoration of order and stability. During this period, an unprecedented wave of anti-leftist violence swept Argentina, such that the struggle waged in those years earned the title of “the dirty war.”

The democratic government that came to power under Raul Alfonsin in 1983, after the fall of the military regime, ordered an investigation of the crimes of the preceding period. For this purpose, the Comision Nacional de Desparaicion de Personas (CONADEP - National Commission for the Disappearance of People), was established. Chaired by the distinguished author Ernesto Sabato, the commission’s task was to discover what had become of thousands of citizens, mostly young people, who had been abducted from their homes or from the street and of whom all trace had been lost. The commission was also charged with exposing the extent and gravity of the crimes committed during that seven-year period. After hearing the testimony of thousands of witnesses, it submitted a report entitled Nunca Mas (Never Again) to the government nine months later.⁷

For the first time, the nature of the crimes, the methods used in terrorizing and the means of obtaining information that characterized the military regime were systematically revealed. The commission gathered testimonies from nearly 10,000 families of ‘disappeared’, the exact number of whom was never determined. (Human rights organizations put the figure between 15,000 and 30,000.) The regime, it transpired, had not shrunk from administering unspeakable torture and from causing the disappearance of people as a means of eliminating its opponents by murder and the destruction of evidence. The latter included those suspected of belonging to revolutionary groups on the left, as well as their alleged supporters, many of them Jews (see below).

When in 1985 the degree of responsibility for the crimes committed in the period of the military regime was considered in a court of law, one of the main problems was determining the facts on which to base the indictment. It could have been argued that the lower ranks which received the orders had disobeyed them, gone too far, acted on their own initiative, and performed criminal acts for which no explicit orders had been given by their superiors. Yet, the judges indicted the heads of the military junta when the wealth of evidence presented by the survivors established a direct and unequivocal link between the acts performed in the field and policy determined from above.⁸

In their verdict the judges stated that at the time of the coup, on 24 March 1976, some members of the junta had issued express orders concerning the lucha anti-subversiva (war against subversion). Instructions were given to physically eliminate all political opponents who allegedly imperiled the national character of western Catholic civilization, which stressed order, hierarchy and authoritarian power. The army was rendered the task of protecting these values against what the leaders defined as “subversion from the left.” The evidence given by victims at the trial as well as testimony of victims collected by human rights organizations reveals that especially vicious treatment was meted out to Jews.

Specific antisemitic ‘special treatment’ was reported in several detention camps. In Mansion Sere Jews were beaten and the staff screamed at them, “Sons of the Devil, you are Jews, we have to kill you all!” while forcing them to recite Christian prayers. In the torture room in the El Vesubio detention camp swastikas were painted on the walls as well as graffiti stating “Viva Hitler” (Long Live Hitler). From La Perla camp in Cordoba province numerous reports emerged of antisemitic treatment. One non-Jewish witness who was tortured there testified that she had not known until then how deep-rooted antisemitism was in the armed forces. In the eyes of the armed forces, Jews and subversives were identical.⁹

The verdict delivered on 9 December 1985 determined unequivocally the responsibility of the heads of the junta for the crimes committed during the period of their rule. It stated that “the ‘perpetrators’ were subject absolutely to the heads of the junta.”¹⁰ It emphasized that there was no significance in the fact that the heads of the junta did not know all the details concerning every one of the victims and their identity, because their order to deal with ‘subversives’ was all-encompassing and left the widest possible freedom of action to the lower ranks, who acted precisely in the spirit of the directives they received. On the other hand, the heads of the junta, had they wished it, were capable, without difficulty, of stopping the process at any instant, and of preventing the crimes that were being committed.¹¹

Antisemitism and the Selection of Jews

The number of Jews who disappeared is not clear either. Estimates range between 1,000 and 1,800,¹² that is, about 10 percent or more of all those missing. (It should be noted that the proportion of Jews in the entire population of Argentina was under one percent). While Jews numbered among the membership of the Montoneros and ERP, the high percentage of them who disappeared may be attributed to social and demographic factors: Jews belonged to the urban middle class toward which the regime’s policy of oppression was particularly directed. It also targeted trade unions, the free professions and students and intellectuals, amongst whom Jews were represented in far higher proportions than their numbers in the population. But in addition to their socio-economic status, the Jews were also selected because of the deep-rooted antisemitic tradition in Argentina. Although it is hard to determine with certainty whether they were arrested because they were Jews, subsequently they were subjected to especially cruel treatment when their torturers became apprised of this fact. It is almost certain that this tendency eventually became deliberate policy from above, since the number of Jews arrested grew continually.¹³

Recent research indicates that the operational teams were staffed by people who participated both in the abduction of suspects and in the administration of torture.¹⁴ It is reasonable to assume that from the outset the teams which engaged in torture and which demonstrated particular Judeophobia chose to focus especially on Jews, all of whom they considered suspect.¹⁵ In many cases Jews who were not involved in political activity were arrested.¹⁶ The arrest of ten physicians, five of them Jews, also compellingly demonstrates obvious intentions to harm Jews. In June 1981 the DAIA approached the minister of the interior when it was learned that after a court verdict ordering the release of all the doctors, only the five non-Jews were set free while the five Jews remained in prison. The DAIA activity bore fruit, and a month later the Jewish doctors were freed, having languished in jail for two years.¹⁷

Documented cases exist demonstrating that victims were selected simply because they were Jews. For example, when security forces entered a secondary school, without a detailed list of suspects, they arrested only students with an Ashkenazi Jewish family name which they found in the school register.¹⁸

The testimony of survivors emphasized the ‘special treatment’ accorded Jewish prisoners. As a result, the authors of Nunca Más decided to devote a special chapter to the ‘Jewish issue’, which they entitled “Antisemitism.”¹⁹ In light of the findings, analysis of evidence and the opening of private and public archives in recent years, as well as contemporary research on the subject, it may be concluded that the leaders of the junta did in fact sanction perpetration of particular crimes against the Jews. The antisemitism of those days, then, may be considered official, widespread, and approved by the decision makers in Argentina.²⁰

Many facts indicate a particularly offensive attitude toward the Jews not only inspired by antisemitic tradition but also by neo-Nazism. A Uruguayan journalist who was arrested in Argentina later testified that a large picture of Hitler hung in the interrogation room and that his examiners bragged they were “true Nazis.” The first question every prisoner was asked was, “Are you a Jew?”²¹ The use of Nazi symbols was confirmed by the testimony of non-Jews such as Adolfo Pérez Ezquivel, a Catholic human rights activist in Argentina, founder of the organization Servicio Paz y Justicia, and recipient in 1980 of the Nobel peace prize for his vigorous activity against the regime in those years. That the Jews suffered degradation and especially cruel treatment is also confirmed by the Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (Permanent Assembly for Human Rights; an NGO set up in 1975), which collected considerable evidence from released prisoners who attested to having seen Jewish captives who to this day are categorized as being among ‘the disappeared’.²² According to these witnesses, the interrogators frequently stripped their Jewish victims naked and daubed swastikas on their bodies in indelible paint, so that the guards could identify them easily and continue to beat them when they were in the showers.²³

The Perceived Link between ‘Jews’, ‘Subversion’ and ‘International Zionism’

Antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism was not new in Argentina. However, as of the 1960s and 1970s this trend acquired a major impetus in the antisemitic literature²⁴ and turned violent during the period of the junta, after 1976, when the mask was removed and the real face of antisemitism was revealed in the interrogation rooms.

Jews involved in Zionist activity but not in domestic Argentinean politics were arrested and brutally tortured. The prevailing image of Zionism as an international Jewish organization that endangered the stability of Argentina was used by the heads of the junta to transform verbal antisemitism into physical antsemitism. The questions asked during the interrogation – regarding the Jewish community, its organization, its institutions, its functioning, and its connection with Israel – constitute first-hand proof that the orders were handed down from above.

Much evidence provides the foundation for these conclusions. One statement shows that the interrogators had a ‘Zionism specialist’ who even knew a few words of Hebrew. He had some knowledge about Jewish Agency emissaries, their names, and the internal workings of this organization. In fact, the purpose of the examination was to extract from the Jewish victims as much information as possible about the organization, including the transfer of funds to Israel.²⁵

There were also many cases of antisemitism against well known Jewish figures linked to finance, politics or journalism, such as that of the well-known journalist Jacobo Timerman, who was imprisoned and tortured, or of financier David Graiver.²⁶ The Graiver Affair, allegedly involving financial corruption in a large corporation, was convincing proof of the policy of the military government to establish the Jews’ connection to international Zionism, anti-patriotism, communism and leftist subversion. Although both Jews and non-Jews were implicated in the affair, the Jewish names were deliberately highlighted in the press. Apparently David Graiver was not eliminated because the authorities wished to turn the case into a show trial, to ‘prove’ the “international Jewish plot, which carries inconceivable perils.”²⁷

The anti-Zionist image as the direct and obvious cause of violent antisemitic manifestations was evident in another two cases whose gravity indicates the direct connection with official orders from above. One was the arrest of five Jewish Agency emissaries and three Zionist activists and the other the detention of a son and a daughter of heads of the DAIA in Buenos Aires and Cordoba. These incidents, which might have resulted in international complications for Argentina, could not have been carried out without the sanction of the authorities, or perhaps even at their direct behest.

In both cases the belief in worldwide Jewish influence, as well as the intention to intimidate and subjugate the Jewish community, was exposed. Marcos Reznisky, son of Nehemia Reznisky, DAIA head in Buenos Aires, was detained and held for four days, during which he was brutally interrogated. It was evident that he was subjected to examination and torture ‘only’ because of the activity of his father, the head of the community. The questions were intended to obtain information about his father, and about the Jewish community and its alleged links to international Zionist elements.²⁸ Although the Reznisky son was returned to his home after his detention, his treatment demonstrates that the heads of the junta had no desire to make a secret of the torture administered during interrogations, but in fact to flaunt it, as a means of intimidating through official terror.²⁹

Seventeen-year-old Alejandra Jaimovich, daughter of Luis Jaimovich, head of the DAIA in Cordoba, was also an innocent victim. However, while Reznisky’s son was returned home after four days, Jaimovich’s daughter became one of the ‘disappeared’. While her fellow student, a non-Jewish girl was sent home the same day, Alejandra was dispatched to the notorious La Perla camp, from where the last snippets of information about her fate were related by an eye-witness, Graciela Geuna. Her testimony and that of a fellow torture victim is a document of inestimable value for grasping the antisemitic core of the ‘special treatment’ accorded to Jews in general, and to Jaimovich in particular. Geuna stated that the Jews in La Perla concentration camp in Cordoba received particularly barbarous treatment.³⁰

Naturally, Jews were not the only victims of repression. The government crackdown was formally stated to be directed against opposition groups. In fact, terror was general and struck at anyone considered suspect. However, a plethora of evidence attests to the official antisemitism of the military regime between 1976 and 1983. The motif identifiable among the perpetrators of the repression indicates that the crimes stemmed from antisemitic sentiments deeply rooted in stereotypes nurtured continuously by the right in Argentina since the 1930s. These notions were transformed into practice in acts directed from above in the all-out war waged by the military regime against the Jews, perceived by the regime as the most dangerous enemy of all – anti-patriotic subversives and instigators of all the insurrections that had taken place against Christian civilization.

The Restoration of Democracy and Antisemitism in a new guise

After the Malvinas/Falkland debacle of 1982, the rate of democratization accelerated with the election of Raul Alfonsin as president of Argentina toward the end of 1983. The effect of democratization on the Jews was twofold: on the one hand, there was a noticeable increase in Jewish participation in public life, on the other, there was an intensification of antisemitism. After years in which political life was closed to Jews, large numbers of them assumed national and governmental offices in 1983–84. Never before had there been so many Jews in government, in public bodies and in the universities.³¹

President Alfonsin appointed the Jewish author Marcos Aguinis minister of culture, a position which had always been held by a Catholic; Bernardo Grinspun was made economics minister; Leopoldo Portnoy became assistant director of the Central Bank. For the first time, a Jew was made rector of the University of Buenos Aires, where one-third of new appointees were also Jews.³² Of significance, too, was the appointment of two Jews to the committee (CONADEP) investigating the fate of the ‘disappeared’. A large Hanukah candelabra was set up in Uruguay Square in Buenos Aires in 1984, and other similar gestures of good will were manifested. In 1987, political figures, corporate leaders and churchmen participated in a massive demonstration against antisemitism in Buenos Aires.³³

Heads of the military regime who were deemed responsible for crimes perpetrated in those years were brought to trial, between September 1984 and December 1985. Some of them were found guilty and jailed. But the lower ranks, those who had carried out the repression, were dealt with differently. Most of them never faced trial by virtue of certain legislative acts. One was Punto Final, Law No. 23492, enacted by Alfonsin’s government on 29 December 1986, which closed the investigation of those who had already stood trial. Another was Ley de Obediencia debida, No. 23521, passed on 9 June 1987, which closed the investigation of lower ranks because of their military duty to obey orders. This law limited the scope of indictments to those responsible for giving the orders and absolved the lower ranks that had obeyed them. Furthermore, under the presidency of Carlos Menem (see below) yet another decree, Decreto de indulto, No. 1002/89, issued on 8 October 1989, granted an amnesty to the heads of the junta who had been tried previously for their crimes. In the end, all of the junta leaders went free.

Despite the positive steps taken by the Alfonsin administration, antisemitism remained a grave problem in Argentina. Among the many explanations for this phenomenon the most significant, according to Jewish observers at the time and historians who analyzed this period, was the fact that since political violence in Argentina was deeply rooted in its culture, weaker democratic regimes, including that of Alfonsin, saw antisemitism as a necessary evil. Thus, although as noted above, he was the first to bring members of the junta to trial, he was soon forced to abandon that effort. Instead of viewing antisemitism as an indicator of social and political instability, or as a measure of the potential of extreme rightists to undermine democracy, his government granted the perpetrators immunity as part of a strategy aimed at calming the political unrest that accompanied the return of democracy. Those who incited antisemitism got off lightly, and many antisemitic activists were either acquitted or not tried at all. There was also evidence of links between antisemites and the Argentinean intelligence community.³⁴

Antisemitism was an integral part of the battle against democracy waged by the extreme right and the security forces, which, even as they transferred the government into civilian hands, sought ways of controlling the country. Extremists were alarmed to see so many Jews being used to carry out Alfonsin’s policies, which included removing the universities, schools, cultural foundations, the press and other institutions from the influence of the right, as they saw it. In an attempt to delegitimatize Alfonsin’s government, they portrayed it as part of a Jewish plot to control Alfonsin’s party, the UCR, which they dubbed La Sinagoga Radical, as well as the whole of Argentina.³⁵

The rightists’ plan of action was carried out on two levels: propaganda against the government and the Jews and a wave of antisemitic violence. Antisemitic violence was meant to warn Alfonsin against bringing the criminals of the military regime to justice. The organization of families of members of the junta, Famus, which included the wives of some generals, petitioned for an amnesty for all the officers who were sentenced during Alfonsin’s administration, and proclaimed a war against “Zionist subversion.” They implied that since Alfonsin’s government was full of Jews, it must be subversive, in contrast to the army and the various security forces, which, of course, were patriotic. Alerta Nacional, the best known of the extreme right organizations, identified politically with the right ing of the Peronist party led by Alejandro Biondini. He fulminated regularly in his newspaper, also called Alerta Nacional, against “Zionist subversion,” which he saw as part of the Marxist revolution whose aim was the social and territorial disintegration of Argentina.³⁶

The most serious antisemitic incidents during the Alfonsin administration included the attempted arson of Aviv, a Buenos Aires kindergarten, in October 1985; threats on the life of the Jewish author Isidoro Blaistein in 1986; blowing up the gate of a Jewish cemetery in Córdoba in 1987; fire bombing the entrance of the ORT Jewish school in Buenos Aires in 1987; and scrawling antisemitic graffiti on it; insulting remarks by teachers directed against pupils in schools, and antisemitic slogans at sports events and mass rallies of the National Workers Federation, Confederacion Nacional Del Trabajo (CNT).

Dissatisfied army officers, some of whom had been part of the machinery of repression, contributed to the intensification of antisemitism in the post-junta period. During Easter week of 1987 several of these officers were involved in a military coup which, though aborted, had a troubling outcome: the creation of a new, organized and important focus of nationalist power. The coup had been made up mostly of middle-ranking officers and was led by two colonels, Aldo Rico and Mohamed Ali Seineldín. Dubbed carapintadas (literally, ‘painted faces’ because in one of their actions they had painted their faces), they belonged to the nationalist movement among such officers who were not prepared to accept the return of democracy and made a number of attempts to overthrow the government. Here, too, the antisemitic motif in their declarations and actions occupied a central place.³⁷

After the attempted coup, all the rightist, Peronist and neo-Nazi organizations turned on the Jewish community as a means of attacking democratic institutions. They claimed that the Alfonsin government was a partner in a Zionist plot to take over land in southern Argentina. Liberal newspapers, taken in by the rightists, published articles on the plan to settle 25,000 Israelis in the south of Argentina in order to bolster the Alfonsin regime. The fact that the mainstream press lent itself to this forgery, an Argentinean version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, demonstrates the success of the extreme right in its fight against the Jews and against democracy.³⁸

The DAIA, responded by lodging complaints and making public every antisemitic incident. It emphasized that antisemitic activity was part of a long-tern project intended to weaken the foundations of democracy in Argentina.³⁹

The election in 1989 of Carlos Menem, candidate of the Peronist party, as president awakened anxieties about the infiltration of antisemitism into his administration both because of the anti-Jewish image of his party and because of his Syrian origin. However, from the outset, Menem showed sensitivity to Jewish concerns and developed good relations with Israel and with the local Jewish community. He continued Alfonsin’s policy of appointing Jews to his government, including Interior Minister Carlos Corach, Director-General of the Presidency Alberto Cohan, Minister of Justice Elías Hazan and others. He initiated legislation banning neo-Nazi demonstrations, and in 1991 Vice President Carlos Ruckauf attended a Rosh Hashana service in a Buenos Aires synagogue. Menem met Jewish leaders in the United States and acted on behalf of Syrian Jews when he visited Syria. In 1991 Menem became the first Argentinean president to visit Israel, and Argentina was the only Latin American country that joined the anti-Iraq coalition in the Gulf War. All of these moves demonstrated his strong desire to please the US.⁴⁰

Menem’s pro-Jewish attitude was reflected in his de-Nazification policy. War criminals who had fled to Argentina had lived there comfortably until his administration began. In 1990 Joseph Shwammberger was extradited to Germany, and in November 1995 the Argentinean Supreme Court ordered the extradition of Erich Priebke to Italy with the support of President Menem and his minister of justice. In April 1998 Argentina announced it would deport to Croatia Dinko Zakicz, former commander of the Jasnovicz death camp who had lived openly in Argentina for fifty years. He was suspected of the murder of thousands of Serbs, Roma and Jews.⁴¹

In 1995 Menem opened secret archives on Nazi activity, although the material was found to be scant, and in 1996 he ordered the archive of the Central Bank opened to anyone who wanted to research the theft of gold from Jews that had been smuggled into Argentina. In January 1995 the government allocated a federal building to serve as a museum for preserving the memory of the Holocaust, and in 1998, the president ordered the signing of an agreement between Argentina, Germany and the United States to facilitate the exchange of information and aid in the pursuit of Nazi war criminals living in Argentina.⁴²

Menem’s consistent policy on de-Nazification was part of an overall strategy of obtaining American aid and raising the status of Argentina from a third world country to an industrialized nation, which would serve to attract investment and improve Argentina’s image.

However, hostility to Jews did not cease in Argentina; there were spontaneous outbursts at football games and organized antisemitism by rightist groups, in their publications, propaganda and graffiti; and antisemitism was particularly rife among venal public officials in the police and security forces. Another significant development which continued into the 1990s was the involvement of nationalist and antisemitic officers in organized crime, while still retaining their jobs in the security forces. This was the case, for example, of Raul Guglielminetti, bodyguard of President Raul Alfonsín, who belonged to the notorious criminal ring of Aníbal Gordon, which had kidnapped and tortured people under the military dictatorship.⁴³

During this time, too, the leaders of the 1987 aborted coup (members of the carapintadas) formed organizations that would further their undemocratic, nationalist and antisemitic goals. Colonel (ret.) Aldo Rico formed MODIN (Movimiento por la dignidad y la Independencia),⁴⁴ while Mohamed Ali Seineldín, after another failed coup attempt in 1990, founded MINeII (Movimiento de Identidad Nacionale Integracion Iberoamericana) from his prison cell.⁴⁵ Both organizations were sharply critical of Menem’s policies. During the investigation of the bombing of the AMIA building (see below), suspicions concerning the participation of carapintadas in the ‘local plot’ that assisted the foreign terrorists were examined, but no evidence was found.

the police, cemetery desecration and the amia bombing

Antisemitic tendencies, particularly in the Buenos Aires police force, and the sense that the authorities were turning a blind eye when antisemitic acts were committed were highlighted in the series of Jewish cemetery desecrations perpetrated in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. A total number of 760 tombs were desecrated from 1987 to 1999.⁴⁶ Apart from the case of the Berazategui Jewish cemetery in 1991 there were no arrests prior to 1996.

At the end of December 1997 when two more Jewish cemeteries – La Tablada, the largest Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires, on 25/26 December, and Liniers, on 31 December/1 January – were vandalized, the Jewish leadership openly blamed the Buenos Aires provincial police,⁴⁷ arguing that it was a response to Governor Duhalde’s implementation on 23 December of sweeping reform of that force (see below).⁴⁸ It was widely believed that the acts were the work of officers who had been dismissed in that overhaul because of their links to corruption and to the underworld and who had apparently chosen Jewish cemetery desecration as a way of punishing or taking revenge on the government.⁴⁹ Moreover, one way groups in the criminal world, in association with the police and the security arms, could try to disable the democratic regime was by striking a blow against the Jews in sensitive places, which would spark an international uproar.

Desecration of Jewish cemeteries continued in Argentina, even at the end of 1990s and the turn of the millennium, seemingly in the context of internal dissent within the police. It appears that groups of the extremist and antisemitic right were still an integral part of the force, and that it was hard to eradicate the plague.⁵⁰ On 19 September 1999, Yom Kippur eve, 63 graves were again desecrated at La Tablada and DAIA again claimed that elements in the Buenos Aires provincial police were responsible, since it was known that such acts were liable to be committed around the time of Jewish festivals, and that the provincial police were supposed to be in charge of protecting those places.

The convergence of groups belonging to the official security apparatus and violent antisemitic elements was dramatically illustrated in the bombing of the Israeli embassy in 19 March 1992 and of the AMIA Jewish community building on 14 July 1994.

From the start of the investigation into the Israeli embassy bombing the Argentinean authorities assumed that the perpetrators were members of Islamic extremist groups, and to this day the case has not been fully solved. In 1997 a Beirut newspaper reported that the dollar bills used to pay for the booby-trapped car in the bombing had passed through Lebanon. Those responsible for the act have not been identified with certainty and many remain free. Yet it was clear from the outset that without the existence of a logistical base among local elements this kind of operation could not have taken place.⁵¹

In the 1994 bombing of the AMIA, 86 people were killed and over 200 injured.⁵² The initial stages of the investigation centered on Islamic terrorists and little consideration was given to local perpetrators,⁵³ let alone to the possibility of involvement of corrupt and antisemitic elements among the police of Buenos Aires province.⁵⁴ Indeed, it was convenient for the government to blame only external elements hostile to Israel for the bombing of the community building, but clearly, as in the case of the embassy, without support from local elements no outside factor could have handled the logistics necessary for such an attack. As the inquiry progressed, however, during 1996 and 1997, links between the perpetrators of the bombing and local elements who assisted them became increasingly evident.

Nevertheless the only person ever arrested then, and tried for the AMIA bombing, was Carlos Alberto Telleldín, a dealer in stolen and used cars, who was charged in May 1996 with delivering the truck used in the blast, a week before it took place. But the question of the recipient of the truck remained a mystery. A turning point in the investigation occurred in July that year with the arrest of four members of the Buenos Aires provincial police force, who, it emerged, were involved in trade in stolen vehicles and had received the truck from Telleldin. Links between groups within the Buenos Aires police and the underworld were thus exposed, and it became clear that members of the force, some of then high ranking officers, had grown rich from the commerce in stolen cars and the sale of forged licenses and license plates.

Throughout those years the DAIA, through its president Reuben Beraja, worked assiduously with the authorities to bring the inquiry to a close and the accused to trial. In September 1997 representatives of the DAIA and AMIA submitted to Juan Jose Galeano, the chief investigating judge, a report exposing all that had been done to disrupt the investigation from the outset in order to prevent the truth from coming to light. The report raised the suspicion that members of the Buenos Aires provincial police had been deeply involved in these attempts.⁵⁵

At the end of 1997 the inquiry took another turn, and the answer to the riddle of the local connection in the placement of the bomb in the AMIA building was gradually revealed. A bank account of Juan José Ribelli, the most senior of the four police officers arrested in July 1996, was discovered by the special investigating unit. It contained a sum of 2.5 million dollars, deposited one week prior to the bombing of the community building in July 1994.⁵⁶

The arrest of Ribelli and fellow officers in 1997 led to a major institutional crisis in the Buenos Aires provincial police force. Ribelli appeared to be one of many corrupt policemen. Officers and men alike had regularly extorted money from businesses, whether legal or illegal. Millions of dollars circulated throughout the service. In December 1997 Governor Eduardo Duhalde completely revamped the force and gave ample powers to his justice minister, a sworn enemy of vice. Hundreds of policemen were dismissed.⁵⁷ President Carlos Menem called for public support for the reform of the Buenos Aires police, stating that the provincial governor had full authority to carry it out.

As of the early 2000s, twenty Argentineans were to face charges, fifteen of them policemen from the Buenos Aires provincial force. Of the twenty, five were considered ‘accessories to the bombing’ and faced charges of murder, conspiracy and corruption. The other fifteen were to be charged with corruption, racketeering, and conspiracy. Luis Dobnieswky, the AMIA-DAIA lawyer dealing with the case, believed that even bringing this very small and partial aspect to trial was enormously important in breaking the wall of silence around the affair, and the prosecution of twenty policemen only increased its significance.⁵⁸

In order to hasten proceedings, a public, oral trial was opened in September 2001, an unusual occurrence in Argentina. By mid-2004, five persons were standing trial as the main accused in the local connection. However, Juan Jose Galeano, the principal judge, was dismissed from the trial in 2003 after it was revealed that he had paid 400,000 dollars to Telleldín so that he would confess the whole story. This trial has branched out into 50 more secondary cases, in relation to false testimonies and stolen cassettes, among others.⁵⁹

Although corruption appears to be the main cause of police involvement in the bombings, it is difficult to believe that without the presence of deep-rooted, latent antisemitism, members of the security forces would have stooped so far as to facilitate the murder of their fellow citizens.⁶⁰

Conclusion

After the fall of the military junta, the influence of the army as a driving force in Argentina did not wane, and the military continued to operate behind the scenes even under the Alfonsín and Menem governments. The perpetrators of the crimes committed under the military regime regained their freedom, and were even accorded immunity from punishment. The link between the country’s security branches and ulra-right groups, which openly espoused antisemitism, became part of Argentinean tradition. Accordingly, in the era of burgeoning democracy, fascist and neo-Nazi groups continued to emerge and prosper in the country.⁶¹

It is too sweeping to speak of continuous official antisemitism in Argentina but there are antisemitic elements among the military and the police. One can point to an unending confluence of antisemitic personalities, groups and organizations with official institutions of both the civilian establishment and the security forces, dating from the 1930s. This manifestation is unique in Latin America in contrast to other states in the region. In Argentina, antisemites have been active and influential under both democratic and military regimes, occupying powerful positions in the security forces and the police. They have fulfilled their duties as ‘faithful’ watchdogs against diverse forces of the left. For them, the word ‘Jew’ is synonymous with ‘subversive’ and ‘leftist’.

The hundreds of thousands of people who cooperated with the security services for seven long years of repression under the military regime, and who enjoyed legal immunity from the ruling authority then, seemingly left their mark on those forces and particularly on the police in Buenos Aires province. A combination of deep-rooted, latent antisemitism and internal corruption, together with unsolved crimes, makes the police a prime suspect in the acts perpetrated against the Jews of Argentina.

notes

1. Haim Avni, “Antisemitismo en la Argentina: las dimensiones del peligro,” in Leonardo Senkman, Mario Sznajder (eds.), El legado del autoritarismo (Buenos Aires, 1995), pp. 197–216; Ruiz de los Llanos, La mala fe (Buenos Aires, 1986); Jennifer Golub, Antisemitism in Argentina: Recent Trends (New York, 1992); Weisbort Robert, The Jews of Argentina: From Inquisition to Peron (Philadelphia, 1979); Juan José Sebrelli, La Cuestión Judía (Buenos Aires, 1968); Natan Lerner, “Las raíces ideológicas del antisemitismo en la Argentina y el nacionalismo,” Dispersion and Unity (Jerusalem) 17/18 (1973): 131–8; Leonardo Senkman, “El antisemitismo bajo dos experiencias democráticas: Argentina 1945–1966 y 1973–1976,” in Leonardo Senkman (ed.), El antisemitismo en la Argentin, (Buenos Aires, 1989), pp. 11–193.

2. On the AAA, known as La Triple A (The Triple A), see the pamphlet signed by the AAA on 30. April 1975, in which the Jews are accused of a “Jewish-Marxist conspiracy.” The pamphlet urged all Jews to leave the country otherwise “they will be executed.” See also Ignacio González, La Triple A (Buenos Aires, 1986); Horacio Verbitski, Ezeiza (Buenos Aires, 1984); Claudio Díaz and Antonio Zucco, La ultraderecha argentina (Buenos Aires, 1986); Paul Lewis, “The Right and Military Rule 1955–1983” in Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald Dolkart, The Argentine Right: Its History and Intellectual Origins, 1910 to the Present (Delaware, 1993), pp. 171–4.

3. On the ERP and the Montoneros, and the struggle against them, see Lewis, “The Right,” pp. 171–8; Verbitski, Ezeiza, pp.30–4, tells of the link and the evolution of the para-police organizations and the AAA, who were active in the notorious slaughter of the Peronists who came to welcome General Juan Perón on his return to Argentina from his exile in Madrid in 1973.

4. For instance, “La sublevación marxi-sionista,” Alerta Nacional (ed. Alejandro Biondini) (Oct. 1983) p. 7; see also “Los Protocolos y la realidad,” Alerta Nacional (Oct. 1983), pp. 11–14. On 30 April 1975 newspapers in various Argentinean provinces (Señal of Buenos Aires, Córdoba of the province of Córdoba, Los Andes of Mendoza, and El Litoral of Corrientes) wrote of Plan Andinia being a “Jewish intention of building another State of Israel in south Argentina.” In the province of Mendoza swastikas appeared that day on the walls of the city with the inscriptions “With Jewish blood we shall make soap” (Con la sangre judía haremos jabón) and “Be a patriot, kill a Jew” (Haga patria, mate a un judío). Jewish members of the community received threatening letters in which the writers declared themselves Nazis, asserting that from then on there would be no more graffiti since the Jews would be killed.

5. See Breviario de una infamia, Cuaderno no. 1, Comité de lucha contra el Racismo y demás formas del colonialismo, Buenos Aires, 1975. See, for instance Caudillo, 22 March 1975 and Semana Política, 25 March 1975, cited in Edy Kaufman, “Jewish Victims of Repression in Argentina under Military Rule (1976–1983),” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4 (1989) pp. 479–82.

6. The public meeting in memory of the Holocaust, scheduled to have taken place on 13 April 1975, was prohibited by the police, who claimed a shortage of manpower to secure it. The memorial meeting in remembrance of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising organized by the Jewish Communist organization ICUF in Buenos Aires was also cancelled on 20 April 1975 due to phone threats. Antisemitism was also stressed in publications of the trade union movement such as Bancarios de la Provincia, which published an extremely antisemitic article on 24 April 1975 entitled “El sionismo nazi” (Nazi Zionism). On all this, see the DAIA publication Breviario de una infamia.

7. Nunca Más, Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre desaparición de personas (CONADEP), Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1994.

8. On the way the repressive state was organized, see the document presented by the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, 692 Responsables del Terrorismo de Estado (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, 1986); also Andres J. D’ Alessio, “La violencia masiva de los derechos humanos durante el gobierno militar (1976–1983),” Senkman and Sznajder El Legado del autoritarismo, pp. 97–120.

9. For the testimonies gathered by the human rights organizations and others, see Informe Especial presentado por la DAIA al presidente Alfonsín: Detenidos-Desaparecidos judíos 1976–1983,” Jan. 1984; Informe. Comisión nacional sobre desaparición de personas. Delegación. Córdoba. 1984; “El trato recibido por detenidos y ‘desaparecidos’ durante la Dictadura Militar Argentina, 1976–1983: los prisioneros de origen judío,” Comité Israelí de Familiares de Desaparecidos en la Argentina (Jerusalem, 1984); Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Desamparo y Solidaridad, (Buenos Aires, Feb. & Oct. 1980); “Documentación detenidos-desaparecidos embarazadas, bebés desaparecidos o nacidos en cautiverio, niños desparecidos, adolescentes desaparecidos, gestiones y acciones de Familiares,” Testimonio Latinoamericano 11 (Nov.–Dec. 1981); “Informe Especial de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo,” El Diario del Juicio, Ed. Perfil, 27 May 1985–28 Jan. 1986; Amnesty International, “Rapport sur une nouvelle techniche de repression, ” Editions su Seuil (Paris, 1982); El informe prohibido, informe de la OEA sobre la situación de los Derechos Humanos en la Argentina, Secretaría General, Washington, DC, Ed. OSEA– CELS, Buenos Aires, 1984. On the specific antisemitic treatment of the prisoners see Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Sept. 1985; also Edy Kaufman, “Introduccíon,” in Senkman and Sznajder, El Legado del autoritarismo, pp. 193–6.

10. Guillermo Ledesma Ramos, “La responsabilidad de los comandantes militares por las violaciones de derechos humanos,” in Senkman and Sznajder, El Legado del autoritarismo, p. 133; see also Diario del Juicio, Dec. 1985– Jan. 1986.

11. Ledesma Ramos, La responsabilidad,” p. 133.

12. Edy Kaufman and Beatriz Cymberknopf, “La dimensión judía en la represión durante el gobierno militar en la Argentina (1976– 1983),” El antisemitismo en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1989), pp. 235–73. Kaufman cited the figure of 1000–1,500 in this publication, but in 1999 he testified before the Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón and spoke of 1,200 to 1,800 Jewish ‘disappeared’.

13. Ibid.

14. D´Alesio, “La violación masiva,” pp. 97–119; Ledesma, “La responsabilidad,” pp. 121–41.

15. Kaufman, “La dimensión,” pp. 261–2

16. Ibid. p. 273

17. Informe especial, presentado por la DAIA al presidente Alfonsín: Detenidos-Desaparecidos judíos 1976–1983, Jan. 1984, pp. 24–5

18. Breviario de una Infamia, p. 6

19. “Antisemitismo,” Nunca Más, pp. 69–75

20. Testimony of Graciela Geuna, in Luis Jaimovich Personal Archive, Helena Lewin Chair of Latin-American Studies, University of Haifa. See also a list of missing Jewish people, most of them teenagers, in Desaparecidos; also in the Jaimovich personal archive. On DAIA activity on their behalf, see Document 44, Nehemia Reznisky Personal Archive, Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University; also the most recent historical, sociological, and legal studies in Senkman and Sznajder, El legado del autoritarismo. The identification of Judaism, Marxism, and Freemasonry in the eyes of the repressors made Jews the leaders in subversive activities.

21. Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Sept. 1985.

22. On Fernandez Meijide, who was a member of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights, see Nueva Sión, Buenos Aires, 22 Sept. 1984. On Pérez Ezquivel, Noble Prize Winner for Peace, for his activity during the military rule, see Nueva Presencia, 9 Dec. 1983, and Emilio Mignone, Iglesia y dictadura (Buenos Aires, 1986), p. 221. Pérez Esquivel was a Catholic and one of the founders of the human rights organization Asamblea permanente por los derechos humanos and the Latin American organization Servicio paz y justicia.

23. Nunca Más, CONADEP, p. 75

24. A new version of Plan Andinia was published in Argentina in 1997. See the leaflet Chilenos: la Patria peligra! (Chileans, the Homeland is in Danger!). According to that leaflet, more than three million Jewish immigrants already lived in the Chilean and Argentinean south, in keeping with Herzl’s double plan to create a Jewish spiritual State in Israel and Jewish territorial state in southern Chile and Argentina.

25. “El trato recibido por detenidos y ‘desaparecidos’ durante la Dictadura Militar argentina 1976–1983: los prisioneros de orígen judío,” Comité Israelí de Familiares de Desaparecidos (Jerusalem, 1984), pp. 5, 27, 32, 34.

26. See J. Timerman, El caso Camps, punto inicial: preso sin nombre, celda sin número (Buenos Aires, 1982). Ramón Camps was in the police service and was one of Timerman’s main torturers.

27. Paul Warsawski, “Regímen Militar, Iglesia católica y comunidad judía en la República Argentina, ” Víctor Mirelman, “Las organizacines internacinales judías ante la represión y el antisemitismo en Argentina,” Leonardo Senkman, “Israel y el rescate de las víctimas de la represión,” all in Senkman and Sznajder, El Legado, p. 232, p. 246, pp. 285–87, respectively.

28. On the kidnapping of Marcos Reznisky, see Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Daily News Bulletin, 22 May 1986. See also Nueva Sion, 14 Nov. 1986, in Nehemia Reznisky Personal Archive, Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University.

29 See: Edy Kaufman, “Jewish Victims of Repression in Argentina under Military Rule (1976–1983),” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4 (1989), pp. 479–99.

30. On Alejandra Jaimovich see the testimony of her father Luis Jaimovich in Caso Alejandra Jaimovich. Desap. El 1.6.1976, in Desaparecidos, Luis Jaimovich Personal Archive, and also the testimony of Graciela Geuna in Luis Jaimovich Personal Archive. Graciela Geuna testified a great deal to human rights bodies after her release. See “Habla un sopbreviviente de un campo de concentrción,” Tiempo, 29 Dec. 1983; UN Human Rights Commission, and Amnesty International, interviews in 1980; her testimony in La Voz del Interior, 16 Dec. 1983, p. 12. On other cases see also “Desaparecidos y antisemitismo en la Argentina,” Semana, 17 June 1982, p. 24.

31. Leonardo Senkman “The Restoration of Democracy in Argentina and the Impunity of Antisemitism,” Patterns of Prejudice 2–4 (1990), p. 42

32. Haim Avni, “Antisemitism in Dictatorship and Democratic Regimes in Argentina,” p. 33.

33. Gulob, Antisemitism in Argentina, p. 9

34. Senkman, “The Restoration of Democracy,” pp. 41–5; Leonardo Senkman, “La derecha y los gobiernos civiles,” in David Rock, Sandra McGee Deutsch et al. (eds.), La derecha argentina. Nacionalistas, neoliberales, militares y clericales (Buenos Aires:, 2001), pp. 277–319.

35. C.C. Arnosteld, “Progress in Argentina Old Prejudice and a New Law,” Jewish Affairs 39 (12 Dec. 1984), p. 33.

36. Carlos Ernesto Ruis, “La subversion Marxi-sionista,” Alerta Nacional (Oct. 1983), p. 7.

37. Juvenal, Buenos Muchachos, pp. 128–30. According to Juvenal, in 1987 Seineldín deemed it important to eliminate “foreign elements acting in Argentina, most of them Argentinean Jews in government and other high posts, such as César Jaroslavsky, Jacobo Timerman, Marcelo and Adolfo Stubrin, and Mario Diament.”

38. On Plan Andinia, there are several versions; see for instance Consigna Nacional 17 (Nov. 1974).

39. DAIA, La invasion judía. Un nuevo fraude antisemita (Buenos Aires, 1986), pp. 43–6.

40. Golub, Antisemitism in Argentina, p. 10.

41. Ignacio Klich, “A cuatro décadas de la captura de un austríaco de Linz en Argentina. Reflejos del caso Eichman en memorias, testimonios y priodismo argentino u otros,” in Ignacio Klich, (ed.), Sobre nazis y nazismo en la cultura argentina (Washington, 2002), pp.

42. Antisemitism World Report, 1995, 1996, 1997, Institute of Jewish Affairs in Association with the World Jewish Congress; Antisemitism Worldwide, Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University – see “Argentina” for the years 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000.

43. Carlos Juvenal, Buenos Muchachos (Buenos Aires, 1994). This piece of investigative journalism on the links between the army and criminal groups, before, during and after the junta devotes a significant part to the actions of Aníbal Gordon and Raul Guglielminetti.

44. See The Legacy of Authoritarianism (University of Wisconsin, Madison International Institute, 1999).

45. Ibid. According to Carlos Juvenal in Buenos Muchachos, Seineldín was one of the links between the army and the Triple A in the 1970s and a member of the repressive forces during the Ezeiza massacre in 1973 when a crowd of Peronists were waiting to welcome Peron near the airport.

46. Cemetery desecrations 1987–1999: July 1987, 40 tombs smashed in Liniers cemetery in the province of Buenos Aires; March 1988, 100 tombs desecrated in Jewish cemetery in the city of Rosario; April 1991, 111 tombs smashed in Jewish cemetery of Berazategui in Buenos Aires province; Jewish cemetery of Mar del Plata desecrated four times during the year 1992; April and September 1993, La Tablada, the largest Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires, desecrated; cemeteries in La Pampa and Mar del Plata desecrated during 1994; September 1996, over Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), and Yom Kippur, Jewish cemetery of Cordoba desecrated twice; also Jewish cemeteries of Villa Clara in Entre Rios province and in the northern province of Salta; 10 October 1996, 100 tombs shattered in La Tablada; 29 September and 4 October 1997, in the city of Rosario; July 1997, 35 tombs desecrated in the Jewish cemetery of Villa Clara in the province of Cordoba; 25 December 1997 and October 1998, La Tablada; 1 January 1998 the cemetery of Ciudadela. This pattern continued during 1999 when 63 tombs in the Jewish cemetery of La Tablada were desecrated in September and 11 tombs of Jewish children were desecrated in the Ciudadela cemetery. “Profanan 40 tumbas en cementerio judío,” Diario Pupular, 24 Sept. 1993; “Sin pistas sobre profanadores del cementerio judío,” Crónica, Buenos Aires, 25 Sept. 1993. On the desecration of La Tablada cemetery in October 1996, see “La ofensiva antisemita,” Nueva Sión, 29 Nov. 1996; “Profanación de tumbas en cementerios Israelitas,” DAIA, Revista de Análisis e Información 2, Feb. 1998, p. 25. See also DAIA – 1999 report at the Stephen Roth Institute.

47. See: “Editorial” and “Acto de desagravio a las profanaciones de los cementerios israelitas de La Tablada y Liniers,” Revista de Análisis e Información .2, Feb. 1998, pp. 1, 25–6; see also “Encuentro con diputados de la provincia de Buenos Aires,” Mundo Israelita, 16 Jan. 1998. Also DAIA, Temas de Actualidad, 16 Jan. 1998.

48. Información. DAIA Archives, 1997; “Más profanaciones de tumbas judías en Argentina.” Boletín Informativo OJI (Congreso Judío Latinoamericano) (Jan.-Feb., 1998), p. 1.

49. Clarín, 27 Dec. 1997; “Argentina grave desecration,” Jerusalem Post, 28 Dec. 1997; “Ex-police Officers Suspected of Vandalizing Jewish Tombs,” Jerusalem Post, 4 Jan. 1998; “Encuentro con diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires,” Mundo Israelita, 16 Jan. 1998;

50. Sergio Kiernan, “Políticas sucias,” Nueva Sión, 4 Oct. 1999, p. 14; Carlos Susevich, “Los mal nacidos,” Nueva Sión, p. 15.

51. See: Clarín, 18 March 1992. On the investigation see: “Embassy Bomb May Have Been Work of Jews,” Jewish Chronicle, 11 April 199; “Investigación del atentado a la Embajada,” Clarín, 22 Aug. 1997; “Embajada de Israel y AMIA,” Clarín, 7 Oct. 1997; see also “Piden que se investigue a Irán,” La Nación, 17 March 1998, “Causa Embajada de Israel,” Temas de Actualidad, 14 Nov. 1997; see also Informe de la comision bicameral especial de seguimiento de la investigación de los atentados a la embajada de Israel y al edificio de la AMIA (Buenos Aires: Imprenta del Congreso de la Nación, 1997), and “La Comisión Bicameral difundió el mes pasado un documento de 209 páginas sobre actividades cumplidas en sus diferentes campos de actuación,” and also “Atentado a la Embajada de Israel,” Revista de Análisis e Información 2 (Feb. 1998), p. 7

52. On the AMIA bombing see: Clarín 19 July 1994; Página 12, 19 July 1994; Boletín Informativo OJI (Aug. 1994). Several books by leading journalists were published from 1994 on, such as Jorge Lanata and Joe Goldmanm, Cortinas de humo (Buenos Aires: 1994); Walter Goober, El Tercer atentado. Argentina en la mira del terorismo internacional (Buenos Aires, 1996); Juan Salinas, AMIA. El atentado (Buenos Aires, 1997)

53. The prosecution of locals accused of antisemitic acts is almost unknown in Argentinean history. Following the October 1985 attack on a Jewish kindergarten in Buenos Aires, Raul Gutman, secretary of the DAIA at the time, told a journalist that in Argentina’s history attacks against Jews had rarely resulted in the capture of those responsible for them. “En la historia argentina nunca aclararon los atentados contra judíos,” Nuestro Tiempo, 13 Oct. 1985, p. 3

54. Jorge Hasper, “Atentado a la AMIA. El respaldo local fue muy fuerte,” Nueva Sión, 19 July 1995, p. 5; “A un año del atentado de la AMIA, la impunidad,” Nueva Sión; “La ofensiva antisemita,” Nueva Sión, 29 Nov. 1996; La Nación, 14 April 1996; Diario Popular, 15 April 1996; Herman Schiller, “Cry for them Argentina,” Jerusalem Post Magazine, 9 Jan. 1998, pp. 8-10.

55. See the denunciation to the judges by the DAIA and AMIA, 8 Sept. 1997, in AMIA-DAIA, La Denuncia. El documento completo presentado al Juez Galeano con los hechos y los nombres de quienes obstacularizaron la investigación (Buenos Aires, 1997).

56. “Cabezas y la AMIA,” Clarín 25 Aug. 1997; “Corach presenta la Brigada anti-terrorista,” Clarín, 13 Sept. 1997; “Irregularidades en desempeno policial,” Clarin, 9 Oct. 1997. On Ribelli: “Cosecha Roja. Una semana antes de la bomba el comisario Ribelli, el más importante jefe de policía implicado, recibió dos millones y medio de dólares en efectivo de orígen inexplicable,” Página 12, 14 Nov. 1997; “AMIA: tuvo apoyo local el atentado. Lo informó la Comisión Bicameral, el policía Ribelli, principal sospechoso,” La Nación, 14 Nov. 1997; “Sorprendente revelación. Comisario cobró 2.5 millón dólares por atentado a AMIA,” Diario Popular, 14 Nov. 1997; “AMIA: confirman conexión local,” Crónica, 14 Nov. 1997; see also “Importante análisis de las actuaciones presentes y futuras del Juez Galeano y de la Comisión Bicameral,” Temas de Actialidad, 3 Dec. 1997.

57. Temas de Actualidad, p. 6-7. Duhalde pensioned off 300 police officers, in fact, most of the top level of the provincial force, replacing them with civilians until the reform was complete. As part of this process, the investigation, security and narcotics agencies were transferred from the police to the civilian sector, and as of March 1998 were to be under the authority of the Ministry for Security Affairs. This decision followed consultations between the government and the opposition, and apparently satisfied the need to cleanse the police force of the corruption that had infested it at all levels. The entire top level of police officers at La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province, namely the police chief, the deputy police chief, and the heads of six police authorities, were dismissed.

58. Sergio Kiernan, “A Glimmer of Hope, The AMIA Bombing, Five Years Later,” International Perspectives 45 (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1999), pp. 5–6.

59. Marysa Braylan and Adrián Jmelnizky, Informe sobre antisemitismo en Argentina 2003 (Buenos Aires, DAIA, 2004)

60. See the Testimony of Argentinean victims of the military regime now living in Barcelona – COSOFAM Barcelona, who sent their testimony to the judge Baltasar Garzón, in “El genocidio judío-argentino,” Nueva Sión, 30 March 1999, pp. 6–8.

61. Senkman, “The Restoration of Democracy,” pp. 36–59; see also Lewis, “The Right and Military Rule,” pp. 147–80.