In an emotional act, crossed by the siren that is sounded as a symbol at the time of the attack, at 14.47, representatives of the government of Alberto Fernández - who was not present but sent its chancellor, Santiago Cafiero -; members of the Jewish community and officials of the Israeli administration paid tribute this afternoon to the 29 victims of the attack on the Israeli Embassy, which remains unpunished after three decades. The ceremony had a strong political content, due to allusions and omissions about Iran's responsibility for the attack, the actions of the Justice and government leaders.
The stage set up in the dry square, where the Embassy stood before the attack, formed a political postcard unusual for the troubled times of the ruling, because it forced representatives of both sides of the government and the opposition to agree. On the one hand, there were two referents responding to Cristina Kirchner: the Minister of the Interior, Wado de Pedro; and the Minister of Justice, Martín Soria; on the other, Chancellor Santiago Cafiero, who joined at the last moment on the orders of Alberto Fernández, and the Secretary of Worship, Guillermo Oliveri. In addition, there was the head of the Buenos Aires government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, a presidential opposition leader, with an oiled relationship with Jewish organizations. There was no dialogue between the three national officials; nor with the leader of Together for Change.
The President, who traveled to Salta today for a housewarming, decided not to participate, but his absence did not surprise the Jewish leadership. “They come when they need it, in the campaign. Then they don't show up again,” said the director of one of the organizations, during the event. Another added that the President “fears that he will be crazy” because of the recent controversy over the presence, two months ago, of the Argentine representative in Nicaragua at the act of assumption of Daniel Ortega, where the Iranian official accused of the attack on AMIA, Mohsen Rezai, was standing.
To make a gesture, the head of state received members of the Latin American Jewish Congress yesterday at the Casa Rosada and plans to do the same tomorrow with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who arrived in Argentina this week to commemorate the terrorist attack. The meeting is scheduled for 16 pm, but there is a certain risk that, due to the agenda of the president that day, when he will be in Tucumán to announce the details of his “war against inflation”, he will not arrive in time for the appointment. In that case, Sa'ar would be received by Cafiero.
Until yesterday, Soria was only scheduled to participate in the event organized by the Embassy, but Alberto Fernández recorded the noise caused by his decision to send only one minister from the orbit of kichnerism, and asked Cafiero to join the meeting, even though the Chancellor had just arrived, this morning, from his tour across the Middle East. He wants to take care of the relationship with the community, especially after the severe unrest caused by the initial reaction of the Foreign Ministry, when the Argentine Ambassador to Nicaragua, Daniel Capitanich, participated in an event in Managua with one of the Iranian officials targeted by the Argentine Justice as a participant in the attack on the AMIA.
This morning, also at the last minute, De Pedro joined, embarking on his plan to be a candidate for governor or president, which increasingly includes visits to events and meetings with different sectors, productive, cultural and religious; including those least related to Cristina Kirchner, who has been much questioned by the community since the signing of the Memorandum with Iran. In fact, the minister camporista is planning a trip to Israel in April, and has been holding dialogues with the ambassador, Galit Ronen.
Speakers, this afternoon, were the wife of one of the victims, Miri Ben Zeev, who recalled with a broken voice the father of her children, Eli, who thirty years ago was a security employee at the diplomatic headquarters. His emotional speech was in Hebrew, but, in the end, he slipped a sharp phrase in Spanish: “We are present”. Then it was the turn of Ambassador Ronen of Soria and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who recalled that her father was Argentinean and the renewal of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers was condemned. “Freeing yourself from the sanctions regime will only give you a flow of money that will consolidate your plan of terrorism in the region, and in the world,” he said.
The officials and relatives of victims agreed, in their messages, on the need to remember, to pay tribute to the victims and to find those responsible. But there was a clear difference between the speeches of the Israelis, and that of Soria. The former aimed directly at Iran and Hezbollah. The second, on the other hand, aimed exclusively, and repeatedly, against the Justice, not to mention the Iranians. During his speech, the national deputy for the PRO, Waldo Wolff, an active member of the Jewish community, left the scene in protest.
Soria's presence did not provoke nutters, but it did provoke comments, on the low side. Compared to his peers on stage, the official was barely applauded by the crowd that had gathered at the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha for the tribute to the 29 victims whose relatives still demand justice.
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