On each anniversary, the pain that is intact since that fateful July 18, 1994, is added the burden and the bitterness by the unbearable weight of impunity. It is a sensation in which the pain for all the people who are no longer there and the pain of the injustice that accompanies us since then.
Each time, the suffering from the malpractice of the state estates, both in the field of justice and politics. Despite this double pain, we have, from AMIA, an unwavering commitment to the institutional mission and to the families of the fatal victims of keep demanding justice. That justice that Argentine society deserves.
The AMIA cause, an open wound of our democracy
The attack that was committed against the headquarters of Pasteur 633 is the worst terrorist attack our country suffered. How is it explained -27 years later – that a crime against humanity of this magnitude, that an act of war perpetrated by a foreign nation through an armed terrorist arm, is still unpunished?
The unease about this question should mobilize us as a society. We cannot naturalize this heinous fact, even though 27 years have passed.
In all these years of struggle, AMIA has become a resilience symbol, of commitment to truth and memory and to denounce impunity, fanaticism and terrorist actions that violate and act to the detriment of the supreme value of life.
Twenty-seven years and it hurts us to have to repeat that there is not a single person convicted for the attack on the AMIA. From the Special Prosecutor’s Office, No new or valuable information has been produced for a long time. On the other hand, Federal Court No. 6, in charge of the case, has not yet appointed a permanent judge. That unresolved situation does nothing more than collaborate so that nothing progresses. We need the institutional mechanisms to be activated urgently, and that the responsible court does not continue to be “vacant”.
Our role as an institutional victim of the attack should not be that of the one who has to mark the steps to follow, but the lack of results makes us desperate. Indifference hurts us. The ineffectiveness of the powers of the State forces us to redouble our efforts so that the claim, every year, is heard and addressed.
Twenty-seven years and it hurts us to have to repeat that there is not a single person convicted for the attack on the AMIA.
In any case, from our imperative to keep the demand for justice alive, we urge to intensify measures and exhaust resources to ensure that both Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to comply with the demands of the Argentine justice, and that hand over those accused of having committed the attack, which they continue to shelter and protect in these countries.
There is so much to do
We also ask Interpol to keep the arrest warrants in force and the Argentine Foreign Ministry to carry out a permanent monitoring that allows to have early alerts, which identify when the accused travel to other parts of the world, to request their arrest. That is the way for them to be extradited to our country.
At the international level, it is possible to strengthen the work together with other nations in everything related to the fight against terrorism, a scourge on which you cannot be neutral.
There is so much to do. We can’t lower our arms. With terrorism, you cannot remain indifferent and over time you cannot win the battle. We are not willing for the years to go by without us being held accountable and serving an effective penalty for the massacre perpetrated.
Ariel Eichbaum is president of AMIA.
