The vice president of Argentina, Victoria Villarruel, promised on Tuesday to reopen the legal cases against acts of terrorism perpetrated by left-wing guerrillas during the 1970s.
According to the criteria of
“We will reopen all cases of victims of terrorism so that justice can do what it should have done more than 20 years ago,” said Villarruel.
The vice president and head of the Senate made this announcement during a tribute in the Upper House to “victims of terrorism” that included those killed by guerrilla attacks and Islamic extremism.but not to the victims of state terrorism.
Last year, when I was a member of parliament and was in the middle of an election campaignl, Villarruel had already organized a tribute to victims of leftist guerrillas during the 1970s which was repudiated by human rights organizations who interpreted it as an act of vindication of state terrorism.
This time, the tribute was for those who died in the 1992 attacks against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, where 29 people died, and in 1994 against the headquarters of the Jewish mutual fund AMIA in the Argentine capital, in which 85 people died.
Also for the five Argentines killed in 2001 in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York; the two Argentines injured in the attack in Madrid in 2004 and in Paris in 2015; the five Argentines killed in an attack in 2017 in New York; and the eight Argentines killed and 21 kidnapped during the attack by Palestinian militias on Israel in October 2023.
However, the main tributes were paid to the 1,094 people who died between 1969 and 1979 in Argentina as a result of the actions of the guerrillas of the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP, communist ultra-left) and Montoneros (Peronist left).
Both organizations operated during the 1970s and were targets of state terrorism during the last Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983), which also left thousands of victims who were not remembered on Tuesday at the ceremony in the Senate.
“All the Montoneros should be in prison, answering for bloodying our nation,” said Villarruel, who maintained that Argentina will only get back on its feet with “the murderers in jail.”
The vice president accused former presidents Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernández (2007-2015), both Peronists, of building a “wall of pestilential darkness” to “protect” and “guarantee” the impunity of those responsible for terrorist acts who tried to “raise a red flag that is foreign” to what Argentina “is, was and will be.”
The context
Tuesday’s tribute took place amid the strong controversy unleashed in recent weeks by the recent visit made by legislators from the ruling party La Libertad Advances to military personnel imprisoned for crimes against humanity during the last dictatorship.
The controversy has increased since a libertarian deputy revealed in the last few hours an alleged bill to free imprisoned military personnel.
#Argentinas #vice #president #vows #reopen #legal #cases #guerrillas #acts #committed #1970s