The South American Mercosur trade bloc has announced its intention to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Palestinian territories. There follows my translation of Fernando Gimenez’s analysis of the move.
Continue reading ‘Mercosur and Another Confusing Recognition’
Argentina has today followed Brazil’s lead and recognized Palestine as a state. That, in principle, is grand. Just one doubt:
Read the rest here
The government of Iran has today formally rejected the proposal made by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the recent UN General Assembly that the fugitives whose extradition Argentina is seeking in connection with its investigation into the AMIA massacre be tried in a mutually agreed third country.
Continue reading ‘Iran Rejects Argentina’s Third Country Trial Proposal’
1. The city of Buenos Aires, the nation’s capital and not the vast conurbation that surrounds it, has long had its everyday law enforcement carried out by the Policía Federal Argentina. If you live in the United States imagine ordinary policing in Washington D.C. being carried out by the FBI.
Here’s another Argentine “story” for guilt-stricken Israelis like Noam. Today is a public holiday in Argentina. What’s being celebrated is The Day of the Race. No, that’s not race as in human race, it’s race as in the conquerors and colonizers who came here from Europe and wiped out the indigenous population. A day to celebrate the start of a genocide, if you like.
You’ll find the laws and decrees governing access to Argentine citizenship by naturalization here. It’s stated on more than one occasion that citizenship can’t be denied to someone for political, ideological or religious reasons. Lovely.
As I reported here a few days ago, in her speech to the recently concluded General Assembly of the United Nations, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner offered the Iranian government the possibility of trying the AMIA massacre suspects in a third country if it believes they could not get a fair hearing in Argentina. She said that this offer would end the excuses being offered for the Iranian regime for not extraditing the AMIA fugitives.
The intelligence of her initiative deserves to be highlighted. It serves to protect her from accusations of doing nothing to bring real pressure to bear on Tehran to give up the AMIA fugitives, has delighted the official representatives of the Argentine Jewish community and the simple act of mentioning Iran in connection with terrorism helps her government’s relationship with the United States.
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On Tuesday afternoon I was walking home from the Acoyte subway station when I happened across the aftermath of an arrest. There were three police patrol cars, six or seven cops, a bunch of onlookers and the two arrestees. The cops were variously smoking, talking into their radios and writing in notebooks. At their feet - on the street, not on the pavement - two adult males lay face down. They had their hands cuffed behind their backs. The onlookers gaped. It was cold for Buenos Aires in spring and raining lightly.
In her speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has just offered the Iranian government the possibility of trying the AMIA massacre suspects in a third country if it believes they could not get a fair hearing in Argentina. She said that this offer would end the excuses being offered for the Iranian regime for not extraditing the AMIA fugitives.
Continue reading ‘AMIA Fugitives: Argentine Government Offers Iran Third Country Trial’
Regular readers will be familiar with Luis D’Elía. Ample of girth and firm of opinion, he’s an energetic social activist and a prominent supporter of the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. However, Luis is feeling a bit unloved these days and thinks his position at the court of the government’s most uncompressing loyalists is being undermined by the machinations of certain elements in the media (guess which ones?), elements that are denying him and his followers the coverage he thinks they deserve.
To those of you who can read Spanish I recommend following Luis D’Elía on Twitter. Why should he be of interest? Well, the rotund social activist is a prominent supporter of the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and on more than one occasion he and his followers have provided the street muscle to keep opponents of the government from holding demonstrations at sensitive locations.
Though Deputy Alcira Argumedo is not a member of the governing party, today’s Pagina/12, the Izvestia of the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, generously donates space to her in today’s edition of the paper. Deputy Argumedo is superficially concerned with the current spat between Venezuela and Colombia but what’s really on her mind is something else; the Jews.
Continue reading ‘It’s The Jews! Another Comforting Signal to Iran From Buenos Aires’
Though the AMIA massacre occurred on July 18th, 1994 the official commemoration of its sixteenth anniversary took place on the 16th. In these two stories covering the events that took place you’ll find Guillermo Borger, head of the AMIA community organization. the one directly affected by the attack, praising the “good performance” of the present administration with regard to the investigation into the attack and lauding Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s “bravery” in calling for the extradition of the Iranian fugitives in her speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
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In Argentina in the 1970s hundreds of young Jewish people were kidnapped, tortured and murdered because they adhered to one of the revolutionary branches of Peronism or Marxism, because they were in contact with someone who did or simply because the rabid antisemites in the police and army saw being Jewish as necessarily being some kind of Bolshevik. 1n 2010 some of their murderers and tortures are having to answer for their acts in courts throughout the country. The present government deserves much credit for this as large sectors of society would prefer the crimes of the 1976 - 1983 dictatorship to be forgotten about.
Continue reading ‘Argentina, Al-Assad And Two Kinds of Dead Jew’
If you click here you can read a report from Télam, Argentina’s official news agency, about the official visit of President Bashir al Assad to Buenos Aires. You can also see a short excerpt from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s remarks after the lunch which she hosted for the Syrian leader. She talks about the Golan Heights and the Falklands/Malvinas, the importance of founding a Palestinian state and Argentina’s desire to play a leading role in the Middle East peace process. In the story that accompanies the video mention is also made of the signing of bilateral agreements and moves to expand trade; the usual stuff of state visits.
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