The sacred memory of the lost ones and the country’s dignity itself force Argentina’s society to insist fighting for the justice which was not served at this horrid event of the AMIA massacre.The effort and work employed by the family members and organizations surrounding them, such as AMIA and DAIA, have expressed the extent at which the courage and determination continues to eventually achieve this justice.

(From Buenos Aires) NOBODY WAS EVER PUT INany jail for the murder of 86 people and the injuring of 250 in the AMIA massacre. Nobody is paying the price for murdering humble teachers, social workers, secretaries, who were the pillar of the immense solidary labor, education and spirit of AMIA. The progress in the investigation, the many orders to dettain, the recent involvement of the Supreme Court and many other steps are praiseworthy. Nonetheless, in the las 15 years, justice has not been served against the worst antijewish terrorist attack in the history of Latin America. This brings us to a point where lessons must be learnt for the future…

WE CAN NEVER FORGET

The sacred memory of the lost ones and the country’s dignity itself force Argentina’s society to insist on this topic until justice has been served. The effort and work employed by the family members and organizations surrounding them, such as AMIA and DAIA, have expressed the extent at which the courage and determination continues to eventually achieve this justice. Furthermore, this will power is there to emphasize the many “mistakes” carried out by the police and juries, and the corruption within which possibly also aided in the massacre itself.

Samuel Pisar, Auschwitz, Majdanek and Dachau survivor, John F. Kennedy advisor, recognized today by American society, retells his experience and depicts to us the situation in the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and how as the doors began to close, all the people around you and yourself had only three more minutes to live. The use of those last three minutes for most people was to scratch on the walls with their bare hands and weak nails the words “never forget”. If those people who remained under the
rubble of the walls of AMIA would have had a chance to write, as similar message forcing society to bring justice to them would have most probably been engraved.

FACING NEW FORMS OF ANTISEMITISM

In the mind of Ahmadinejad, Pisar’s mother and younger sister Frieda never existed. Pisar tells us, “When the liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto began in Poland, only three members of my family were still alive: my mother, my younger sister and I, 13 years old at the time. My father had been executed by the Gestapo. My mother told me to wear long pants, hoping that this way I would look like a fully grown man and slave work coul save me.” I asked him about his sister, Frieda, but there was no reply. After a silent pause, “I knew her destiny was sealed. When they took her away by force with the other women, children, elderly and ill towards the wagons I could not take my eyes off all of them. Frieda’s small hands held my mother on one side and her doll on the other. Both of them looked back at me before disappearing from my life forever.”

Ahmadinejad has stated that Pisar’s little sister, the one and a half million murdered jewish children, and six million exterminated others never lived-the Holocaust never occurred. With that same cold blooded ideals he denounced the young Iranian population which criticized the faulty elections as “a group of infamous criminals”, and with that countinuing fascist tone he decided that Neda, the martyr assassinated by his military, was killed by foreign journalists.

Albeit, Ahmadinejad, the new world leader of violent antisemitism, who demands the destruction of the State of Isreal and brutally represses his country, wears a metaphorical costume in the eyes of Latin America. The creation of a “light” version of his character is formed by people who call themselves “progressives”. Who wins in a situation where the friendship between a fascist tyrant, with clear connections to active neonazi groups, is being fomented?

The denial of the Holocaust, its minimization, and the implicit or explicit call to destroy Israel, are the new expressions of antisemitism which attempt to simultaneously involve the extreme right (the original followers) and the radicals. These groups must be actively unmasked. The murder of Neda on the streets of Teheran and the denial of the Holocaust have a single same origin, the new form of fascism. This can be connected to the massacre of the AMIA.

INCREASING RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA REQUIRES QUESTIONING

In a world of increasing unemployment and social tension, a breeding ground for xenophobia, racism and antisemitism is created and used by extreme rightist governments.

In the last European Parliament elections, the political party initiated by a (now deceased) neonazi, Haider, in Austria, managed to achieve 13 percent of the votes, double what it had in 2004. In the U.K, for the first itme ever, the neofascist BNP managed to obtain two deputies and in Hungary, the Hungarian party which used to collaborate with the Nazis (Jobbik) achieved 422,000 votes and 3 deputies. Furthermore, in Italy we find the new most anti-immigrant law ever passed which considers immigrants as undocumented delincuents.

These results suggest historical views of minorities and Jews as members of society which can be used to blame for economic and social problems. A survey within the European Union within minorities of 27 different countries showed that 94 percent of these people interviewed had at some point of their lives been subject to some form of discrimination. In Italy and hungary for example, prejudice against Gypsies predominates. In Hungary, the leader of the political group Jobbik, Krisztina Morvai, a few days ago violently attacked Hungarian Jews. Furthermore, at the Jewish memorial next to the Danube (the metal shoes), which remembers the shooting of Jews in Hungary, pigs had been released to trample the area. In another recent survey, one third of Europeans considered that Jews were responsible for the world wide economic problems of our time, and varios more thought Jews had full control over the world economiv market.

WHAT CAN WE DO CURRENTLY

Forcing our way to justice for the events at AMIA, denouncing the Argentine and Latin American expressions of fascism and violence in general which showed clear signs of anti-Isrealism at the celebrations of Isreal’s anniversary of independence, is part of fighting for a world wide end of xenophobia.

What can we say is the best way to remember those murdered on their 15th anniversary? Added to an apparisal of their lives and families we must insist on the achieval of justice and persist until those responsible are judged definitively and condemned for their actions. Mordejai Anilewicz, Commanding in Chief of the historical rebellion of the Warsaw Ghetto, 23 years old at the time, wrote in his las card a the Ghetto in flames, “Ghetto in flames”, directing himself towards the Jewish population and the people who’s battle would end with their deaths, that the battle was in fact “in protection of their and our dignity.”

Today, defending the dignity of Argentines, Jews, and a world where the demons of antisemitism, antizionism, racism and xenophobia have reemerged means to tell the 86 names incripted on the walls of Pasteur 633, the AMIA building which has been reconstructed, we will not stop until justice has been served.

Source:Safe-Democracy.org