On January 18, the prominent Argentine lawyer Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires. Nisman had been commissioned since 2005 to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, the most notorious terrorist attack in the history of Argentina. Investigations of the case identified Hezbollah as the terrorist group that perpetrated the attacks and further linked the Iranian government as the financer of the operation. This January, Nisman formally accused Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of negotiating the protection of the terrorists with Iran in exchange for oil and food. A few hours after Nisman’s body was found, he was due to testify in court against the President and, as it was discovered later, he had also been planning to present her with a warrant of arrest.
Nisman’s claims, along with his sudden death, have presented a series of alarming issues regarding the current Argentine government. After 20 years of investigation, nobody has been convicted for the attacks. Similarly, the fact that President Fernández de Kirchner and the Intelligence Secretariat–Argentina’s intelligence agency–have accused each other of killing Nisman has disturbed the Argentine public. Perhaps most concerning is the possibility that Argentina offered governmental protection to terrorists. These issues have evidenced the deep-rooted problems in the Argentine political system. From a wider perspective, it is shocking to observe the parallels between Nisman’s death and the political assassinations committed by the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
The investigation of the 1994 attacks
On July 18, 1994, a car bomb exploded in the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association Center (AMIA) of Buenos Aires, resulting in 85 deaths and hundreds injured. The offices of the Argentine Delegation of Israeli Associations—a powerful lobby in Argentina that protects Israeli interests—were also within the attacked premises. The bombing, which was preceded by the 1992 car bombing of the Israeli embassy in the same city, caused commotion across the country and was noted by former President Néstor Kirchner as a “national disgrace.” Solving these cases was of particular importance for Argentine society: with 230,000 Jewish residents, Argentina is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
However, the AMIA incident—and for that matter, the attacks on the embassy as well—have been marred by unclear investigative procedure and political scandals. Both attacks have remained unpunished. In August 2005, Federal Judge Juan Jose Galeano was removed from his position after pushing a bribe on behalf of a witness in the AMIA case. Moreover, Galeano was also reported to have interviewed an Iranian intelligence officer who claimed that Carlos Menem—the Argentine President at the time of the bombing— received 10 million U.S. dollars from the Iranian government in exchange for hindering the investigations.
In 2005, Néstor Kirchner appointed Nisman to continue the investigations. The following year, Nisman formally accused several members of Iran’s government, including former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, of planning and financing the bombing, As a result, the already tense relations between Argentina and Iran became even more fraught. After Interpol further issued 12 orders of arrest against suspects, it seemed that the investigations were finally making progress.
However, in 2013 the Argentine government announced that they would resume relations with Iran. As part of these newly established relations, it was decided that a Truth Commission would be established between the two countries in order to join efforts in finding the perpetrators of the attacks. Argentine and international media reacted negatively to President Fernández de Kirchner’s move, as it was perceived by many that the case would not be solved.
Indeed, Nisman presented earlier this year what he claimed to be evidence that Férnandez de Kirchner, along with Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, had been negotiating with the Iranian government the possibility of covering up responsibility for the AMIA bombing. In a 300 page-long document that included telephone transcripts (collected through the Intelligence Secretariat), Nisman accused Fernandez de Kirchner and Timerman of negotiating the exoneration of Iranian officials from charges related to the attacks in exchange for oil and weapons. Although Nisman’s report noted that the deal never materialized because Argentine officials failed to persuade Interpol to lift the arrest warrants against the Iranian suspects, the implications were clear. If what Nisman claimed was true, Fernández de Kirchner was effectively blocking 20 years of efforts towards social justice in exchange for economic interests.
Nisman’s death and the accusations tango
While forensic investigations have found no evidence that Nisman’s death was a homicide, the consensus in Argentina seems to be that he was murdered. In fact the Intelligence Secretariat and Férnandez de Kirchner herself have both been quick to blame each other for the alleged murder of the lawyer.
On the one hand, several newspapers (headed by El Clarín, a major newspaper with a long history of enmity with both Kirchners) have pointed out the President’s interest in having Nisman quieted. In particular, ever since the police found a draft of the arrest warrant against Fernández de Kirchner in Nisman’s apartment, many see this tragedy as the government’s way of silencing the lawyer and simultaneously intimidating the Argentine population.
On the other hand, Fernández de Kirchner has accused the Intelligence Agency of assassinating Nisman and staging the scenario in order to discredit her. She has claimed that former super-spy Antonio Stiuso—who was close to Nisman—gave the lawyer false information regarding the AMIA attacks, all as part of a plan to destabilize her government. In her words, the plan consisted of enacting a propaganda campaign against her related to the AMIA controversy, and then killing Nisman to increase the public apathy towards her. Stiuso, who was dismissed from the Intelligence Agency in December of last year, did not show up to give testimony and has reportedly fled Argentina.
From the perspective of the administration, Fernández de Kirchner still has the upper hand. Last week, the President announced the dismantling of the Intelligence Agency and the creation of a new agency in its place. Among the changes that she proposes, one stipulates that the agency’s directors would be tapped directly by the senate and would report to the attorney general’s office as opposed to the president. While the proposal has been criticized for its strong similarities with a proposal that Fernández de Kirchner herself refused to pass in 2005, the changes to the Intelligence Agency would be the most radical reform it has experienced in over 20 years. As political scientist Claudia Guebel puts it, “From the beginning of democracy in 1983, it was never possible to make transparent the actions and activities of the Intelligence Agency.” Given that the Intelligence Agency was often used to spy on political opponents during the Cold War, radical changes could potentially alleviate the mistrust that the Agency has inspired on the part of the Argentine public in the past decades.
However, from a popular perspective, President Fernández de Kirchner confronts what has been called in the media as “a political crisis, worse than the economic one” currently unfolding in Argentina. Not only does Fernández de Kirchner need to address the accusations of covering up the AMIA incident and ordering Nisman’s murder; further, her lack of empathy in her first speech addressing Nisman’s death, and her poor choice of using social media as a way of commenting on the tragedy, has severely alienated the Argentine public.
One must also not forget that presidential elections in Argentina are scheduled to take place in October. For the first time in 12 years, someone who is not part of the Kirchner marriage will lead Argentina. Thus, although she is not allowed to run again for presidency, Fernández de Kirchner and her party “Frente para la Victoria” are walking on a tight rope. As of now, neither Daniel Scioli nor Florencio Randazzo have enough support in the polls to become Argentina’s next president. The Kirchners’ support will potentially be crucial for the party to win in the upcoming elections. Fernández de Kirchner will urgently need to disassociate herself from the Nisman scandal if she wants her party to have a chance of winning the presidency.
Reliving memories of the Military dictatorship?
There is little use in speculating who is responsible for Nisman’s death. Starting with the fact that there is no evidence that Nisman was killed, one can only hope that future clues will lead to more accurate conclusions regarding what happened that night in January. However, there is use in reflecting on the past and the present of a nation, and in understanding popular sentiments, one can perhaps identify what needs the most urgent attention from both civil society and the government itself.
As an editorial from the Argentine newspaper La Nación puts it, “the death of the Republic’s prosecutor has revived memories from the military dictatorship in people’s minds. The constitutional government should erase, in action and words, any trace of such equivalences, present in the minds of many Argentines.”
Indeed, 30 years after the end of the military junta, the violent vestiges of the regime are still latent in Argentina. To be sure, the death of Nisman points out several alarming questions that have domestic and international political implications. Fernández de Kirchner and the rest of the Argentine government have many questions to answer. Yet, most importantly, citizens and institutions cannot ignore a growing sentiment of fear arising in the population. With Nisman’s death, the Argentine public has joined those in other Latin American nations who fear the power of the State. Let us hope that the civil society, both within Argentina and abroad, put pressure upon the government to ensure that democracy and security recover their place in Argentina.