The 27th anniversary of the attack of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires: an open wound and several issues

It was 2:45 pm on Tuesday, March 17, 1992 when the noise flooded the Retiro district in Buenos Aires and was heard for miles. At once, A thick cloud of dust invaded the environment, the sound of the sirens of the ambulances was shot down on downtown Buenos Aires and the confusion was great. There was talk of a collapse, a fire, an earthquake, an explosion; until it is finally proven that it was the first terrorist attack that our country was undergoing.

The target was the Embbady of Israel, located at the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha. A van driven by a kamikaze and full of explosives crashed into the entrance of this building. caused 22 dead and 242 wounded.

The impact not only completely destroyed the embbady, ​​but also significantly damaged a church and school located in a nearby building.

Among the dead – besides the Argentineans and the Israelis – were Bolivian citizens, Uruguayan and Italian. Elderly women living in a retirement home in front of the diplomatic headquarters, casual pedestrians and even a priest.

This Sunday marks the 27th anniversary of this terrorist attack, which has sparked numerous complaints and conspiracies, few investigations and no culprits.. The only thing that we know for sure is that the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, Hezbollah's armed wing, perpetrated it.

Because of this, the Supreme Court asked -In October 2005- the international capture of the Hezbollah agent, Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, who, until now, is still in force and never materialized. He is accused of having entered the country in early 1992, explosives used in the car bomb that exploded in front of the headquarters of Israeli diplomacy.

The investigation, which was in charge of the Supreme Court because it was a foreign representation, also determined that the attack was a response to the killing of the secretary of the organization, Abbas Musawi, a months earlier.

From this conclusion, the Court dealt with and requested the international capture of Imad Mughniyah, responsible for the Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah central and outer security apparatus at the time of the attack; but he later learned that he had died during an attack in Damascus in February 2008.

The search for truth has had its ups and downs and has been the subject of many attempts to "cajonear" the cause or attribute the explosion to a "Self-acknowledgment" or the presence of one ever proven ""arsenal" supposedly hidden in the basement of the embbady.

Initially, the case was in charge of the President of the Supreme Court under the government of Carlos Menem, Ricardo Levene (h), who barely five years later delegated the case to the court's penal secretary, Esteban Canevari. He decided to take a basic step: count the victims. In 1999, Canevari established that the dead were 22 and not 29, as it had spread in the early years.

The investigation was so irregular, according to relatives of the victims, who took seven years to count the victims. He has also experienced some amazing situations, such as that of 2015, when the President of the Court, Horacio Lorenzetti, answered with an error at one of the critics of the president of the nation at the time, Cristina Kirchner, by the little advance of the investigation.

"Can any one tell this president what is the result of the Court's investigation into the Israeli Embbady's aggression? Who are the convicts? What are the defendants "What happened?" Can you tell me why the State of Israel does not claim for the embbady and yes for the AMIA? ", Had asked CFK. To which the magistrate answered: "There was a failure and it is res judicata".

These statements have aroused a deep rejection not only of the relatives of the victims, but also of the political bow, because "there is only one thing judged when there is a final sentence." that closes the process with a conviction or an acquittal, "they badured. And none of these two things happened in the cause.

With the transfer of the Israeli embbady to the tenth floor of the tower La Buenos Aires, on Avenida de Mayo, Today, in this corner of Arroyo and Suipacha, a place of memory emerges. Part of the original wall of the building is preserved and the plates with the names of the deceased are displayed. And as every March 17 at 3 pm, the sound of the siren of an ambulance rings to remind the victims that religious terrorism has left the country.

Posters with the legend were placed at different places of the city of Buenos Aires "And you will tell your son that we have seen terrorism so closely". In each poster, you can see an image in which you can be present in a scene that shows the embbady building destroyed just moments after the explosion. In the photo, you can see the outgoing smoke and perceive optically that the observer is part of the scene.

In accordance with the campaign's slogan, acrylic pieces designed by FWK Argentina were installed at the National Congress and at the D metro station on 9 July. Each of them contains rubble, a menorah, a cross, a backpack and a teddy bear, among other items from everyday life to places where the attack has left its mark, alluding to the Israeli diplomatic headquarters, church, school and pedestrians who were affected by the shock wave at the time of the outbreak.