The Secretary General of the OAS has asked member countries to declare Hezbollah terrorist organization

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, on Thursday called on the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah as a "terrorist group", on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the bombing of AMIA.

The call of Almagro took place the same day that the Argentine government has inscribed the organization in its register of terrorist groups and he froze all his badets and those of its leaders as "a current and present threat to national security and the integrity of the economic and financial order".

In a speech to the Permanent Council of the OAS, which brings together representatives of the 34 active members of the regional bloc, Almagro He presented his condolences to Argentina for the worst terrorist attack in its history, which left 85 dead and remains unpunished, and called for taking measures to prevent such a situation from happening again.

"Let us commit to naming Hezbollah as a terrorist organization that undermines the principles of human dignity that we defend in this hemisphere, "he said.

The country has accused former Iranian officials, including former President Ali Rafsanjani and Hezbollah, of attacking the headquarters of the Argentinian Israel Mutual Association (AMIA). They denied being involved.

In his speech, Almagro also urged "the entire hemispheric community" to bend the official definition of anti-Semitism of the intergovernmental organization International Alliance for the Commemoration of the Holocaust (IHRA), already adopted by the OAS General Secretariat, as well as by countries such as Canada and Nicaragua.

In addition, Almagro called the OAS to "step up the fight against terrorism and anti-Semitism in the hemisphere, "placing them as a" priority on the agenda "," anti-Semitism is a global scourge and each of our countries must take specific and decisive action in this regard ", he said, pointing out that actors such as Hezbollah "they have no place" In the region.

According to the statement from the Financial Information Unit (UIF), Hezbollah has already been labeled a "terrorist organization" by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Zealand, Israel, the Netherlands and the European Union.

At the special session of the Permanent Council to honor the victims of the AMIA attack, the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Paulo Abrao, invited the region to redouble efforts to punish the guilty.

After a minute of silence, the representatives of Uruguay, Canada, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Bolivia, as well as France, also condemned what had happened. as a permanent observer of the OAS.

Argentina then led a moving ceremony in the central courtyard of the OAS main building in Washington, DC, where they visited. candles in the honor of each of the 85 dead.

World leaders reminded the victims

Leaders around the world have paid tribute in a book to the victims of the attack. Mauricio Macri said that these words "help make visible the terrorist attack the most brutal of the country's history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Donald Trump and UN Secretary-General António Guterres were among the world leaders who wrote in Justice you will persecute, presented at Casa Rosada Museum.

In front of the victims of the attack, relatives and representatives of the Jewish community around the world, the president stressed the decision to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization, although he warned that he was aware that this measure "was not enough" because "there is huge pending account find justice and punish the guilty"

"The United States of America will never forget the 85 victims who saw their lives tragically interrupted during the Amia bombing," Trump said. He also stressed that he was renewing his commitment to to face "firmly the evils of terrorism and anti-Semitism ".

Merkel said the fight against hatred of the Jewish community is a task for "all", and regretted that this event has disrupted the "trust" of his compatriots who managed to "escape the National Socialist terror in Germany , finding refuge in Argentina ".