Javier Gerardo Miley, Argentina’s right-wing populist president elected on November 19, had not officially taken office before one of his appointments had already caused a stir. On Friday, the new head of state chose the Attorney General of the Treasury (State Attorney) Rodolfo Parra, 76 years old on December 19, Minister of Justice and one of the most powerful men in Carlos Menem’s second term.. The lawyer remained in his position between 1993 and 1996, when he was forced to resign after the magazine News He has revealed his past in the youth arm of the Taquara National Movement, a far-right Peronist group founded in 1957 that veered toward neo-Nazism in the 1960s.
The organization was responsible for anti-Semitic violence, including murders, kidnappings, and acts of vandalism, as well as the defacing of Jewish buildings.. The magazine published on its front page a picture of a fifteen-year-old Barra giving the Hitler salute. This news caused a sensation, also because the terrorist attacks against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and against the Jewish charity AMIA in 1994, which killed 85 people, are still recent. Under pressure from several fronts, the minister decided to leave his post on the eve of a large protest demonstration called by the Argentine Jewish community, the largest in Latin America, in front of Casa Rosada, the government building in Plaza de Mayo..
Parra’s return to the scene did not go unnoticed. The Argentine Forum to Combat Anti-Semitism (FACA), made up of dozens of intellectuals, journalists and academics, in a post on the «The new government cannot begin its work by hosting individuals who profess anti-Semitism or any form of expression of hatred.», the organization writes asking Miley to retract. It’s the same site Active memoryThe association established by the relatives of the Amiya incident and the Israeli embassy: “Today, after almost 28 years, we reiterate our request to resign.”
The delegation of the Argentine-Israeli federations was more flexible (Dia) who promised, again on the distinction.” But Claudio Afrogue, former president of Daya and human rights secretary under Mauricio Macri, strongly criticizes Daya’s position: “As a former director of that association, I say that for us we must Parra goes today as he did then.”
In a television interview, the new Attorney General of the Treasury tries to add water to the fire: «I’m sorry for what I did, I was 15 years old».
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