AMIA Attack. Aviran: \»The vast majority of the responsible are no longer in this World and we did it\»

This was the second terror attack adjudicated to Iran and Hezbollah, after the one against the Israel Embassy in this country on March 17th, 1992, where 29 people died and hundreds got hurt.

In this exclusive interview with the Jewish News Agency / Iton Gadol from his country, by Daniel Berliner, the media´s director, Aviran surprised everyone with an important disclosure about both attacks: "The vast majority of the responsible are no longer in this World and we did it".

He was also harsh with the Argentinian chancellor, Hector Timerman, who was criticized for doing "anti Israeli and anti jewish things", especially in relationship with the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, which he said was a "charade".

Finally he referred to the 120º anniversary of AMIA´s creation and the memory that were left by his ruling there, during which he admitted having "a lot of problems" with the jewish leaders.

 

 

Every week we gathered in the Embassy with the three presidents of the Argentinian jewish central entities, Ruben Beraja, from DAIA, Alberto Crupnicoff, from AMIA and Alberto Astrovsky, from OSA. But this time we were really close to AMIA and Crupnicoff suggested that we did the meeting there. When we were going I remembered how awful that coffee was and I proposed going to a near bar, because we smelled it passing by one. We sat and ten minutes later the bomb exploded. It was mazal – luck – because if not we would be in Shamaim – Heaven. That gave me the possibility of going to the place right away, from where I made two telephone calls: one to Shimon Peres, Israeli chancellor during those days, to ask him I we could help and he said "yes", and another one to Carlos Menem, Argentinian president, to tell him that we were willing to help, which he agreed. People – experts in disasters in Israel – arrived 36 hours later and worked in AMIA.

 

 

After the first terrorist attack I felt really bad because I knew the building: I had been there two years as "number two" with the ambassador Dov Shmorak. AMIA´s attack was pretty critic because I felt like someone that was on the front line, considering that we knew – and I said this many times – who where the responsible of the Embassy attack, and did it a second time. After that came the struggle with the Argentinian government to find the responsible, that we know who they were and the vast majority are no longer in this world. But most important, after all those years, I am listening from Israel that Hector Timerman, the famous Argentinian chancellor, wants to make a truth comission with the Iranians to find the attack perpetrators, that were responsible of these.

 

 

Timerman has a troublesome history with us – Israelis: first his father – Jacobo, whom we saved from the last Argentinian dictatorship and only received from him insults, and then his son, who does these things that are anti Israeli and anti jewish.

 

We had 86 victims, jewish – most of them – and not jewish (it was then proved that were actually 85). The first reaction was to help whoever we could save. We didn´t know how many dead and wounded there were. We were 200 meters away from AMIA and, even though my guards didn´t want me to go there because they were scared, I said that I would go and talked to those two important persons. The second one was to say that not Menem, nor Fernando de la Rua, nor those who came did anything to shed light on what happened.

 

 

Back then I had a direct contact with him and he immediately said: "I am willing to help, I need Argentina´s government ‘green light’". After I spoke to Menem I called him back to tell him it was "Ok". Some time before that Menem had come to Israel and was the only Argentinian president that did. When I spoke to his predecessor, Raul Alfonsin, he told me that he wanted to go, but his chancellor, Dante Caputo, didn´t. So I told him: "Who was the president? Him or you? Who should have decided?" For us Menem did a very good conduct with Israel and the attacks were something that worried us all the time, during his ruling and during De la Rua´s. I remember my last and strong speech – on the 8th anniversary of the Embassy attack, in the square that remembers the destroyed building – in 2000, in front of the president, the vice president, the chief minister and all the Argentinian cabinet. But there´s nothing today…

 

 

The vast majority of the responsible are no longer in this World and we did it. With this the arithmetic doesn´t end. I know I am not in a position where I can ask for something to the Argentinian government, but we still need an answer to what happened. The prosecutors ended accused, like judge Juan Jose Galeano and ex commissioner Jorge Palacios. With the time I was there I think that they both did a good job, but after that they were removed and those who started investigating again didn´t give the Israeli government and the Argentinian jewish community a response of what had happened. And the proposal in which the Argentinian and irani government will investigate together came a year ago… that´s a charade.

 

 

I was with them all the time. There´re no words to comfort them because their grief will never end. Those who are still alive need to know what happened and how they lost their loved ones.

 

 

It is a community that I knew and, even though I had many problems with its leaders – I wanted to bring them near to Israel but its probable that I couldn´t do it right – I really loved them. One day I was in a celebration at Moises Ville and there were very few people and only a few of them identified themselves as jews. I told them that, that same day was Petaj Tikva´s birth and, looking at both of them, the difference is quite big. I say the same about the jewish community: each one is responsible of what it wants to do, but it must know that the place for the jews is in Israel.

 

 

That was the biggest problem. After that part of the jewish community wanted to do a "Memory Square" – where the Embassy prior to the attack used to work – in Arroyo. I opposed to that name because there are a lot of them, that´s why I clashed with them. After that they said I was right and agreed that it should be Israel´s Embassy Square. During that time there was a very close relationship with Israel and Argentina, which is not like that nowadays, with everything that was done in the provices, putting the Israeli flag from north to south, and with what was done culturally, with the filarmonic and Hacameri theatre visits. We also received an award from the Book Fair three times. I saw a very big problem about the jews that were outside Buenso Aires and, to know each other more, we made a celebration of Iom Haatzmaut with the young people from Rosario, and then Paraná. The jewish leaders asked me: "Aren´t you going to celebrate it in Buenos Aires?", and I answered that I wanted to do it with the jews that couldn´t get to the city. During the second Iom Haatzmaut in which I was in Argentina 120 buses arrived to Rosario, from many provinces, to celebrate. I remember that Hermes Binner was the mayor and that he said that he had never seen so many people there.