Protests in Buenos Aires to Demand Explanation of Nisman’s Case

BUENOS AIRES – Thousands of members of the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA) and humanitarian organizations marched in the streets of Buenos Aires demanding an explanation for the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who died shortly after he had leveled accusations against President Cristina Fernandez.

Wednesday’s protests were organized by CTA, a union umbrella group that opposes the government, together with social organizations including the Association for the Clarification of the Unpunished Massacre of the AMIA, the Jewish community center which was bombed in 1994.

Nisman, who was investigating the attack, was found dead in his residence with a shot to his head on Jan. 18, four days after he accused the president and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of allegedly orchestrating a plan to cover up an Iranian role in the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.

At the end of the march, the demonstrators read out a joint statement demanding, among other things, the “immediate” opening of all secret files of the AIMA case and the creation of an independent commission in parliament to “analyze them, arrive at the truth and initiate legal proceedings and punish the guilty.”

“We are protesting against the fact that the AIMA case is at zero. There is total and absolute legal impunity. And to add to that is Nisman’s death. There has to be an investigation to determine what happened. Twenty years cannot lead us to impunity,” said the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who also participated in the march.

The president of the Association for the Clarification of the Unpunished Massacre of the AMIA, Laura Ginsberg, described Nisman’s death as “a political crime” that “has once again highlighted the impunity and the lack of truth.”

“We demand the opening of the secret files that the Argentine government continues to conceal and that they be handed over to a commission of inquiry,” Ginsberg told Efe.

The legislators decided to hold a public hearing in Congress next Wednesday to discuss Nisman’s death and the accusations he had made against the president.

They also agreed to draw up a document pledging that they work together to demand an explanation into the Nisman case which could be signed by all political parties with seats in parliament.

In a statement, the opposition legislators said that they had also agreed to seek an audience with the Supreme Court to “convey the need for it to arbitrate means to ensure the independent work of judges and prosecutors in the investigation into Nisman’s death, as well as in the charges leveled by prosecutor in the AIMA case.”