The Former Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman will be honored this Wednesday three years after his death with an act that will take place at the Palacio San Martínheadquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, in what will mean “a true act of justice in the face of the judicial persecution he suffered in life,” according to family and friends who will be part of this commemoration.
Timerman, who served as head of Argentine diplomacy between 2010 and 2015, during the government of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, died in the early hours of December 30, 2018, at the age of 65, when he was being processed in the cause that was followed by the Memorandum with Iran.
“Three years later, justice established the absence of a crime in the case and a tribute will be held that will be an assessment of his figure. It will be held in the Foreign Ministry, which was his home and his life,” Javier Timerman, brother of the former minister, pointed out in a dialogue with Télam.
Sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that the act will take place on Wednesday, from 11:30 a.m., at the San Martín Palace, and for Javier Timerman it will be “a true act of justice after the cruelty that occurred at the worst moment of his life”
“Héctor was accused and prosecuted when he was suffering from liver cancer and receiving treatment that was interrupted by this persecution”he added
Javier lamented that his brother’s death occurred at a time when he was accused of “treason against the country, which was the same thing that happened” to his father (Jacobo Timerman) during the last military dictatorship.
“At that time, the military said that my father, through the newspaper (La Opinion that he directed) was brainwashing the readers. As a family, going through this once again with these types of accusations was something very hard. That is why, “Now we work every day to clean up my brother’s good name. He suffered a lot from this situation. But he always knew he would be remembered as someone who did things right,” he said.
The former foreign minister’s brother appreciated that this act seeks to give “a clear message so that people understand that not having justice is something that can cost people their lives.”
For her part, the general director of Legal Affairs of the Senate, the lawyer and friend of Timerman, Graciana Penafort, considered that this remembrance “It is a true act of justice against a person who had to endure in his body, and in his life, a great level of humiliation for having done what a foreign minister has to do, which is to defend the interests of Argentina.”
“I have no doubt that this harassment was a Lawfare case that began prior to the government of Mauricio Macri, with the complaint filed by the (deceased) former prosecutor Alberto Nisman,” he recalled.
Peñafort thus referred to the accusation of cover-up of the attack on the AMIA that was formulated in January 2015 by the then head of the UFI AMIA against Cristina Kirchner, Timerman and other officials of that government.
“Héctor had a great militancy for human rights from the time he lived in exile. He was also convinced of Latin American integration and the defense of Argentine sovereignty.
That is why he militated so strongly for the Malvinas cause, and got the sovereign debt restructuring regime of indebted countries to be approved” at the UN, Peñafort listed.
For this reason, Héctor Timerman was honored in Congress on May 13, 2021, when the National Senate gave half sanction to a project by the legislator of the Front of All (FdT) Oscar Parrilli, who declared December 10 as Day of the Restructuring of the debt, as a sign “to the fight that the former chancellor gave against the vulture funds.
Meanwhile, in a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Timerman’s work was highlighted, recognizing “his efforts to provide greater visibility and hierarchy to Argentina’s Human Rights policy with important actions such as establishing in 2011 a Special Rapporteur for the Promotion of Truth, Justice and Reparation in the UN Human Rights Council”.
They also pointed out that “Within the Organization of American States (OAS), it negotiated and achieved the approval in 2015 of the Inter-American Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons.”
The San Martín Palace also listed the “important negotiations with their peers in Chile, Brazil and Uruguay that led to the signing of Agreements for the Exchange of Files on Human Rights Violations, thus consolidating a policy of cooperation with other countries for the clarification of crimes against humanity”.
Regarding the Malvinas Question, it was recalled in a press document that “Timerman took the Argentine position to regional forums such as Unasur and others such as South America, the Arab Countries (ASPA), the G77 + China and CELAC, where the issue found wide international support.
It was also noted that thanks to Timerman’s efforts, the “Declaration of Malabo (Equatorial Guinea)” was achieved in the South America-Africa Forum (ASA) in 2013, through which Argentina achieved the explicit recognition of those countries to the sovereignty over Malvinas, Georgia and the South Sandwich”.
“Thanks to his drive, in 2013 it was created within the scope of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, the Secretariat for Affairs relating to the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands”, was highlighted.
