Neo-Nazis Remain Active in Latin America

by Daniel Gatti

The Simon Wiesenthal International Center, which has monitored Nazi resurgence around the world since World War II, said research in Argentina and Uruguay showed a clear increase in the public presence of ultra-right, racist and xenophobic organizations in those two countries and in Chile.

A meeting of various neo-Nazi groups from Argentina and other countries took place last August at the LaSalle College of Buenos Aires and ultra-rightist groups have been calling for an "International National Socialist" congress to be held in the year 2000 in the Chilean capital of Santiago.

"We've noticed that, in the past 18 to 20 months, a neo-Nazi network has formed in Latin America using new communication technologies, such as the Internet," according to Sarge Widder, Latin American representative for the Wiesenthal Center.

In a statement to the Uruguayan publication "Poder Civil," Widder said that the increase in cyberspace activity by these extremist organizations called for a "quick and forceful response" from public officials.

Widder said he had met the Uruguayan ambassador in Buenos Aires, Juan Raul Ferreira, to alert him to the racist, especially anti semitic, content of web sites sponsored by ultra-right Uruguayan groups.

Nevertheless, investigations by some Montevideo journalists revealed that organized extreme right-wing groups did exist in the Uruguayan capital. While their membership was small, their activities followed a consistent pattern, frequently becoming violent.

Newspapers also noted that police had failed to solve who was behind a series of attacks against Jewish businesses and homes, as well as the desecration of graves in Jewish cemeteries.

"We believe that Ambassador Ferreira was receptive to the information presented him, and that he transmitted it to the Uruguayan government," said Widder.

The same could not be said of Chilean President Eduardo Frei, who had not responded to a letter from the Wiesenthal Center, delivered to him in January last year.

"We offered Frei our assistance in helping to write anti- discrimination legislation and designing programs and educational activities to foster tolerance, but he never got back to us," Widder said.

In Chile, as in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, ultra-rightist groups have always been active and relatively powerful. Most Nazi war criminals settled in these four countries, where they found asylum after World War II.

Chilean judicial authorities are in the process of completing an investigation into a clandestine cemetery run by German refugees from their community of Colonia Dignidad.

According to human rights organizations and family members of the victims, this was the spot where enemies of the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) were detained, tortured and often killed.

The weekly news publications Brecha and Posdata reported recently that there were four internet sites managed by ultra right-wing nationalist groups.

In Argentina, Ivan Franze, known as the "chief comrade" of the New Patriotic Social Order Party (PNOSP), claims his group numbers more than 6,000 in Buenos Aires, plus almost 1,000 more in the outlying Buenos Aires province.

Franze calls himself a "fascist," acknowledging that "in the 1920s and 30s, Italian fascism was the precursor of a series of anti-Marxist movements" such as national socialism in Germany and the Spanish Falange party.

"Here in Argentina," he told Poder Civil, "fascism was put on the map by the National Justice Movement," founded by ex-President Juan Peron.

The majority of PNOSP militants come out of that Peronist tradition, said Franze, whose party excludes from its ranks "Marxists and liberals."

Franze said that Argentina needed a "reactivation of its military-industrial complex" because it continued to be "threatened in several ways" -- such as territorial disputes with Chile and Brazil in Latin America and with Britain over possession of the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands.

"There is a very strong Castro-Guevara style guerilla movement here" Franze said, identifying them as one of the "enemies" responsible for attacks against the armed forces in revenge against their "fight against Marxism" in the 1970s.

Franze favored Argentina's annexation of Uruguay as part of a Rio de la Plata Confederation. "Uruguay is not a country unto itself, but an essential part of our homeland which was eroded by British economic interests during the last century," he said.

Alejandro Biondini, director of the rival Nationalist Workers Party, thinks that "when the economic crisis comes, the time for revolutionary nationalism will be at hand."

"I've been waiting 16 years to govern this country," he announced, denying he is a Nazi but rather a "Argentine national- socialist."

In his remarks to Poder Civil magazine, Widder observed that Argentine extreme right-wingers avoid using terminology when speaking in public or to the press which, under anti-discrimination laws currently in effect, could land them in jail.

"They never admit in public they hate Jews or immigrants, nor admit to their Nazi ideology, because it's against the law, but if you want to know their real agenda, look at some of their magazines or web pages," Widder told the Argentine daily Pagina 12.