Bregman demands explanations for US summit against 'left-wing terrorism'

Deputy Myriam Bregman filed a request for reports to demand that the Executive Branch explain Argentina’s official participation in the ministerial meeting “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism”, organized by the United States Department of State on July 16 in Washington.

According to publicly released information, representatives from 66 countries took part in the meeting led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who presented an international strategy aimed at combating what he defined as “extreme left-wing political terrorism”, based on intelligence and information sharing, coordination among security forces, and cooperation between states to promote actions aimed at dismantling the networks that, according to his characterization, sustain these groups. Among others, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Italy, South Korea, Peru, and Uruguay participated.

In his opening speech, Rubio stated that “the time has come to end this evil forever,” while National Security Advisor Steven Miller boasted about the NSPM-7 directive, which orders all US intelligence and police agencies to “disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists.”

Bregman’s bill demands that the Government report who made up the Argentine delegation, under what instructions they participated, whether agreements or commitments were signed with other states, and whether there are cooperation mechanisms derived from that meeting in terms of intelligence, security, or information exchange, among other issues.

The initiative also requires knowing whether this Argentine participation is related to the creation of the National Anti-Terrorist Center announced by the Executive Branch and to the recent budget expansions allocated to the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE).

Furthermore, it emphasizes that the call for this meeting cannot be analyzed in isolation: “it is part of the foreign policy that the United States government has been deploying toward Latin America, characterized by the search to reaffirm its influence in the region through mechanisms of political, economic, and military pressure, in continuity with the historic Monroe Doctrine. Interventions and interferences in countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the construction of regional alliances in security and intelligence, are part of that orientation,” it states.

For Bregman, “this is about Argentina’s incorporation, by decision of Javier Milei’s government, into Donald Trump’s bet to revive the National Security Doctrine with the aim of reissuing the persecution of left-wing parties and movements, for which coordinated intelligence work is planned.”

In this sense, the bill recalls that Argentina already has experience with the application of the National Security Doctrine and the mechanisms of international repressive coordination that, during the dictatorships of the Southern Cone, gave rise to Operation Condor. That cooperation structure among the intelligence services and repressive forces of the region guaranteed political persecutions, kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances, and murders within the framework of the genocidal plan.

Additionally, the bill argues that this strategy takes on particular relevance in the context of the growing geopolitical dispute over control of natural commons and strategic resources in Latin America, such as lithium, copper, water, hydrocarbons, and other critical minerals. “The security and intelligence policies promoted by the United States cannot be separated from that dispute over the region and its strategic resources,” the initiative warns.

“We are facing an extremely serious event. The Government must explain what Argentina went to do at a meeting organized to coordinate actions against so-called ‘left-wing terrorism’, what commitments it made, and whether it intends to transfer those definitions to our country. Argentine history forces us to exercise extreme controls against any attempt to reissue mechanisms of political persecution and espionage against popular organizations,” Bregman stated.

The text, which also bears the signatures of Nicolás del Caño, Romina del Plá, and Néstor Pitrola (Frente de Izquierda), legislators from Unión por la Patria Agustín Rossi, Sergio Palazzo, Blanca Osuna, Carlos Castagneto, and Jorge Neri Araujo Hernández; and deputy from Encuentro Federal Esteban Paulón.