An Ambassador Born of the 'Dirty Wars'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

An Ambassador Born of the 'Dirty Wars'
Argentina's New Envoy Occupies the Office of a Man He Once Openly Fought

By Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 8, 2008; A08

Outside the office of Hector Timerman, Argentina's new ambassador to Washington, across from an oval ballroom, are photographs of his 50 predecessors.

Jorge A. Aja Espil gazes sternly from one of the chipped, pale green walls. An ambassador during Argentina's military dictatorship, Espil represented and defended the government that went after an outspoken newspaper mogul, Jacobo Timerman. Hector, 54, is his son.

As a human rights activist 20 years ago, Hector Timerman dueled openly with Espil in the American press through fiery letters and indignant rebuttals. Timerman sought to expose in writing, as had his father, the system that abducted, imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of Argentines.

When Timerman took up his post last month, his first instinct was to tear down Espil's portrait. But as he made courtesy calls to other Latin American ambassadors, he discovered a source of healing in the turmoil that had also shaped their journeys.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702546.html

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Jacobo Timerman, Hector Timerman’s right-wing junta-tortured father



Ambassador Hector Timerman






Jorge Antonio Aja Espil, on the right, 2nd from the right

[Peace Patriot]

1. Interesting to see some reasonable coverage of the new Left of South America in

the Washington Post.

Has hell frozen over?