Clash at AMIA remembrance event: Milei and journalist insulted

The rally for the 29th anniversary of the AMIA terrorist attack on Tuesday ended with the speech of relatives of the victims and the participants were heading towards the fenced exits.

Among those present was the libertarian leader Javier Milei, who began to be criticised by a group of nine people for his initial stance in Congress of voting against a bill fixing July 18 as a day of national mourning for the victims of the attack (although he later asked to change his vote).

Prior to that violent moment, the economist was conversing with the Clarín journalist Natasha Niebieskikwiat, who ended up being victim of the situation because when Milei made his escape, she remained behind surrounded. They insulted her for interviewing the La Libertad Avanza deputy and “almost came to blows,” she told PERFIL, until Pinamar Mayor Martín Yeza found her a way out. Patricia Bullrich’s husband Guillermo Yanco also witnessed the episode.

“I was leaving the event, which closed with the testimony of the relatives of victims, which was very moving, I’m not Jewish myself but it moves you and makes you reflect, we all came out of it like that, many people,” Yeza began to tell PERFIL.

Moving onto the moment when he rescued the journalist, he said: “Some relatives were screaming and crying and sobbing. And the first thing I thought was that somebody had made an anti-Semitic comment. I drew closer and some people were onlookers and others laughing at something which I could not see. I did not understand but I saw that I had to calm that situation. And then I saw that there were eight or nine people surrounding Natasha. I grabbed her and told her: “Let’s get out of here.” 

Yeza detailed that afterwards he conversed with the journalist to understand what had happened: “She told me that she had been trying to get off-the-record comments from Milei on the bill for the day of national mourning and they insulted him and when his bodyguards pulled Milei out, they got after her and questioned her for interviewing Milei. And they followed her when I got her out (Yeza is almost two metres tall) and they were not allowing her to leave, some were about to hit her, we walked 300 metres and they were still following us.”

Yeza highlighted that the journalist “is Jewish and was just doing her job. It’s very ugly when nine persons surround somebody insulting them and about to hit them. And if some day you see a situation like that, you should not film it or stay paralysed but come out of that anaesthesia which leads us not to act when something is wrong, whether you are 12 years old, 18, a mum, dad or a grandparent.” 

The journalist tweeted: “I was walking with Guillermo Yanco, the husband of Patricia Bullrich, at the end of the rally for the anniversary of the terrorist attack against AMIA when we saw that Javier Milei had come too with his sister Karina. We greeted each other when some people appeared yelling and seemingly wanting to hit Milei, insulting him fervidly. I thought that it was a political fight and wanted to separate them, telling Milei to go away but they surrounded him very violently. Upon seeing me in the middle, they turned their hatred towards me without knowing who I was. I was asking them to explain but when I saw the photo which a girl in that group held in her hand, I didn’t need any further explanation. They were relatives reproaching Milei for voting against the anniversary of the attack against AMIA being made a day of national mourning. But since they wanted to hit him, they wanted to hit me too. Nobody was listening to anybody and I would like to thank Martín Yeza again for realising what was going on and getting me out of all that violent screaming which not even the grief for AMIA permits us to understand. I felt bad. We may be angry but why want to hit Milei and why hit me? Taking it out on me and my family to the point of having to seek refuge among the police? Have we all gone mad? This is not how we are going to heal ourselves, definitely not.”

– TIMES/PERFIL