Argentina has announced the creation of a task force to combat racist and neo-Nazi groups.
According to the plan, the Argentine Federal Police will “study all racist and authoritarian groups” active in Argentina.
The creation of the task force, whose mandate includes locating war criminals living in Argentina, comes amid other anti-Nazi moves in the country.
The effort will be coordinated by officials belonging to the Interior Security Secretariat and the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism. Government officials have invited Argentine Jewish organizations and human rights groups to help with the task force.
“This initiative will make it possible to fight against racist groups on a nationwide basis and to detect who the leaders are and how those groups are financed,” said Jorge Brostzein, assistant secretary of the Argentine Jewish umbrella organization DAIA.
Human rights groups, however, were less enthusiastic. “We’ll wait and see,” said Alfredo Bravo, a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, Argentina’s oldest and most prestigious civil rights organization.
“We do not want to endorse blindly any police group unless we can monitor what they do,” Bravo said.
Argentina recently prosecuted the first suspects under its hate-crimes law and is in the process of extraditing Dinko Sakic, who was a commander at a Croatian concentration camp during World War II.
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