Intelligence/ Reforming the country’s spy agency is a long-held debt by all Argentine governments

The death of AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman has brought to the forefront a broad consensus among analysts and officials that the reform of the intelligence service is one of the pending debts of Argentine democracy. Why this change has not taken place, however, is the cause of much dispute.

Over the last 10 years, the Kirchnerite administrations “let the opportunity to reform the intelligence structures pass them by,” the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) said in a news release issued late Monday.

Ever since coming into power, the national government tacitly accepted the pre-existing relationship between intelligence agents and federal judges, the human rights organization said, adding that events like Nisman’s death — which in turn revealed the shortcomings of the AMIA case — shed light on the importance to reform the Intelligence Secretariat (SI, formely SIDE).

Pending debt: intelligence reform