Death of Jorge Zorreguieta, Queen Máxima's Father: August 8, 2017


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apparently maxima's dad is not at all well this time.
 
I'm so sorry to hear that Maxima's father is not doing well. He & his family will be in my prayers.
 
Is it just Queen Maxima is in Argentina or did any of her children accompany her?
 
Is there more information about the state of health of Máxima's father?
 
Maxima is back in Argentina today to visit her father..
 
Queen Maxima's father Jorge Zorreguieta passes away: 8 August 2017

My condolences to Queen Maxima, upon the [just reported] death of her Father. May he rest in Peace.
 
Queen Maxima's father Jorge Zorreguieta passes away: 8 August 2017

According to argentinian media, Jorge Zorreguieta has died aged 89.
 
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My condolences to Maxima and her family. I'm sure she's thankful she got to see him right before he passed.
 
My condolences to Maxima and her family.
 
Sad news. I am sure he will be missed dearly by his family. Condolences to not only Max and the kids but the extended family :flowers:
 
How was Jorge Zorreguieta percieved in Argentina these past years? Did he ever face legal investigation for the role in played in Videla's mass murders?
 
Neither in Argentina nor in the Netherlands attempts to prosecute Jorge Horacio Zorreguieta were succesful. He was seen as a technocrat leading the Department of Agriculture during the military junta. Crimes and misdemeanours under the military junta could not be linked to Máxima's father in person so any attempt for prosecution faced the problem: whát was the exact crime the father had to be prosecuted for?

If the crime was; "he worked for the state during the military junta", then this would apply to all the staff of the tax revenue service, the state schools, the public transportation, the air traffic control, the state energy company, etc. There needs to be link between a specific crime and an accused. This was not apparent in the case of the late Jorge Zorreguieta.

There were attempts by Argentinean human rights groups because in a Food Safety Agency (which was subordinate to the Department of Agriculture) there were "disappearances" (read: the Junta picked up opponents). Jorge Zorreguieta, at that moment a minister in Buenos Aires, denied he knew anything about those disappearances in said Food Safety Agency: that he was at the top of the Department did not mean he knew in detail what happened at all the departmental agencies and services in Argentina: there was a division between the military junta and the state administration. The activists trying to get "big fish Jorge" (after all father of the Dutch Queen) prosecuted failed in building a factual case which showed any relationship between these "disappearances" and Jorge Zorreguieta.
 
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How sad for Queen Maxima and her family,may he rest in peace.
 
Any updates regarding his funeral?
 
Happy she could see him once more alive and could be present when he passed away
 
How was Jorge Zorreguieta percieved in Argentina these past years? Did he ever face legal investigation for the role in played in Videla's mass murders?

This article gives an answer. There was no proof he knew about those crimes but investigations concluded that he was too high up in the system not to know, or unlikely not to know.
On that basis he was not allowed to attend WA's & Maxima's wedding, in further years the DRF became more relaxed about it, as JZ usually attended family events for the public to see.
Jorge Zorreguieta, father of Netherlands Queen Maxima dies aged 89 | Obituaries | News | Express.co.uk

Whatever he did or didn't do or knew or didn't know, he was Maxima's father and she will miss him dearly. There will be others to judge him now.
 
sad news for maxima, although at least this happened in a quiet time of the year (summer) for the royal family, so that maxima could freely travel at the right time to be with her dad and with her family in his last days. it would have been trickier for the royal household had it happened when maxima's schedule is busy, given that argentina is a long flight away of 12 hours or more from europe. at least now maxima, WA and the girls can go to argentina to be at the funeral.

did jorge get to see his granddaughters much lately? i assume given his condition he wouldn't travel to the netherlands much, so probably maxima brought the girls to see their grandparents.

a picture of maxima with her dad during maxima's latest official visit to buenos aires. :flowers:
 
He lived a very long life, but it's painful to lose a beloved parent at any point no matter what.

So sad for Queen Maxima and her family.:sad:
 
Interesting excerpts from an article in NRC/Handelsblad:

[...]

Jorge Horacio Zorreguieta Stefanini was born in 1928 as a descendant of Spanish-Basque and Italian immigrants and son of a banker. In the Netherlands, he became known as State Secretary (1976-1979) and Minister (1979-1981) of Agriculture and Livestock during the dictatorship of General Videla. This led Zorreguieta to lead Argentina's main export sector (grain, meat) during a black period in the country's history. During the dictatorship, according to human rights organizations, about 30,000 people were killed by the state.

In retrospect, Zorreguieta's influential position in the Argentinian regime contains an important irony, Argentinian journalists Gonzalo Álvarez Guerrero and Soledad Ferrari wrote in their book on the Zorreguieta family history. It was that position that closed the doors of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam during the Royal Wedding of his fourth daughter and the Prince of Orange in 2002. But thirty years earlier, the same position in Buenos Aires had opened his doors to his distinghuised family-in-law, the Cerruti Carricarts.

Initially, María del Carmen ("Carmenza") Carricart Cieza, Jorge's future mother-in-law, had no good word for Zorreguieta. Someone who did not finish his chemistry study. An insignificant man at a customs office in the port of Buenos Aires. Someone who had "just as much soil as fits in a flower box". A seducer who lived illegally with her beautiful daughter María del Carmen (because Jorge was officially married to his first wife, Marta López Gil). And then: Jorge was sixteen years older than her daughter.

Carmenza's attitude softened considerably when Zorreguieta, in addition to his customs work, became increasingly successful in managing the interests of Argentinean landowners at government agencies in the 1970s. He became involved in this sector by previous business interactions on the estate of his first in-law family. Step-by-step Jorge was allowed to come on ever more posh occasions. The fact that he had a Roman-Catholic baptism for (his officially out-of-wedlock born) daughter Máxima in 1971 did not harm Carmenza's devotion either.

[...]

The former correspondent Jan Thielen, who was the only journalist to talk with Zorreguieta for a biographical sketch, called his role in the dictatorship "essential". Not only did 'El Zorro' ('The Fox') cross the world for grain contracts that gave the military junta the much needed currency for the leaping economy. A fabulous business deal with then-communist Moscow also caused the Russians spoke a few words in favour of the military junta in the UN Human Rights Committee, says Thielen.

According to Zorreguieta's good friend Mario Cadenas Madariaga, Máxima's father worked "very shrewd and smart" in his negotiations and could succeed because he was "so terribly sympathetic." About the repression by the generals he said: "Of course, Jorge Zorreguieta was aware of the disappearances. We all knew it."

[....]

The new social and political status and standing also meant: new schools for to the children. The three daughters of Zorreguieta's first marriage went to normal schools, the successful Zorreguieta spared no expense to deliver his "better I", as he called Máxima, a jeunesse dorée. It became a posh English-speaking school, Northlands College, in a suburb of Buenos Aires. The choice for this institution was, in retrospect, the most important investment of Zorreguieta in the future of his fourth daughter. During the last year at Northlands Máxima became friends with Cynthia Kaufmann. It was this Kaufmann who presented Máxima to the Prince of Orange, during the Feria de Abril in Sevilla, Spain, in 1999.

[....]

The band between Jorge Zorreguieta and "his favorite", as Argentine journalists Gonzalo Álvarez Guerrero and Soledad Ferrari wrote about Máxima, survived the painful period in the run-up to the Royal Wedding in 2002.

Former Prime Minister Kok told Máxima's parents that they were not welcome at the Wedding. Both have shed tears on hearing a bandoneón playing the sounds of Adiós Nonino. Father Jorge and mother María del Carmen were in the Ritz Hotel in London, where they saw their daughter Máxima in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, amongst hundreds of guests and watched by millions of television viewers.

Afterwards, father and daughter would see each other regularly, out of the sight of cameras, as if it were a secret relationship. Later it became more relaxed, as in the case of Máxima's 40th birthday or that of Willem-Alexanders 50th birthday in April this year. Also father and mother Zorreguieta occasionally stayed at Villa De Eikenhorst in Wassenaar, to babysit on their royal grandchildren. The dismay that Argentine victims of human rights still showed in 2007 when Zorreguieta appeared in public with Queen Beatrix at the baptism of Princess Ariane, has faded away. Máxima herself took more and more freedom to emphasize the meaning of moments of proximity to her father. During the Christmas holidays at the Argentinian resort of Villa La Angostura in 2014, the Queen called her father's presence there: "My greatest Christmas present".

Link: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/08/0...eel-te-danken-aan-dictatuur-12448035-a1569359
 
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[...]

did jorge get to see his granddaughters much lately? i assume given his condition he wouldn't travel to the netherlands much, so probably maxima brought the girls to see their grandparents.

a picture of maxima with her dad during maxima's latest official visit to buenos aires. :flowers:

In May the Zorreguietas joined the King and Queen, the three Princesses, Princess Beatrix and others in Salzburg, Austria, for a continuation of the King's 50th birthday festivities.

Of course Jorge and María's youngest son lives in Vienna, Austria. Earlier this year Máxima visited her Alma Mater, the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina Santa María de los Buenos Aires, an a proud but frail-looking Jorge came to listen to a keynote speech held by his daughter, Queen Máxima.
 
Condelences to Maxima and the Zorreguieta family.
 
Oh, very sad news! He lived a long life but no one can prepare you for a loss of your loved ones, it always comes unexpected. My deepest sympathies to Queen Maxima and her family.
 
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