Liesl Graz

Biotechnology and Weapons - The Red Cross IsWorried

LA PRUEBA Norberto Bermúdez - Juan Gasparini

Politics Arms and drugs trade: the" Menem-Pinochet connection" THE TRAITOROUS COURAGE OF THE COWARDSPreamble to the second edition of THE DELGADA LINEA BLANCA PREVENTION AND REPARATION: A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE   Two different approaches to globalisation Forums in Davos and Porto Alegre:  THE MYTH OF DEVELOPMENT Summary of the Book of Oswaldo de Rivero  the impact of Truth Commissions The right to reparation of victims of human rights violations

 

Geneva, Friday 26 October 2001.

Dear friends, With the cover of the book and the prologue of the Argentinian journalist Joaquín Morales Solá of the quotidian La Nación of Buenos Aires, I have the pleasure to present you "La Prueba", a journalistic investigation that I achieved with my colleague and friend Norberto Bermúdez, concerning the payment of bribes that permitted to make pass the law on the Reform of Work to the Senate the last year in Argentina.

.

I permit myself to recall you that in 1999, I was the author with Norberto Bermúdez of "El testigo secreto", that retraces the beginning of the struggle of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón against impunity in Argentina and Chile, book that is again in the bookstores in these two countries. In this second opportunity, we associated ourselves professionally, while taking advantage of coinciding both of us in Argentina during the crucial moments of this scandal. First, between August and December 2000, when the judicial procedure concerning this business took body; then, in June 2001, circumstances in which this file has been closed. It is under these circumstances that we decided to write this big report, that is now in bookstores, published by Ediciones B in Argentina. Like in "El testigo secreto", the chronicle has a virtual reporter, a bailiff called Esteban Lönnrot, that one can find in the offices of judges of instruction and the district attorney or in other official organs. He is a privileged observer of the adventures that surrounded the institutional cataclysm that meant for Argentina the crisis caused by the corruption of the national senators, after the new president Fernando de la Rúa arrives to the power, by the end of 1999.

In La Prueba, you will find the history of the official and occult finances of the Secretariat of information of the state (SIDE) which is the intelligence service of the government, that paid bribes in secret, as well as profiles of its last two chiefs, Fernando de Santibañes and Carlos Becerra.
Then appears the clandestine negotiations to concoct the law of Work Reform in the upper chamber of Senators, with the involvement of the Minister of the Work of the time, Mario Alberto Flamarique, the already quoted Fernando de Santibañes, the leaders of the Radical Party Enrique Nosiglia and Federico Storani, and some union leaders and other senators.
It is described in this context the evolution of the judicial procedure, with the action of judges Carlos Liporaci and Gabriel Cavallo, the two district attorney Eduardo Freiler and Federico Delgado and the role that played the Room I of the Federal Room of Buenos Aires and the attorney general of the Nation, Nicolás Becerra, to exonerate the charged senators.
It is analyzed the parliamentary proceedings that preceded the adoption of the law project, comes then without transition an investigation of the personal fortunes of legislators denounced to be enriched themselves of illicit manner in exchange of their voting in favor of this law, such as : Emilio Cantarero, Remo Costanzo, Augusto Alasino, Ramón Ortega, Alberto Tell, Eduardo Bauzá, Ricardo Branda, José Genoud; but also of civil servants of the Senate: Mario Luis Pontaquarto, Antonio Martin Fraga Mancini and one of those that distributed the envelopes, Jorge Cosci.
Come to light also the audits of the General Syndic of the Nation (SIGEN) on the Presidency of the Republic and on the SIDE, the confrontation between the titular of the control organism, Rafael Bielsa, and Fernando de Santibañes to control legally the amounts that the state assigns to the SIDE as well as maneuvers of the attorney general of the Treasure of the Nation, Ernesto Alberto Marcer, so that the SIGEN didn't accomplish its mandate.
The book finally interests itself into judge Gabriel Cavallo, last magistrate in charge of the procedure regarding the bribes of the Senate, the same judge that enacted the abolition of amnesty laws in Argentina, that deserves a particular analysis. He has also been called to pronounce himself on the demand of extradition of 18 ancient agents of the repression in Argentina formulated lately by the judge Spanish Baltasar Garzón, which still leads a penal pursuit against the ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, some Chilean soldiers and about hundred armed strength members in Argentina.
While wishing you a good reading and while greeting you cordially, I communicate you the number of my mobile telephone for possible journalistic consultations. Juan Gasparini 0041-794091830.
 

 
Preface of the Argentinean journalist Joaquín Morales Solá, of the newspaper "La Nación" of Buenos Aires
 
During the winter of 2000 the 'bribes scandal' in the Senate started off the worst political crisis of the first coalition Government in the history of Argentina. You could say that the coalition, which had gained power just eight months earlier, was wounded and has been dying, slowly and inexorably, ever since.
Yet, it was not Fernando De la Rua's Government that started the practice of governing the country by granting personal favours to senators in exchange for their passing laws required by the Executive. This exchange started and reached its peak during Carlos Menem's administration. The significance of this practice during the coalition Government lies in its promise, made from the beginning, not to carry on with the old moral order.
Strictly speaking, when the cost of such politicking is mentioned and the focus centres on the official budget of State departments, nothing important is revealed and people are misled. The real costs are those that make this sort of events possible. Large reserved Government funds are misused and legislators follow their own private interests and not the common good.
It is not a good thing that a democratic society mistrusts the whole of its political leadership and, according to the majority of surveys, expects nothing from them and is not even interested in them any longer. All of this can be explained though: historically, the Argentinian Senate was filled by provincial leaders expert in political manoeuvres within the elite with little chance of winning over the majority.
When there is no explicit contract between leaders and led, the path of bribes and personal favours opens up in politics and there is no way of avoiding it. The Senate offers a good example of this.
In the case of alleged bribes for the Labour Law the press played a major role in exposing corrupt dealings, just as it did, in truth, in almost all the large crises caused by corruption in the 90s. But it must be said that the scandal would have had far less resonance at the institutional level if some political leaders had not headed the denunciations, even though they risked losing their jobs or being discriminated against from that moment onwards. Not all political leaders are the same nor are their moral standards universal.
Two people stand out for their decisiveness and bravery in denouncing the bribes in the Senate: the ex-vice President of the Nation, Carlos Alvarez, and the Peronist Senator Antonio Cafiero. In one of the many folds of the crisis Alvarez had to give up his job as second in command of the Republican icon, while Cafiero was swiftly removed from the Senate and from the leadership of the Party he had belonged to for 50 years.
Another two men who were instrumental in throwing light over the facts in this scandal were the federal prosecutors Eduardo Freiler and Federico Delgado. They went beyond what would have been prudent in a justice system more given to forget than to condemn.
The crisis also resulted in the loss of his job for a judge, Carlos Liporaci, as vulnerable as many other judges appointed in the last decade and it forced Fernando De la Rua to make changes to his cabinet on a couple of occasions. This wave of resignations and ruptures that shook the Nation for months begs the most elementary question, the one that has never been answered: how come nothing happened and everybody was innocent if so many political figures and magistrates lost their jobs because a truth kept being repeated?
There are some questions to be answered: how far did De la Rua's Government go in setting up and committing this act, which was just the latest in an aberrant practice? Did the President himself, after having promised a new morality for the public administration, get to know about all this?
In any case, the bribes scandal brought down the old political landscape of Argentina and altered the composition and the practices of the old Senate. Corruption is so rooted in Argentina that it will not end easily. But since winter 2000 everyone knows that there is a risk of public condemnation and judicial persecution, as it has become increasingly difficult to excuse and protect wrongdoings.
The book you are about to read maps this conflict. It is also gives a warning.