Argentina: Moving to Democracy?
Or going in circles?
By Peter Beeching,
Toronto, Canada.
May 13, 2006
Summary
Argentina has “enjoyed” political democracy since 1983, when the defeat of the military junta in the Malvinas War led resulted in its’ rout from office by an enraged populace who had also endured seven years of a ‘dirty war” with thousands of people brutalized, murdered, and “disappeared.”
But the country’s security services continue as through the dictatorship were still in office. Illegal detainment, Tortures, Murders. They are all routinely carried out in a democratic way – without regard to sex, age, race, socioeconomic background, or geographic location within Argentina’s borders.
The reason for this is a historic impunity enjoyed by the security services – an impunity embedded in a corrupt political culture which pays lip service only to accountability.
Argentines are used to the brutality in which they live. The political side of the democracy functions reasonably well in tandem with security services brutality and impunity.
This paper is but a thumbnail sketch to illustrate why and how this pathological social
dichotomy functions.
To understand Argentina is to appreciate and accept it as an unstable society.
Here is why:
The theme of Argentina as a functioning democracy (regular elections, parliamentary representation with competing political parties, free press, the reining in of the military, post 1982/3) coming into bloom are like the flowers of May itself – spring is sprung.
Parallel with this image are ongoing reports and analyses of police and security forces brutality, corruption, and impunity by varied human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch abroad; CELS, CORREPI, and SERPAJ within Argentina.
So where does the picture come into focus?
To analyze Argentine society in any but that of “going in a circle” would be to go in circles. And remain out of focus.
It is the only way to understand the simultanaeity of Argentina as a functioning democracy and the seemingly perpetual, incurable nature of its’ corrupt institutions.
It is the only way to appreciate that 1976 junta victim and hater Jacobo Timerman was a supporter of General Onganía’s 1966 coup which replaced the elected President Arturo Illia (1963 -1966).
And it is the only way to appreciate the contemporary irony that President Nestor Kirchner is accused of using the piquetero movement as a lever for populistic support while accusing them (the piqueteros) of being funded by “right wing” opponents [like Eduardo Duhalde] to destabilize his administration – as to justify right wing repression. Said Kirchner: 'Nobody knows who is financing them but we do know that they are absolutely functional to the sectors of the Argentine right who say that they must be repressed.' (1.)…The progressive Kirchner, from Santa Cruz province as was Juan Peron, is learning the demagogic tricks of the trade well. What is his next logical step: setting the Argentine Reichstag on fire?
The ever present duality of Argentina’s androgenous culture is what underpins the seeming contradictions of its’ dysfunctional operation. But this is not the place to go into its’ history and evolution. Rather, to appreciate that the Argentine cultural dichotomy is also symbiotic. Argentina’s authoritarian and democratic strains were legitimized as two branches of a tree under Juan Peron’s Partido Justicialista…
The revulsion of civil society against the excesses of the military junta 1976 – 1983 was itself an inverse reflection of the military taking over the government: to eliminate the terrorism then rampant in the country (by Montoneros, Tupac Amarus, the death squads of José López Rega’s AAA) no less than to eliminate the leadership, political, and economic (700% inflation) incompetency of Isabel Peron.
The legacy of this tragic period has not merely perpetuated, but fuelled, the continuing nature of Argentina’s dichotomous political culture.
Perhaps Argentina is somewhere between the American experience of the genteel East and the “wild west” of the nineteenth century. Argentine scholar Guillermo O’Donnell (of Notre Dame
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University) finds parallels between Argentina and the emerging democracies of the former Communist bloc. – Mentioned as relevant to the immediate issue at hand: my son’s possible relocation to Argentina. For he will be flying straight into a world characterized by the cyclical nature of stability, where democracy and human rights have not transcended the pre 1983 legacy of brutality. In short, a world going, perhaps accelerating, in circles!
Decoding the rhetoric amongst politicians and combining it with events of the day together with reportage from organizations like Amnesty International reveals the acute institutional fragility of Argentina today under President Nestor Kirchner. Imminent signs of economic turbulence and increasing poverty (information compiled by the Argentine government itself) which ignite political regression [and repression] have reappeared. The embedded duality of its’ culture reflected in human rights’ criticisms even as Argentina has become the largest Latin American contributor to international peacekeeping missions. (2.)
It is very probable, and certainly hoped for, that Argentina will eventually succeed in creating a stable democratic society with minimal political corruption and the ultimate elimination of brutality and impunity within the police and security forces empowered to “serve and protect” that country.
On 030105, 5,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Buenos Aires to protest the 183 deaths in a fire at the over capacity discotheque República Cromagnon because its’ doors were locked. But this tragedy was not enough to force President Kirchner from his Christmas holiday for at least a symbolic solidarity with the victims and their families. (3.)
So if the President does not care, obviously it will take time for the law enforcement community to care. -
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Put another way, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was a model of “best practices” of the day. But there was an apparent gap between what was on paper and the operation of Stalin’s regime.
So what are the “apparent gaps” in the Argentine situation?
There are many:
As the military admitted its’ sins on the 30th anniversary of the 240376 Junta coup ("Día de la Memoria, Verdad y Justicia), it did so against the breaking story of spying activities by intelligence agents in the naval air base of Almirante Zar de Chubut in Patagonia. Twenty six folders compiled by navy intelligence agents contained information on journalists, unionists, human rights groups, students, and public officials - including President Néstor Kirchner. The navy is forbidden by law from conducting internal espionage activities. (4.) The governor of Chubut, Mariano Das Neves, said the provincial government would be a plaintiff in the spying case. Das Neves told the Argentine daily Página 12 that this was not an isolated incident and must be happening at a national level. (5.)
Just a month before, six “high ranking” Argentine military officers were implicated in selling arms (including rocket launchers) to drug dealers in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro through a Paraguayan-Uruguayan network. It was not the first time that the Argentine military has been accused of involvement in illegal arms trafficking to Brazilian drug gangs. Past reports of illegal arms trafficking by the Argentine military to Brazilian drug gangs included the discovery of military guns and grenades in the possession of Rio de Janeiro gangs. (6.)
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On the civil side of security, Human Rights Watch (HRW) described police brutality as a ‘chronic problem’ in Argentina, ranking it alongside Brazil and Mexico at the top of HWR’s concerns for Latin America, the organization’s executive director, José Miguel Vivanco, told the ‘Pagina 12’ newspaper. Vivanco said that the problem with the police was a structural one, and he called for major investment in security.
The criticism has not just come from outside, however. The minister for human development in the province of Buenos Aires, Juan Pablo Cafiero, announced that many judges in the area fail to respect the rights of minors. Cafiero said that children arrested in Buenos Aires are not entitled to ‘the constitutional guarantees enjoyed by other citizens’ and are frequently charged with offences despite being too young.
The province’s police force has the worst reputation for corruption and brutality in Argentina, and these two criticisms will lend further weight to calls for a complete overhaul of the Buenos Aires authorities. (7.)
In 2004 24,000 of its 45,000 agents were under investigation for offences such as sexual assault, torture and murder.(8.) As of this writing, no information was located regarding the outcome of that mass investigation.
For a better recent historical perspective, in Novembe/03, B’Aires chief prosecutor Eduardo de la Cruz announced that a then recently computerized telephony analysis system had tracked about 4,000 phone calls associated with the investigation of 200 criminal cases (including murders and kidnappings). These calls had been traced to the Ministry of Defense, the Casa Rosada, and the Ministry of the Interior – which is in charge of internal security. (9.).
Caught short by de la Cruz’ announcement, Kirchner launched an “investigation” – with his Prime Minister Anibal Fernandez preempting its’ outcome, saying “the results will be nil.” (10.).
How is it that in the anti-corruption Kirchner administration, so many police officers in former President Duhalde’s power base were tainted, but the B’Aires’ provincial prosecutor’s allegations of high level crime originating in the offices of the state are dismissed? Murders and kidnappings, allegedly committed by federal authorities, were trivialized by the Kirchner administration.
This, notwithstanding that de la Cruz accusations were based on deployment of the VAIC system, the most advanced computer telephony system in Latin America. Said de la Cruz of his VAIC system, which had already provided breakthroughs for several other high profile cases, “the government cannot say that VAIC works for some cases and not for others.” (11.).
De la Cruz’ political links have not been traced, but his position seems to separate him from competing Peronist camps, as well as de la Rua’s Radical Party. Is he the honest man found by the night wanderer with the storm lamp?! If so, why did the anti-corruption Kirchner administration seek to marginalize him?
Regarding de la Cruz’ reflections, he (de la Cruz) suggested that the federal government’s “embedded” links with organized corruption date back to the repressive years of military rule. During President Raul Alfonsin’s 1980’s administration, a member of the presidential security team had been directing a kidnap team from within the Casa Rosada. (12.).
As if to corroborate de la Cruz, B’Aires’ newspaper Clarin noted most kidnap investigations had been foiled by mistaken arrests traceable to “police intelligence.” Clarin’s conclusion: the investigations were being deliberately diverted into dead ends. (13.).
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How then to define Argentina’s progress to democracy and cleaning up on corruption and impunity. Is it still going in circles?
In July 2005, Carlos Menem wrote in Clarín in that President Kirchner had signed "the death certificate of Peronism" with his “transversal politics” of seeking support on every side possible for any given issue. (14.)
No less opportunistic himself, differences between Menem and Kirchner illustrate perfectly the rot within Argentina’s body politic that the pathology political scientist can only hope will lead to new growth from the ultimate demise of the fallen tree.
To have the country continue forever centreweighted in Buenos Aires at the expense of its’ outer provinces contributes to Argentina’s political instability and the “transverse politics” that so characterizes it.
Let’s go from generalities to cases in point:
In March, 2005, Argentina’s statistics Institute INDEC reported that poverty fell by 7.6 percentage points to 40.2% in 2004. In October 2001, 38.3% of Argentines lived in poverty; 13.6% in extreme poverty [- higher than during the currency crisis of the time.] The Indec report shows that poverty is more acute in the northeastern and northwestern provinces, where the average rates of poverty are 59.5% and 53.4% respectively. (15)…In March, 2006, President Kirchner wanted to double the number of [welfare] beneficiaries and increase the allowance to between Arg$150 [US$50] and Arg$275 [US$91.67] per month. (16.)
On a related note, unemployment was 13 % in the first quarter of 2005 [most recent available] - 0.9 % higher than for the same period of 2004. In absolute numbers, 2M people from a workforce of 15.5M were looking for a job. Given the strength of the recent recovery, and the likelihood that the rate of growth will slow down, their chances of finding a job now must be diminishing. The official INDEC figures noted that if the number of people receiving the government's head of household subsidy was added to the pure unemployment figure, the unemployment rate hit 16.6%. (17.)
Regarding overall wealth distribution, in 2004 it hit a 30-year low. The gap between the rich and the poor in Argentina is bigger now than at any time over the last 30 years, according to figures released on 28 June. At the end of 2003, the richest 10% of the population owned 38.6% of the nation’s wealth and earned 31 times more than the poorest 10% of the population.
The report, published by state statistics department Indec, showed Argentina was becoming more like Brazil. The figures for the province of Buenos Aires and the capital itself are the most worrying; there, the richest 10% controls 44.5% of the wealth and earns 50 times more than those at the opposite end of the scale. When records began in1974 the wealthiest 10% earned only 12 times more than the poorest 10% in the capital and the surrounding province.
It is not just the poorest sector of society that is losing out to the wealthy. Argentina’s middle class was also getting poorer. Between 1974 and 2001, the middle classes have
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seen their slice of the nation’s wealth fall by 36.8%. The richest 10% now controlled 35% more wealth than when records began, while the poorest have lost 37% of their wealth. (18.)
Recently, it was reported that both the government and opposing political candidates were handing out electrical appliances to poor families in the Greater Buenos Aires area. That this was actually happening has been confirmed by the mayor of Berazategui, Juan José Mussi. Rosendo Fraga, director of Centro de Estudios Nueva Mayoría, a prominent Argentine think tank, noted that with 38.5% of the population under the poverty line and 13.6% indigent, 'political clientelism is considerably enhanced'. (19.)
For those in trouble with the law, the situation is accordingly all the worse. A detailed report on 13 April, 2005, by the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria, a human rights body led by Argentina’s former Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, compared the prisons in Buenos Aires province to concentration camps. The report released by the commission, which was created in 2001 with the support of the provincial legislature, said that “the number of deaths in prisons in Buenos Aires is alarming and could be considered the result of a policy of extermination”. It said that overcrowding in the country’s more than 50 prisons exceeded 700% in some instances. (20.)
Such comments and observations made have come under the watch of Nestor Kirchner, the radical reformer. Should he be defeated in 2007, a centre-right alliance between Mauricio Macri and Jorge Sobisch waits in the wings to replace him. Macri, a famous businessman who became a deputy in Buenos Aires [in 2005], and Sobisch (the governor of Neuquén) are both potential candidates to compete against Néstor Kirchner. As of February, 2006, the two were working together to construct an opposition alliance which can pose a threat to Kirchner…(21.)
In 2002, Sobisch was caught on a hidden camera apparently offering bribes to a provincial legislator to ensure the appointment of the provincial government's chosen judges to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (TSJ).(22.).
What does this suggest about the government he would create? What kind of government would emerge in 2007 if the centre right alliance of Macri and Sobisch were to oust Kirchner? Would it have room for Eduardo de la Cruz? -
Argentina was a signatory party to the just ended (130104) Monterrey Summit of the Americas’ Declaration of Neuvo Leon, in which the western hemisphere’s nations pledged to “promote transparency in political processes, in public financial management, government transactions, etc.” In 1995, Argentina ranked as 24th in Transparency International’s corruption index.
Did Argentina’s signature on the March 1996 OAS Caracas Convention against corruption change things?
For 1997, Argentina’s TI ranking fell to 42nd.As of 2000, Argentina fell again to 52nd. For 2003, Argentina was in 92nd place (behind Madasgar).
In 2005, Argentina fell to 97th – this time ranking WITH Madagascar. (23.)
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About Argentina, the 2005 edition of U.S. State’s Yearbook (24.) states, about Human Rights Practices, that“The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens.”
In the very next sentence, however, it mentions “The following human rights problems were reported:
- instances of killings and brutality by police and prison officials
- overcrowded, substandard, and life-threatening prison and jail conditions
- arbitrary arrest and detention
- prolonged pretrial detention
- domestic violence and sexual harassment against women
- trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation and labor
- child labor…
The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) reported that security forces were responsible for 53 deaths in the greater Buenos Aires area in the first half of the year, a number that included individuals killed in confrontations with security forces during the presumed commission of a crime.
In February in Villa Lugano, the Federal Police (PFA) arrested three police officers, Agent Adrian Bustos, Agent Miguel Angel Cisneros and Corporal Mariano Almiron for killing 14-year-old Camila Arjona…
…the October 2004 deaths of three juvenile detainees in a fire in a Buenos Aires police station…
…[The trial] Seven suspects in the 2003 killings of Patricia Villalba and Leyla Bashier Nazar begin. The seven inductees included the former information chief of the province and three provincial police officers; the trial was ongoing at year's end. An investigation of other police officers and former provincial officials in connection with the killings continued…