By Ilka Oliva Corado on March 14, 2021
Liliana López Foresi is a benchmark of committed journalism, not with those who bribe, not with those who destroy, but with those who resist and unite when things are hard. She is a myth, a legend of journalism that many in the Argentine oligarchy have tried to destroy over the years. Whoever thinks of humane, indispensable, responsible, gender-focused and ethical journalism in Argentina knows that it has a representative and that is Liliana López Foresi.
But if Liliana is so important to the foundations of women’s political journalism in Argentina, why is she still censored after 30 years? On May it will be 30 years since she was banned from the public media. She was the first woman to host a television program with a political focus that she herself designed on Channel 13. Revista 13, Periodismo de opinión, in 1991. She hosted the OTI Song Festival. The first woman to host the Cosquín Festival in 1998, which she had to do under police escort due to threats against her son. Winner of several Martín Fierro and named Woman of the Year by the people’s choice and by the Konex Foundation as one of the Five Best Hosts of the Decade in 1991. Liliana stood out, she was the heroine of the working class who led the way for others in political opinion journalism and, in solitude, also confronting the Clarín Group and Menemism. Liliana López Foresi was censured for her daring, in times of democracy.
After the censorship in television, she continued to work in radio and self-managed cable channels and had to mortgage her house on several occasions. In mid-1994, they tried to bribe her to host a television program that she herself could design, for which they offered her thousands of dollars for herself, the production and salaries, but with an agenda in favor of those who had brought Argentina to its knees with neo-liberalism. Liliana, stoic and honest, answered no, although at that time, due to economic necessity, she could have said yes, without thinking twice, but she preferred to hold her ground, to fight against the current rather than sell her ideals and her dignity.
The order was to banish her from journalism forever, not only during the Menem government. But before this censorship, the persecution against Liliana had already been brewing, when she was fired from Radio Miltre in 1989, where she also had a political analysis program. For Grupo Clarín and Menemism, Liliana López Foresi was more than a thorn in their side, she was the voice of the people who expressed themselves through her.
Not only did they fire her and close doors everywhere to stop her from working as a journalist, but they also began to harass her with death threats. They phoned her at work to tell her that they were going to kill her son, in 1997. She experienced attempts on her own life, they slashed the tires of her car on two occasions, they entered her house four times when she was not there, to move her furniture and to leave her notes with the telephone conversations she had with her mother from the coast because by that summer Liliana had gone to work in the interior, with everything and custody. Among the many forms of intimidation and psychological torture she experienced, it became clear that one of the two police officers who was guarding her turned out to be an informant for the same people who were trying to corner her, and that was because the other colleague told her, a price she paid with a bullet fired at her from a moving car.
Liliana López Foresi was under surveillance day and night, they were following her footsteps, during the Menem and De la Rúa governments. Yes, in times of democracy. I mention in this text only some of the forms of psychological torture and attacks that Liliana experienced during the years following her dismissal, but I could write pages and pages because what they wanted was to make her so desperate that she would commit suicide or leave the country. But neither one nor the other happened, Liliana resisted despite the affront.
It is perfectly understandable what neoliberalism can do in times of democracy, just put on paper. Liliana López Foresi could have been just another disappeared person in times of democracy and nothing would have happened, just as nothing has happened in the 30 years that her censorship has continued. Because we understand what criminals do, the way they control and manipulate the system and the people who form alliances with the oligarchic mafias. We already know their techniques and their ways. But what about the humanists, the progressives, those who speak of dignity, the journalists who are professionally ethical and on the side of the truth and the people, those who denounce injustice? These are the ones I am talking about over the last 30 years.
Liliana has resisted with dignity and character, she has her own website and calls herself a free journalist, which she is. But 30 years of professional development, of growth within the profession, have been taken away from her, she has been isolated, pushed aside, buried alive, denied economic development by not being able to exercise her profession and earn a salary. As a professional woman, she has been denied the right to prosperity and fulfillment. Because they have wanted to kill her soul, to tear out her sensitivity, to turn her into a being without feelings or rather into a being with feelings of self-destruction due to frustration and rage. And this is a total injustice.
And it has been done by the good, the consistent, the humanists, those who dream and speak of a people of dignity and resistance, and those who speak of historical memory; by their silence, by turning their backs on the past 30 years. The great humanist journalists recognized throughout the Patria Grande, those who praise Cuba, Chávez, those who adore Dilma and Lula, those who proudly shout, long live Che, those who see the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo as a worldwide example of resistance and humanism. Those who call Fidel their brother, those who denounced the coup d’état in Bolivia, those who denounced the dictatorship of Lenin Moreno, those who have seen in Cristina and Evita the greatness of women in Argentine and Latin American politics.
Those who say that it is not hatred but justice when they put in jail those responsible for crimes against humanity in times of dictatorship. Those who defend freedom of expression. Feminists have done so, the great feminists who are a beacon in Latin America. How is it possible that in 30 years, Liliana López Foresi has not been asked for a public apology on behalf of the government and her work in the country’s public media has not been returned? Because Liliana was not fired for being mediocre, nor for lack of preparation or ability to be in a job, she was fired for having guts, for daring to say on national television what at that time others were hiding, she was fired for standing up for herself, for sticking her chest out in solitude.
For not having said yes with submission and greed. For not having gone to bed with the puppet masters. She was dismissed because other women in power could not cope with her intelligence. And all those who also with envy from their mediocrity saw her dismissal and censorship as an enormous opportunity for them, to rise up every day as petty and traitors of their own gender and freedom of expression, of their own professions, kept quiet. That is why today, 30 years later, there is still no movement, neither in journalism nor in human rights, nor by artists, intellectuals, writers, poets, politicians, to demand public reparation for Liliana López Foresi. Liliana is too much, too intelligent, human, ethical, dignified, but above all, with an inexhaustible resistance. It is worth pointing out that those who fired her at the time are now in important positions in the media.
What these 30 years have done has been to demonstrate not the power of the neoliberal oligarchs, but the double standards and mediocrity of those who have seen this injustice and have accommodated themselves by seeking their personal benefit, who, while they are well in their cloud, in their bubble, can tear the soul and the skin off whoever they are. Liliana López Foresi deserves public reparation on behalf of the government and to be in a job that matches her capacity and these 30 years of censorship, I am referring to being the director of a media outlet, be it written, radio or television. I am talking about being properly vindicated. If this is not done, progressive governments owe an enormous debt to the right to freedom of expression, to human rights and to the resistance, loyalty and dignity of a woman who risked her life exercising her right to denounce and expose with her own voice what others, even in these 30 years, have looked the other way and turned away.
For her resistance, for her ethical professionalism, for her gender vision, for her humanism and dignity, Liliana López Foresi is one of Latin America’s indomitable women. During her lifetime, she is already a myth.
Source: Cronicas de una Inquilina, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English