By Atilio A Boron on December 10, 2022, from Buenos Aires
Cristina Fernandez
Like a very aggressive tumor, lawfare has metastasized and threatens to kill Argentine democracy. The decision taken by a gang of miscreants disguised behind the deceitful solemnity of a judicial platform dealt a heavy blow to the democratic process because, in a rigged trial in which all the clauses of due process were flouted, the current Vice President of Argentina was convicted without any evidence and banished in perpetuity from national political life. Once again, proscription appears as the resource to which the ruling class and its pawns appeal to remove from the public scene the person who, without any doubt, is the most important political figure in the country.
It is clear that the executioners of the Argentine institutions do not only nest in the nauseating offices of the Federal Justice. They are the final executors of a sinister plan that brings together a part of the business sector (industrial, agribusiness, speculative, etc.); unscrupulous agents of certain international interests -such as the usurper of Lago Escondido, for example- and, of course, the media duopoly that quickly moved from journalism to big business, turning both multimedia into extremely powerful economic corporations. In this unhappy mutation, the golden rule of the noble journalistic profession: “tell the truth and denounce lies”, as Chomsky said, was unceremoniously buried and “war journalism”, fake news, defamation and blackmail became the modus operandi of the media. The media, due to their malign (and anti-democratic) capacity to format an increasingly less -and worse- informed public opinion, lacking communicational counterweights, became the organizing vanguard of the reactionary bloc. That is why in the final part of her eloquent and vibrant speech Cristina Fernández directly pointed out the owner of Clarín as the “capo di tutti i capi”, denouncing the mafia-like nature of his operations and the coalition he leads and which, we suspect, remains united and obedient to his directives given its formidable capacity to extort businessmen, judges, prosecutors, politicians and journalists, as well as ordinary people, who are powerless to resist the disclosure of the scams kept safe in the archives of the “great Argentine newspaper”.
Cristina’s scandalous condemnatory sentence is only matched in its immorality by the adventure of the jubilant crowd that participated in the conclave gathered at the mansion of the “squatter” Lewis in Lago Escondido. Never has Argentina seen such an affront to legality, to the separation of powers, to the necessary independence and impartiality of the Judiciary; never have we known of such brazen promiscuity between judges and prosecutors, former spies of the AFI, officials of the government of the city of Buenos Aires and a couple of journalistic businessmen who entertained them with their gifts. What the Telegram chat reveals is that the ethical character of these holy men is no better than that of Al Capone, Vito Genovese, Lucky Luciano and the gangsters who once took over Chicago and New York. Their posts and audios reveal the baseness, crudeness and filth in which these characters are so at home. But, for decades, these lowlifes were and -even today, after the scandal- are extolled by the pseudo-journalists of the mainstream media who consider them as worthy custodians of the purity of the institutions and the rule of law.
This whole deplorable situation will not be solved by relying on the self-criticism of the Federal Justice, on its proven (lack of) will of self-reform, or on an unproductive dialogue with the beneficiaries of the mafia-like regression of Argentine justice and politics. I believe that only a “mass event” -like October 17, which founded modern Argentina; like the great demonstrations that peacefully overthrew the regimes of the Shah of Iran and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, or liberated India from British rule- will create the necessary conditions to solve this crisis. That is to say, a massive, non-violent but politically overwhelming irruption will be able to remove the foundations of a judicial apparatus corrupted to the core. In view of the foreseeable skepticism of more than one reader, I would like to recall Machiavelli’s acute observation when he said “that the greatness of the Roman Republic was based on the balance between the Senate controlled by the nobility and the people of Rome”, mobilized and agitated by the tribunes of the plebs. In line with this argumentation and in order to prevent this “mass event” from becoming an ephemeral and sterile political catharsis, it will be essential for President Alberto Fernandez to call a non-binding popular consultation without further delay, which only requires a simple decree, which, as established by Law 25,432 must be “decided in a general agreement of ministers and endorsed by all of them”. This consultation must contain a few very simple questions which, according to the law, must be answered with a yes or no. I propose the following:
(a) Do you agree with subjecting to impeachment the members of the Supreme Court and the judges and prosecutors of the Federal Justice?
If, as it seems, the response of the citizens is very favorable, this would open the doors to advance, within the current legal framework, a deep reform of the Argentine Justice System. Even the deputies and senators currently opposed to the reform will be compelled to change their positions once the powerful voice of the people has been heard. There is a reason why the right-wing never wants the people to speak out. Let us hope that the president has the necessary audacity to face in this way an issue that has no other solution, and that he meditates on Charles Fourier’s acute observation when he said that “it is not with moderation that great things are done”. And this country must face the realization of “great things”. If we do not act in this way, Argentina will enter a gloomy labyrinth that only assures us of an outcome of violence and death. There is still time, but there is not much left.
Source: Network In Defense of Humanity, translation Resumen Latinoamericano. – US