By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 1 1997 (IPS)

Over the years certain words have defined certain periods in Argentina’s unfolding history: ‘inflation’, in the late 1980s; ‘stability’, in the 1990s; ‘corruption’, around 1995. Today the word is ‘impunity’.

The legacies of crimes gone unpunished — or dismissed by presidential pardon — have dogged Argentina’s conscience ever since the days of dictatorship when 30,000 political detainees, the long lost ‘desaparecidos’, the disappeared, were murdered.

Since then, a car bomb attack on a Jewish community group has left 100 dead, and last years’ murder of photo-journalist Jose Luis Cabezas is still unsolved. And the country’s incandescent outrage at the scale of corruption is deepening.

Earlier this month a group of government officials and directors of the U.S. transnational IBM, were released from charges of fraud and bribery; overruling the trial judge, who had been waiting for evidence from the Swiss attorney general which might have proven the defendants’ guilt.

A few days later, the president of Buenos Aires’ Deliberative Council, a branch of the municipal legislature, went on the run to escape arrest on charges of illegal enrichment. He has been accused of accumulating a wealth of homes, cars, apartments, land and cattle.

And Zulema Yoma, ex-wife of Argentina’s president, Carlos Menem, maintains that her son Carlos was the victim of a politically- motivated killer. He died in a helicopter crash in 1995.

“This is a country of deep shadow and automatic impunity” says Laura Ginsberg, widowed by the 1994 car bomb attack on the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Society. Ginsberg accuses the government and particularly the police of protecting the bombers.

And older sins escape punishment too. “It is very hard to walk down the street and suddenly see a known torturer, or to overhear one speaking in the subway,” says Estela Carlot, mother of a ‘disappeared’ woman and president of the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers Association.

This freedom, accorded to known thugs and criminals, is the result of an Argentinian law prohibiting legal action against anyone suspected of crimes involving ‘los desaparecidos’. “In a country where impunity prevails, lawlessness and social breakdown are the certain result,” warns human rights lawyer Alicia Oliveira.

That the state security forces have lost none of their taste for criminal behaviour and routine intimidation angers many. The police force of Buenos Aires province has been accused of involvement in attacks on the Jewish community and a role in Cabezas’ murder. The Cabezas investigation has drawn in names with close links to the government, notably telecommunications entrepreneur Alfredo Yabran.

“Certain words epitomise the spirit of an age, highlighting peoples’ reactions to the decisions of those in power,” says psychoanalyst Eva Giberti. “Certain words show where we stand, when it becomes compulsive to talk about impunity every day.”

She warned against a tendency fatalism in the face of the shortcomings of the justice system. Such attitudes only legitimise criminal behaviour if offenders walk away reasonably certain they will not be brought to justice.

“But when the whole community starts to react, impunity undergoes a change, as concern about victims and about the chances of becoming one are widespread. Impunity stops then to be an advantage enjoyed by a few privileged individuals, and becomes a social concern.”

Groups like the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who continue to demand the truth about their lost children and grandchildren, have been formed to resist political repression. Like the older organisations on which they are modeled, these new groups are also headed by women.

Opinion polls have found that only 10 percent of the populace are willing to have trust in the justice system. In contrast a massive 59 percent put faith in the journalists who investigate corruption and the complex links binding criminals and government.

This role is not without risk; between 1989 and 1996, journalists have been the target of some 800 reported threats, assaults and other crimes, all of which went unpunished.

Faceless people threaten, attack, malign, spread malicious lies, plaster downtown Buenos Aires with hate posters, even kill, but no arrests are ever reported.

“Justice no longer fulfills its mission of sanctioning wrongdoers,” says lawyer Marta Oyhanarte, president of the Citizen Power Foundation, whose husband was murdered by kidnappers.

There are sometime minor successes on the road to defeat. The murder of teenager Maria Soledad Morales may never have been solved but a charge that he shielded the killers from arrest cost Ramon Saadi his job as governor of Catamarca province.

Similarly the killers of soldier Omar Carrasco have never been found, but his murder in his barracks turned out to be the trigger for a presidential order ending military service.

Oyhanarte believes that the murder of Cabezas, a photo-journalist for the city weekly ‘Noticias’, marked a turning point. In a way that the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Society failed to do, national anger was mobilised.

From an initial journalists’ campaign, the protests have grown.

Cabezas’ name has gradually become a public symbol of resistance to the injustice of impunity.

“It was no longer a particular social sector or an unfortunate individual tht was victimised, but rather all society was outraged,” says Oyhanarte. “Then, they began to demand justice, truth and punishment”.

Excerpt:

By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 1 1997 (IPS)

Over the years certain words have defined certain periods in Argentina’s unfolding history: ‘inflation’, in the late 1980s; ‘stability’, in the 1990s; ‘corruption’, around 1995. Today the word is ‘impunity’.

The legacies of crimes gone unpunished — or dismissed by presidential pardon — have dogged Argentina’s conscience ever since the days of dictatorship when 30,000 political detainees, the long lost ‘desaparecidos’, the disappeared, were murdered.

Since then, a car bomb attack on a Jewish community group has left 100 dead, and last years’ murder of photo-journalist Jose Luis Cabezas is still unsolved. And the country’s incandescent outrage at the scale of corruption is deepening.

Earlier this month a group of government officials and directors of the U.S. transnational IBM, were released from charges of fraud and bribery; overruling the trial judge, who had been waiting for evidence from the Swiss attorney general which might have proven the defendants’ guilt.

A few days later, the president of Buenos Aires’ Deliberative Council, a branch of the municipal legislature, went on the run to escape arrest on charges of illegal enrichment. He has been accused of accumulating a wealth of homes, cars, apartments, land and cattle.

And Zulema Yoma, ex-wife of Argentina’s president, Carlos Menem, maintains that her son Carlos was the victim of a politically- motivated killer. He died in a helicopter crash in 1995.

“This is a country of deep shadow and automatic impunity” says Laura Ginsberg, widowed by the 1994 car bomb attack on the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Society. Ginsberg accuses the government and particularly the police of protecting the bombers.

And older sins escape punishment too. “It is very hard to walk down the street and suddenly see a known torturer, or to overhear one speaking in the subway,” says Estela Carlot, mother of a ‘disappeared’ woman and president of the Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers Association.

This freedom, accorded to known thugs and criminals, is the result of an Argentinian law prohibiting legal action against anyone suspected of crimes involving ‘los desaparecidos’. “In a country where impunity prevails, lawlessness and social breakdown . “In a country where impunity prevails, lawlessness and social b

Excerpt: