RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Downfall of Retired General Elected Governor

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 14 1998 (IPS) - A retired general responsible for the “disappearance” of some 600 people during Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship was suspended Tuesday from his post of governor of the northwestern province of Tucuman.

Antonio Bussi, who ruled Tucuman under the de facto regime and was later elected governor in 1995, is being investigated for undeclared assets – at least part of it reportedly stolen from victims of the dictatorship – worth more than one million dollars.

After a two-month suspension, Bussi could be removed from office if found guilty in the provincial legislature’s impeachment proceedings.

The president of the Impeachment Commission of the Tucuman Chamber of Deputies, Malvina Segui, explained that Bussi was suspended after resorting to subterfuges and omissions to keep his fortune a secret.

Deputy Governor Raul Topa – also accused of participating in the repression during the dictatorship, which human rights groups say claimed 30,000 lives – will temporarily take Bussi’s place, and could become governor if the retired general is found guilty.

The Supreme Court, Bussi’s last hope, ruled Tuesday that the governor’s suspension while the impeachment proceedings were underway was in line with the constitution.

Segui calculates the governor’s net worth at around one million dollars, pointing out that in one Military Society fund account alone he had 150,000 dollars in 1995, which had swelled to 400,000 dollars a year later.

The legislator has been accompanied by bodyguards since receiving – along with a number of other opposition lawmakers in Tucuman – printed threats signed by a self-described group of relatives of victims of the guerrillas.

The retired general’s son, Deputy Ricardo Bussi, said his father would respect the suspension, make it through the impeachment proceedings and return to his post. “My father is a popular leader who knew how to defend democracy.”

Bussi continues to enjoy popular support, although a growing number of his supporters have begun to turn their backs since he first denied and later admitted to several of the charges against him.

During the dictatorship, Bussi ruled Tucuman – where roughly 600 people were “disappeared” – as commander of the Third Army Corps.

In 1986 any possible legal action against him was ruled out by amnesty laws enacted by Congress, which benefited all members of the armed forces implicated in human rights violations, with the exception of the commanders of the regime, who were sentenced and later pardoned.

It was precisely his reputation as an iron-fisted leader that propelled him into the post of governor in the 1995 elections. Two years earlier he had won a seat in the national Chamber of Deputies representing the right-wing Republican Party, a provincial party.

The possibility of his triumph in the 1991 elections had already led President Carlos Menem to suggest the candidacy of popular singer Ramon “Palito” Ortega, who governed the province for four years.

The legal proceedings that led to Bussi’s suspension got underway two months ago, when a Spanish judge investigating the fate of “disappeared” victims of the regime asked Switzerland for information on safety-deposit boxes in the names of Argentine military officers.

Judge Baltasar Garzon asked the Swiss office of the public prosecutor for any documents referring to the victims of the dictatorship, based on reports by human rights groups of the existence of microfilms containing files on the victims.

The Swiss office of the public prosecutor complied. But instead of documents, what was found was money in the names of Argentine military officers, including Bussi, who had omitted that detail in his sworn declaration of assets prior to his inauguration as governor.

He later admitted the existence of the secret account containing more than 150,000 dollars, which led to a sanction by an armed forces court of honour.

In his defence, Bussi argued that he did not lie as a military officer but as a politician, a statement that drew fire from legislators and other politicians in Tucuman.

The office of the public prosecutor and the Tucuman Congress have started parallel legal proceedings. Federal prosecutor Paul Starc denounced that Bussi had real estate and other assets registered under the names of third parties, that he falsified sale and repurchase operations, and that his total assets were worth more than one million dollars.

In his statement of assets, Bussi declared only one property in Tucuman, another in Buenos Aires, and one account in a local bank.

But the federal prosecutor found eight properties in the name of the Bussi family, along with four vehicles, stocks, accounts in local and foreign banks, rural properties and a residence in Punta del Este, an exclusive resort town in neighbouring Uruguay.

Starc has filed charges of illicit enrichment and falsification of public documents, arguing that Bussi could not have accumulated more than one million dollars worth of assets on a monthly salary of 2,600 dollars.