ARGENTINA: Public Respect, a Thing of the Past for Politicians

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 18 2002 (IPS) - Politicians in Argentina are living in fear today of being singled out by protesters in an “escrache” – a spontaneous public expression of repudiation, which sometimes involves physical aggression.

In the latest such incident, a former ambassador to France, writer Jorge Asís, began to be booed and insulted by fellow diners in a restaurant where he was eating with his wife on Thursday night.

A group of customers then approached him and shoved him hard against a table, which broke under the impact of his fall. Asís had to be taken away in an ambulance. After the police report was filed, the writer – an outspoken defender of former president Carlos Menem (1989-99) – was attended for injuries to his back and chest that made it difficult for him to breathe normally.

Analysts say the “escraches” reflect just how fed up Argentines have become with the prolonged social and economic crisis that shows no signs of letting up, and with the impunity surrounding the rampant political corruption.

“People have begun to see politicians as their victimisers,” according to psychoanalyst Eva Giberti.

The “escraches” – a word that means, roughly, a combination of “reveal”, “denounce” and “condemn” – were the brainchild of Hijos (sons and daughters), an organisation made up of youngsters whose parents became the victims of forced disappearance during the 1976-83 military dictatorship.

In the early 1990s, groups of young people began to gather outside the homes of military officers who had taken part in the repression – around 30,000 people were abducted, tortured and “disappeared” at the hands of the security forces under the de facto regime – to show their neighbours that a former torturer was living among them.

But in December, when the country’s four-year recession peaked in looting, rioting and protests that toppled the government of Fernando de la Rúa, the “escraches” extended to politicians in general. Another novel aspect is that many of the incidents are not organised ahead of time, but are spontaneous.

People simply begin to shout, insult, whistle and clap their hands when they see a political leader in a public place. In some cases, the politicians are shoved around when they refuse to leave the restaurant, stadium, theatre or whatever public venue they happen to be visiting.

Just hours after the restaurant incident, Asís was shoved again, in front of a group of reporters waiting outside his home, by a passerby who shouted at him and pushed him around until he was forced to take refuge in the building.

“It was a silly incident, marked by unusual verbal violence, a denigration, a humiliation,” said Asís, who was paid the salary of a provincial governor without doing any work in exchange when Menem was in office, and who was frequently in the media.

The episode occurred less than a week after an “escrache” involving a former de facto regime official, 80-year-old neo- liberal economist Roberto Alemann, who was shoved and insulted in front of the TV cameras as he tried to enter a bank where account- holders were protesting the restrictions on cash withdrawals put into effect in early December to prevent a run on banks.

In today’s crisis-stricken Argentina, Latin America’s third- largest economy, 40 percent of the population has fallen into poverty, and unemployment has soared to 23 percent. The protests that began in December continue on a daily basis.

Government officials, former officials and well-known legislators have suffered so many incidents of verbal assault and aggression that they are afraid to go out in public. Some have requested bodyguards, while others have asked to be assigned diplomatic posts abroad.

Former president de la Rúa, who resigned on Dec 20 after two days of rioting that left 30 dead, has virtually shut himself away in his weekend home in a posh Buenos Aires suburb. A few days ago, de la Rúa was forced to leave a supermarket without making his purchase.

The scandal-ridden Menem is suffering a similar fate, and complains that he feels like a “prisoner” in his country.

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Camaño, ordered the installation this month of a more than two-metre-high rampart around the lawmakers’ offices.

Only one member of parliament, Luis Zamora, a leftist legislator, can freely mix with the population without fear. Zamora won widespread respect when he renounced the special retirement pension to which he was entitled after completing a former term in the legislature in the 1990s, and earned a living selling books until his re-election in 2001.

“Escraches” involving politicians began to occur in December, after the spontaneous mass protests that forced de la Rúa out of office in the midst of the most severe political, social and economic crisis in the history of Argentina.

One of the first to suffer mistreatment at the hands of a crowd was Rodolfo Barra, who served as justice minister and a member of the Supreme Court under Menem. After the former official was shouted at in a cafe in December, he shaved his trademark beard and significantly altered his appearance to avoid further incidents.

After that it was the turn of a former economy ministry official, Horacio Liendo, who was punched in the face and lost his glasses as he got out of a taxi. Next came a former secretary of interior security, Enrique Mathov, who is currently under arrest in connection with the brutal crackdown on demonstrators the day de la Ruá resigned.

Most of the “escraches” occur when a political leader attempts to visit a restaurant or bar. But incidents have also taken place in stadiums, golf courses, theatres and airports, in the home provinces of legislators, in front of their homes and even outside Congress.

Instead of the respect and deference politicians used to receive in public places, most meet with such hostility today in the streets that many feel like prisoners in their homes, offices or cars.

Foreign Minister Carlos Ruckauf, a former vice-president under Menem, ex-governor of the province of Buenos Aires and ex- ambassador to Italy, was insulted in February by passengers on an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight who said they did not want to share a plane with him from Madrid to Buenos Aires.

Senator Eduardo Menem, former president Menem’s brother, was the target of similar insults at an airport in the province of Catamarca. According to witnesses, the senator responded with blows and shoves after he was insulted by a fellow passenger.

Eduardo Menem’s violent reaction occurred just a few days after former president Raúl Alfonsín (1983-89), who is today a senator, defended himself in a similar manner at the entrance to his home, when an “escrache” was organised by a neighbourhood assembly.

Alfonsín, 75, lashed out at the chanting protesters with his fists. Although he was the only one using physical violence, the former president received expressions of solidarity from fellow politicians and from foreign leaders like former Spanish prime minister Felipe González.

Constitutionalist lawyer Daniel Sabsay said that in his view, the “mistaken” reaction of the public “is the product of another great wrong: impunity and the poor functioning of our institutions.”

A famous restaurant in the central province of Mendoza has hung up a sign that reads “no politicians allowed.”

An “escrache” held in January outside the home of a member of the national parliament in the town of Junín, province of Buenos Aires, ended when a protester was seriously injured by a bullet fired from inside the legislator’s home.

The victim is still in the hospital, and the lawmaker’s son, who said he meant to fire a warning shot into the air, is under house arrest.

The demonstrators were complaining that the lawmaker, a pedicurist by profession, has amassed enormous wealth since she was elected to Congress.