ARGENTINA: Buenos Aires Mayor to Be Impeached Over Tragic Blaze

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 14 2005 (IPS) - The Buenos Aires city legislature decided Monday to suspend Mayor Aníbal Ibarra and impeach him for maladministration in connection with a late 2004 nightclub fire in which 194 young people died.

In a press conference held immediately after the vote, Ibarra promised that he would not resign and pledged to reveal everything he knew about the “irregularities” in the legal process in which he stands accused.

In a day of tension, death threats and pressure from all sides, 30 city legislators voted in favour of impeachment and seven against, while six abstained.

Those in favour of impeachment based their vote on the five-month probe carried out by an investigatory commission made up of members of the city legislature. Those who voted against or abstained said the investigation was marred by flaws that could lead to the annulment of the impeachment process.

The relatives of the victims, who were loudly demanding from outside the building that Ibarra be impeached, were pleased with the decision. Last Thursday the debate had broken off and the vote was suspended due to their noisy presence in the legislature and their threats of challenging the outcome if the legislators did not vote for impeachment.

Their anger was triggered by last-minute maneuvering by ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party legislators aimed at winning votes against impeachment. The most scandalous case involved legislator Eduardo Lorenzo who switched parties the same day the vote was to take place.

The tension continued to rise, and on Sunday, Buenos Aires assistant Bishop Jorge Lozano called those who put personal interests ahead of their convictions “mercenaries”.

The city legislature readjourned Monday to hold the vote, and limited the number of representatives of the victims’ families who could enter the legislature to 10. The relatives protested the limit and said they would stay outside, although they left photos of their loved ones in the building.

The decision whether or not to find Ibarra ultimately responsible for the tragedy, one of the worst in Argentine history, and to ban him from holding public office in the city for 10 years is up to a 15-member panel of city legislators.

The mayor, who was elected in 1999 and reelected in 2003, accused the city legislature of carrying out a “coup” against him, and said the vote was “the culmination of a disgraceful process” in which people “took political advantage of the tragedy.”

The city legislature is highly divided, with 60 lawmakers broken up into 23 factions. Ibarra’s party, the Frente Grande, only has three legislators today who follow the mayor.

But the relatives of the victims see things in a different light. “This is not a coup. The city will not be left ‘headless’ but will be governed by the deputy mayor,” Andrea Belsunce, the sister of one of the victims of the fire that swept through the Cromañón nightclub on Dec. 30, 2004, told IPS.

Belsunce said the impeachment trial is a legal tool contained in the city constitution for dealing with cases of maladministration, and added that it would be “an opportunity for Ibarra to prove his innocence.”

The catastrophe occurred during a rock concert, when someone in the audience fired a flare, a common practice among the followers of the group “Callejeros”. But this time the ceiling, which was lined with flammable materials that soundproofed the nightclub, caught on fire.

The blaze, and especially the toxic smoke, triggered a stampede. But the club was packed far beyond capacity and the emergency doors were chained shut. Among the victims were children in an improvised child care centre that was operating in the bathroom.

Due to the long list of irregularities, 22 people have already been tried, including the manager of the club, the security chief, the musicians, the band’s manager, and officials responsible for regulating nightclub safety.

Police officers accused of bribery were also tried, as well as fire fighters. The majority of those standing trial have been accused of manslaughter.

Ssources close to Judge Julio Lucini, who is handling the case, say he is deciding whether to call Ibarra to testify.

And lawyer José Iglesias, the father of another one of the victims, told IPS that “The judge is doing a good job, but the penal process is independent of the impeachment trial.”

Because of the accusations he is facing and his lack of support in the city legislature, Ibarra tried in February to call a referendum to allow voters to decide whether or not to remove him. But the initiative was frustrated by the lack of backing for the campaign to collect signatures to trigger a referendum.

The mayor’s advisers speculated that among the voters Ibarra could drum up the support that he did not have in the legislature. But the idea gradually lost steam as the months passed, and the mayor was investigated and accused by the lawmakers.