Ir al contenido principal

Crime time

By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
@sebalacunza
 

Minister Bullrich defined the main lines of her policy and pointed out: “The Buenos Aires provincial police have enormous problems.”


The Mauricio Macri administration says that now it has managed to halve an annual inflation of 45 percent — in other words, lower it to the levels below the December devaluation — the main concern of the citizenry has again become law and order. And to fight crime, which naturally tends to grow in a context of greater poverty and inequality, the Mauricio Macri presidency appeals to its magic recipe: harsher punishments, ringing slogans and the involvement of the Armed Forces.
In an American Club talk to business representatives, penal lawyers and court and government officials, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich described her handling of the problem as “free of ideological prejudices” while not refraining from giving her own version of why crime has regained ground in news segments: “The President told us: now that we have lowered inflation, it’s up to you. But what is also happening is that this issue is no longer politicized. Before ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner spoke out and everybody answered her, thus dodging the real problems.”
Bullrich, a leader of leftwing Peronist origins who has formed part of various centre-right alliances for the past 20 years, defined the main lines of her task.
- “They tell us that the prisons are full. If there’s no room in the jails, how do we define criminal policy so that people do not get killed?”
The minister’s words seemed a reply to a recent report of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, which visited detention centres and interviewed government representatives, prosecutors and human rights organizations. The text describes how at the end of 2015 there were 71,464 people detained in all the prisons of the country, a growth of 16 percent with respect to 2010, with peaks of 25 percent in Buenos Aires province and 53 percent in Mendoza. “The use of police stations as permanent places of detention mainly arises from the lack of space in prisons and the abusive practice of pre-trial remanding in custody” (see the article on page 7).
- Another striking paragraph from Macri’s chosen crimebuster was that the security forces are implementing the so-called “control deliveries” even if there is not a specific law providing this system, which consists in keeping an eye on the trafficking of illegal goods but only taking action once they are clear about the real dimensions of the crime. The strategy might be debatable but the legality shouldn’t be.
- “Drug-trafficking assets are working capital. While the trial lasts, the suspect will continue using his assets. I’d take it all away the first day with the removal of domain”, warned Bullrich, who recognized that it is a controversial aspect. A wide range of legal experts questions the basic principle of innocent until proven guilty being breached. A “removal of domain” prior to the final sentence, which might possibly acquit the accused, could undermine fundamental human rights.
- The minister also explained that she plans to open a Police High Command Academy with the aid of French experts. “I assure you that if we take a border guard to Campo de Mayo (the force’s headquarters) for three months, he will come out a good officer. Or perhaps he will go around 70 percent down that road,” she admitted. Bullrich joked that sending Border Guards to provinces like Santa Fe and Buenos Aires “is the new coinage in Argentina,” implying that if the Casa Rosada lacks sufficient funds to distribute, it can always calm the waters with this force.
“The Buenos Aires provincial police is part of the problem or part of the solution against crime?” the Herald asked during the lunch. Bullrich replied: “The Buenos Aires provincial police has enormous problems but we have to give people a chance. When the incentives are concrete, with a horizon, people begin to fall into line. You need both the carrot and the stick because those in the police did not join up to become thieves. The problems of the Buenos Aires provincial police are deeply rooted and are solved with extremely strict policies — we can sort out that police force.”
- The Security minister also considered the extradition of drug-traffickers like Ibar Pérez Corradi (the presumed mastermind of the 2008 General Rodríguez triple murder who allegedly struck a deal with the government) to be a feather in her cap. That development promised to really shake things up with scandalous revelations but no real proof emerged.
If tough-talking law and order rhetoric has proved itself to be useless earlier on (thus an unscrupulous Peronist won the Buenos Aires gubernatorial elections in 1999 with the slogan “slugs for thugs,” two years before abandoning the post with the exponential growth of the crime wave in the province), the most worrying aspect is calling for the intervention of the Armed Forces. Macri has plenty of precedents on which to leans. His dissident Peronist rival Sergio Massa campaigned last year on the promise to introduce the Army into shantytowns and increase the military presence on the frontier. But those promises shrink against the precedent of Operation Escudo Norte begun in 2011 and implemented by CFK’s favourite Army commander, César Milani. That initiative, under an officer accused of human rights violations and enjoying lavish intelligence funds, proved a sinister precedent, which the Macri government has now rechristened as Operation Frontera, with a higher level of ambition, according to the document “the government’s risky policy for the Armed Forces”, signed a few days ago by 27 academics and human rights militants.
Add to that the Buenos Aires provincial government under María Eugenia Vidal pushing the “logistic support” of the Armed Forces for the police force so aptly described by Bullrich last Thursday. Not just that. Provincial Security Minister Cristian Ritondo wants the military to be “escorts” for Buenos Aires provincial policemen, according to the weekend newspaper Perfil.
As that text recalls, “the current norms (sanctioned during the Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menem presidencies) regulate any military intervention in domestic security as exceptional and for a limited time only within highly specific situations”. Article Two of the Defence Law circumscribes very precisely the objective of national defence to “the solution of those conflicts requiring either the dissuasive or effective use of the Armed Forces to face aggressions of foreign origin.”
In a country like Argentina, there is hardly any need to point out what the risks of involving the military in domestic affairs might be. If the example of the coup 40 years ago might sound anachronistic, the more recent cases of other Latin American countries show that enlisting the Armed Forces in “the war on drugs” only makes the death toll rise exponentially. Mexico and Colombia are absurd examples for Argentine reality, even if there are people pushing the “sensation” that the situation runs out of hand.
Bullrich found time for some words about her colleague José Luis Gómez Centurión, the 1987 coupmonger now in charge of Customs. Gómez Centurión was suspended on August 19 after a lawsuit lodged by Bullrich, who had received an anonymous denunciation with apparent proof of corruption. Federal Judge Ariel Lijo found no direct evidence against the official after explicit lobbying by another sector of the government and the media and he was re-instated 80 days later.
Gómez Centurión affirmed that he intended to share a coffee with his accuser Bullrich in order to heal the wounds.
“I consider him absolutely an ally in crimefighting,” explained Bullrich last Thursday, “(first removing and then re-instating him) was a correct decision of the President. If another denunciation like that, will you shelve it or not? What would have happened if you had shelved it when the person who presented it knew what he had presented?”
“Have a coffee with him? No, but it’s not about drinking coffee. I could drink 20 coffees with him but this is about state policy.”



Entradas más populares de este blog

De Víctor Hugo a los relatores que insultan

Unos tipos con micrófono que insultan más que un hincha desbordado son presentados en las webs y en la tele como apasionados que causan gracia. Antes que ocurrentes espontáneos son, en realidad, violentos equiparables con barrabravas.  Es una paradoja que ello ocurra en el Río de la Plata, donde nacieron los mejores relatores de fútbol del mundo. Entre ellos, el mejor, Víctor Hugo.  El jugador sublime tuvo al relator sublime. Por su universo de palabras y sus tonos de voz, por sus creaciones artísticas; por su capacidad para leer la jugada y por la precisión de la narración. Casi no aparecen ahora los diálogos que VH presumía entre jugadores o con el árbitro, o el "que sea, que sea, que sea". Pervive el "ta ta ta" y el "no quieran saber".  Contemporáneos de Víctor Hugo, hubo y hay relatores brillantes (soy injusto y nombro seis: Juan Carlos Morales, José María Mansilla, José Gabriel Carbajal, el primer Walter Saavedra y el mejor relator argentino que esc

Solicitud de derecho a réplica en Radio Nacional

SOLICITUD DE DERECHO A RÉPLICA Buenos Aires, 24 de noviembre de 2016. At.  Ana Gerschenson Directora de Radio Nacional Cc: Jorge Sigal Secretario de Medios Públicos de la Nación De mi consideración,  Me dirijo a usted para solicitar derecho a réplica en relación a menciones falsas y agraviantes sobre mí que tuvieron lugar en el programa “Va de Vuelta”, que conduce Román Lejtman y tiene como columnista a Silvia Mercado. El 4 de noviembre, se registró el siguiente diálogo:  Román Lejtman:  ¿Lacunza presidía Fopea? Silvia Mercado : No, Lacunza era el director ejecutivo hace mucho. RL:  Ah, pero no está más. ¿Fue el que enterró el Buenos Aires Herald? SM:  Sí, fue el que enterró el Buenos Aires Herald, en efecto. Después se arrepintió y dejó Fopea (2010). RL:  ¿Se arrepintió Fopea de haberlo puesto de presidente? SM:  Nunca fue presidente. Era director ejecutivo. Después lo reemplazó un gran director ejecutivo. RL:  ¿Pero este Lacunza no está más?

Odiada, admirada, despreciada, la "periodista" Judith Miller se queja de cómo relatan su historia

Judith Miller ventilaba en The New York Times los supuestos informes confidenciales que daban cuenta, con falsedad, de las armas de destrucción masiva de Sadam Husein . Todo en off, todas fuentes reservadas, todo en línea con lo que Bush, Cheney y Rumsfeld querían. Tanto estrellato y falta de rigor para ganar tapas generó resquemor en sus compañeros del diario. Pero los años que siguieron al atentado del 11 de septiembre de 2001 justificaban estropicios periodísticos. El caso es que Miller (foto) pasó a ser víctima y admirada por ciertas organizaciones y parte de la opinión pública cuando fue a la cárcel por negarse a revelar una fuente. Una periodista con prácticas poco éticas, que operaba con sus fuentes en off, se abrazaba a un principio básico del periodismo como es la reserva de la fuente. En concreto, Miller se resistió a revelar quién le había pasado el dato de la identidad de una agente de la CIA, Valerie Plame . Una vendetta que motorizó el entorno del ex vice Dick Cheney par