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“TRUE REALITIES OF OUR HEMISPHERE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1594-E1595 on Aug. 7, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRUE REALITIES OF OUR HEMISPHERE
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HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.
of michigan
in the house of representatives
Thursday, August 6, 1998
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, with an eye toward this country's emerging all-embracing trade arrangement with our Latin American neighbors, as outlined in the recent second heads-of-government meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Chile, we in this country would do well to better familiarize ourselves with the true realities found in the rest of the hemisphere. We will then be in a better position to discharge our responsibility of expressing some words of caution or encouragement to our citizens and U.S.-based corporations that are considering whether to make investments throughout the region, including in Argentina.
Over the last few years, Latin America undoubtedly has made genuine improvements in the fields of economic development as well as in its observance of minimal standards of human rights, but much work remains to be done regarding the region's respect for the rule of law. This was one of the main points made in a major article in the July 27th issues of the highly regarded British publication, The Financial Times, in which judicial corruption was listed as a major problem in Argentina today. Similar articles have indicated that problems stemming from a tainted judiciary are found throughout the region.
We are familiar with the need to wage similar battles in the U.S. to achieve the observance of justice and tough human rights standards, so we cannot be smug over such matters. But we can and must be forthright in expressing our opinions when the well being of our fellow citizens may be at stake and the welfare of one of our neighbor's citizens is being flagrantly flouted. After all, the same judiciary that protects the human rights of its own citizens in Latin America also enforces commercial law respecting foreign investments.
It is for this reason that, with alarm, we read reports issued by the OAS and USAID, as well as by the State Department, speaking about the inadequacies of the Latin American judiciaries, where the presence of corruption and venality is at times, almost beyond exaggeration, be it in Honduras--perhaps the worst case of a venal judiciary in the hemisphere, or Argentina (one of the worst). Without an honest judiciary there is no level playing field and no reliable rules of the game. The pseudo integrity of the Latin American court system is only rivaled in scope by the substitution of democratic form in place of substance in much of the region. This reality has to be of great concern to us.
Argentina is a good example of may of these points. Despite Buenos Aires' continued claim that it is reforming its admittedly gangster-
like judiciary into one that is less at the mercy of politics, cronyism, influence peddling and payoffs, and more into one that can fearlessly uphold and conform to the country's constitution, there are good reasons to believe that its court system is apparently taking serious steps backwards. This is the case in spite of the fact that Argentine justice officials have begun to put together the long promised ``Consejo de la Magistratura,'' which is a judicial oversight committee.
Unfortunately, the brutal military dictatorship, which wiped out a generation of democratic leaders during Argentina's ``Dirty War'' and drove much of its intellectual class into exile, has left a malodorous legacy in the person of many of the judges it selected who still sit on the country's bench. For years, the judiciary has enjoyed a period of relative anonymity from the scrutiny its tawdry performance all but required, but today it is subject for close examination by the international community, including the aforementioned issue of The Financial Times.
One example of the many instances of serious miscarriages of justice that have taken place in that country is provided by the bizarre case of the Buenos Aires Yoga School (BAYS), of which the following article from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs' distinguished biweekly publication, the Washington Report on the Hemisphere, provides a thorough critique. This includes outlandish tactics which that highly regarded Buenos Aires cultural and educational institution has had to endure at the hands of extremist and unprincipled elements of the Argentine judiciary.
We all have heard stories concerning the continued legacy of corruption and disregard for constitutional guarantees that exists in Argentina. These have been compounded by the long tradition of virulent anti-Semitism in the country, as exemplified by the sanctuary that a succession of Argentine presidents provided to fleeing World War II war criminals of the Nazi era. Other examples of outrageous behavior on the part of local Argentine authorities have been the Keystone cop antics surrounding the farcical investigation of the bombings of two Jewish-
related Buenos Aires facilities in the last few years, at a cost of over 100 lives. Last April, a delegation of our Hill colleagues went to Argentina, where they were diligent in promoting the cause of human rights, and in urging the local authorities to investigate the unresolved bombing of the AMIA, one of the two aforementioned wantonly destroyed Jewish facilities.
We now have another opportunity to take action in helping to strengthen Argentine democracy. Unfortunately, as in this country we must face the fact that religious and racial persecution is found in many places in the Americas, representing a frontier that the international conscience must strive to conquer. Unequivocally, the facts surrounding the treatment of the Buenos Aries Yoga School reveal that this is one of a number of disturbing instances where injustice has been done: where the courts have served as a persecutor of the human spirit, rather than its defender. The reason that this highly regarded institution of scholars, professionals and others seeking an inner light has been singled our for threats, intimidation, sexual harassment and a campaign of terror largely is because many of its members are highly distinguished cultural, professional, and academic figures of Jewish background. COHA's article on the ordeal experienced by BAYS sheds some light on the tribulations that all those in this country who really care about democracy will have to be concerned about. I call upon my colleagues to carefully read the following article by the director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, Larry Birns, and COHA research associate, Anna M. Busch.
Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Argentina's Flawed Court, Corrupted Society
By Larry Birns and Anna Busch
After years of being held in contempt by most Argentines because of its lack of professionalism and absence of even elemental integrity, the Buenos Aires police force has begun the protracted task of cleansing its own Augean stable, easily among the hemisphere's most egregiously corrupted institutions. Last December, 2,000 of its personnel were terminated and almost 50,000 were implicated in some form of corrupt practices.
The pressing need for massive restructuring in the police's selection and training procedures was highlighted by the alleged involvement of Buenos Aires' assistant police chief in the bombing of a Jewish community building, resulting in almost 100 deaths. Five years was then wasted on a scandalously farcical investigation. Although such facts have become widely known to the Argentine public, its sensibilities have been dulled by the hecatomb of corruption charges leveled from all directions at the government of President Carlos Menem.
Merely one of hundreds of examples where Argentine justice is chronically denied or manipulated to serve the ends of cronyism and venality, is the fate of the Buenos Aires Yoga School (BAYS), a tiny entity devoted to pursuing education and philosophic studies, akin to New England's literary Athenaeum movement of a century ago.
Although BAYS' ordeal has been hardly remarkable, it well illustrates the grevious condition of one of Argentina's basic institutions--its notoriously flawed court system. BAYS regards itself as an apolitical, non-religious, NGO. The Argentine government calls it a cult. The group has attracted a long list of tributes for its work in the fields of public health and in the war against drugs. In the arts, BAYS members also has made their mark through composing a number of major works, including an opera, a ballet, and a symphony, which have won plaudits worldwide. Nevertheless, the group has been greeted with singular hostility in Argentina.
A motivating factor for the judiciary's prejudice against BAYS is the high percentage of Jews in its leadership as well as among its members (no small fact in a country which is anti-Semitic to its marrow).
Legal proceedings against BAYS' members were initiated in 1993, and were accompanied by an unrelieved spate of hostile media coverage. The original trial judge was well-known for his neo-nazi ideology, redolent of that of the brutal military regime that had seized power in 1976, and which ruled for almost a decade through a level of violence unparalleled in Argentine history. The complaint against BAYS was entered as a counter suit to one filed by one of its own members, a 24-year-old student who accused her stepfather, a former employee of the military junta, of sexually molesting her. In turn, the stepfather charged that his stepdaughter was a victim of a cult which had ``corrupted'' her. The judge eventually recused himself, but only under pressure of his own imminent Senate impeachment on charges of having committed scores of illegal acts against BAYS. He imprisoned the innocent and demanded that children testify, but not in the presence of their parents or attorney, he questioned defendants for hundred-hour stints, carried out more than thirty illegal searches including raiding the offices of the defendant's attorneys, as well as authorizing the stealing of evidence.
The judge, well known for his sleaziness and his sexual improprieties, also insisted at the time that he was removing himself from the case only because he had been ``bewitched'' by the group. He then handed it to a fellow right-winger. Although the new judge favored a more discreet approach, he could barely contain his personal antipathy toward BAYS, capriciously adding fraud and larceny to the existing charges. He also openly ignored a superior court's decision nullifying part of the case on the grounds that no convincing evidence against BAYS was established. Nevertheless, the judge refused to invalidate the previous illegal actions sanctioned by his predecessor, and proceeded to recklessly indict even more individuals, as well as ignoring that the statute of limitations had run out.
BAYS' fate is illustrative of the corruption, bigotry and criminality that pervades every level of Argentina's court system and also infects its broader society. The nation's ill-reputed judiciary and police force are a liability for the nation's reputation abroad, which could hurt the country from fully benefiting from the opportunities afforded by the regional trade pact, Mercosur, as well as the FTAA, once enacted.
Demonstrably, Argentina is far less along the democratic continuum than Presidents Menem and Clinton wrongfully insist it is. On the eve of the Santiago Summit, in his speech gave to the Chilean legislature, President Clinton stressed the theme of ``deepening'' democratic institutions (millions of dollars already have been allocated from abroad to reform Argentina's bedeviled judiciary). Argentina and other hemispheric nations desperately need that ``deepening'' to make credible the now pseudo-democratic nature of their institutions.
It hasn't helped that Menem fosters political cynicism as his modus operandi, rather than providing genuine leadership or anything approaching a vision. His lack of class and his inability to comprehend strong ethical standards, has left the country without a moral compass. His readiness to participate in the cover up of a number of infamous cases, including the bombing of two Jewish entities, with heavy loss of life has emphasized the desperate need for reforming the region's deplorable court systems, beginning with Argentina's.
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