Mexican Tax Man: Bad Business Logic Behind Miscounted Beans

Paramount-Universal joint venture was one of a number of companies receiving irregular tax refunds on the Iron Auditor’s watch, says Mexican federal auditor.

In his weekly Web column, Oficio de Papel, Mexican journalist Miguel Badillo provides an update on funky doings in Mexico’s tax and customs institutions — including the troubled “enterprise integration” Big Dig at the Mexican tax authority under former Treasury secretary Francisco “The Iron Auditor” Gil Díaz.

See Badillo: Oracle-Powered Mexican Tax Machine Bogs Down.

Badillo’s axe to grind this week is a new list of firms that received improper tax refunds, for reasons that need clarifying.

If I understand this properly, the Mexican tax man says design limitations in the business logic of its “integrated solution” were to blame for the “anomalies,” in which tax breaks were misclassified under the heading of a customs duty known as the DTA.

On the problematic administration of the DTA program, see also

• Mexico: Tax Man Tracks Turpitude in Customs
• New From the ‘Fools Running Stateside Games’ File (Gil friends and relatives running customs houses as political patronage prizes)
• Gil Díaz On The Hot Seat (Calderón relatives also benefited from customs patronage)

We translate, as always, in haste.

Hace unas semanas comentamos los problemas que enfrenta el presidente de Servicio de Administración Tributaria (SAT), José María Zubiría Maqueo, por el costoso retraso en la aplicación de un sistema contratado para modernizar su plataforma tecnológica denominado “Solución Integral” y que representó un gasto de más de 52 millones de dólares, lo cual ha causado disgustos y desconfianza al secretario de Hacienda, Agustín Carstens.Según Zubiría Maqueo los problemas con este contrato no son atribuibles a hechos de corrupción o negligencia en el organismo que preside, y también ha exculpado del atraso a la empresa Oracle o Peoplesoft, que originalmente fue la que ganó el contrato, bajo el argumento de que se trata de un nuevo sistema es una arquitectura tecnológica muy compleja.

Some weeks ago we noted the problems faced by the head of the federal tax administration in Mexico (SAT), Mr. Zubiría, because of costly delays in the implementation of a system designed to modernize its technology platform, know as the “integrated solution,” representing an expenditure of $52 million, which has led the current treasury secretary, Carstens, to express annoyance and doubt. According to the head of the SAT, the problems cannot be attributed to acts of corruption or negligence at the SAT, and has also exonerated Oracle-Peoplesoft, which won the original contract, arguing that the new system has a very complex technical architecture. 

Pues en medio de la crisis que vive el presidente del SAT y sus problemas con su jefe Carstens que lo mantienen al borde de la renuncia, hay que agregar las graves acusaciones de supuesto delito de peculado que le hace la Auditoría Superior de la Federación en su último informe sobre la cuenta pública correspondiente a 2005, en donde señala que el SAT extrajo de manera irregular más de mil 200 millones de pesos correspondientes al Derecho de Trámite Aduanero para entregarlos a grandes contribuyentes como son Mexicana de Aviación, Aeroméxico, United International Pictures y Minsa, entre otras empresas privadas nacionales y extranjeras.

Now, in the middle of that crisis and the trouble that the SAT director is having with Carstens, who is on the verge of asking for his resignation, we have to add the serious accusations of misappropriation of funds made by the federal auditor (ASF) in his last report on the 2005 public accounts. The ASF indicated that SAT improperly took more than 1.2 billion pesos ($110 million) out of the customs duty fund and paid them out to large taxpayers such as Mexicana Airlines, Aeroméxico, United International Pictures, Minsa, and other private Mexican and foreign firms.

Colombia: “World Capital of Trade-Unionist Murders”

Alfredo Correa de Andreis: Assassinated in Barranquilla, 2004.

In Colombia, 72 union leaders were murdered in 2006, two more than in the previous year, according to Human Rights Watch. The NGO considers Colombia “The world capital of trade-unionist killings,” with more than 1,500 deaths since 1990.

Colombian prosecutor probing U.S. firms in Washington visit (AP):

Iguaran meets with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday. With both, he is sure to talk about Chiquita Brands and the Alabama-based coal company Drummond Co. Inc.

On the dubious record of the USDOJ under Gonzalez as Fourth Amendment defender and net exporter of due process of law, start with Adult Supervision for Mexican Narcs?

Uribe is out in the media today trying to refute a Human Rights Watch report on the extermination of trade unionists.

Thousands of Colombians disappeared in the past decade, most victims of right-wing militias that emerged in the 1980s to fight leftist rebel groups.The paramilitaries quickly evolved into mafias, enriching themselves through cocaine trafficking, theft and extortion in large chunks of the country, particularly the Caribbean coast. Large landowners, politicians and corporations bankrolled the militias to expand their holdings, while police and military officers turned a blind eye.

More specifically, as El Tiempo reports today, Mario Iguarán will lay the blame for the murders of numerous labor organizers on both paramilitary groups and military units.

Durante su visita a Estados Unidos, Mario Iguarán ha dicho que no quiere adelantarse a los resultados de las investigaciones, pero lo que se ha encontrado hasta el momento confirma esas sospechas.

During his visit to the U.S., Iguarán said he does not want to anticipate the results of the investigations, but that what he has discovered to date confirms these suspicions.

Peruvian Navy in Intel Hell

How to locate your local drug-smuggling Maoist revolutionaries on Google Earth.

Ofertaban informe secreto de la Marina sobre Sendero (La República, Peru): Another scandal in the Peruvian military as an intelligence officer is accused of selling intelligence data on the Shining Path guerrilla movement to private-sector security firms.

Congress members want the Peruvian vice-president, Adm. Giampietri, to recuse himself, and the congressional intelligence committee he chairs, from the investigation of the case.

Weapons were recently found being smuggled out of Army armories and smuggled to the FARC by narcotraffickers. See Peruvian Army Arms the FARC Through the Narc?

Ex agente Carlos Barba Daza puso a la venta información reservada, como fotografías satelitales y proyecciones computarizadas de SL.

Former agent Carlos Barba Dazas offered to sell classified information, such as satellite imagery and computerized models of projected Sendero activity.

One of his customers, reportedly: A security officer for Spanish multinational Telefónica.

Los cimientos de la Marina de Guerra se remecen nuevamente. Información secreta que da la ubicación exacta de miembros de Sendero Luminoso y las zonas que controlan en los valles de los ríos Apurímac y Ene también fue ofertada por el capitán de corbeta AP Carlos Barba Daza a empresas de seguridad privada. Lo grave de esto es que la información puesta a la venta pertenecía realmente a la Dirección de Inteligencia de la Marina (Dintemar).

The foundations of the Navy are being rocked once again. Secret information on the exact location of members of the Shining Path guerrilla movement and the zones they control in the Apurímac and Ene river valley (known as the “VRAE”) were offered by Capt. Carlos Barba Daza to private security firms. The matter is a serious one because the information offered for sale properly belongs to the Navy Intelligence Directorate (Dintemar).

Brazil: Regulators Hold Hearings on Telefônica’s Italian Job

Vigilante consumerdom: angry Argentines spank the Spaniards. Source: Iconoclastas.

Cade e Anatel analisarão juntas compra da Telefónica (Último Segundo/IG, Brazil): Brazil’s telecoms regulator, Anatel, and its antitrust watchdog, CADE, will jointly analyze Telefónica’s purchase of a stake in Telecom Italia from the Tupi perspective.

TI has a cellular concession in Brazil called TIM which has also been the objective of, ahem, intense interest.

Personally, given a choice between signing up with a Brazilian cellular company and being pistol-whipped during a mugging, I would personally want to know how severe the pistol-whipping was going to be before making up my mind.

O Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (Cade) e a Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel) devem trabalhar em parceria para analisar o impacto concorrencial no mercado brasileiro de telefonia da compra da empresa italiana Telecom Itália pelo grupo espanhol Telefónica associado a um consórcio de bancos italianos. Apesar de ter sido anunciado no último final de semana, o negócio ainda não é oficial para os órgãos de defesa da concorrência brasileiro, já que as empresas têm até 15 dias úteis, a contar da assinatura do primeiro documento da operação, para registrá-lo.

CADE and Anatel will work together to analyze the effect on competition in the Brazilian market of the acquisition of TI by Telefónica and a consortium of Italian banks. Although  it was announced last weekend, the deal is not yet official for Brazilian competition watchdogs — companies have 15 business days from the signing of the deal to register it with regulators.

No entanto, desde o último dia 26 de abril, e até o início de agosto, o Cade vai debater em nove audiências públicas as transformações que estão ocorrendo no setor de telecomunicações. O conselho está particularmente preocupado com os impactos concorrenciais das novas tecnologias que permitem a chamada convergência digital. Para as próximas audiências, que ocorrerão este mês e em junho, estão confirmadas as participações de dirigentes da concessionária de telefonia fixa de São Paulo, Telefônica, e das operadoras de celulares Vivo, TIM e Claro.

Even so, starting last April 26 and running through early August, CADE is going to hold nine public hearings on current transformations in the telecom sector. CADE is particularly concered with the competitive effects of new technology that enable so-called “digital convergence.” Confirmed for the next hearings, to be held in May and June, are executives of Telefônica, which holds the fixed-line telephone concession for São Paulo, and cellular operators Vivo, TIM and Claro. 

Mangabeira Unger and DVD: Applying the Teste da Farinha

Unger: cui bono?

COMO MANGABEIRA AJUDOU DANTAS CONTRA OS FUNDOS: “How Mangabeira Unger Helped [Daniel Valente Dantas] Against the Pension Funds.”

A follow-up news item since then: Brazil: Opportunity Costs for Dantas Fellow Travelers.

Paulo Henrique Amorim — who is, after all, one of the founders of CartaCapital magazine — interviews a CC reporter who has dug into the involvement of Harvard Law professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger with the business dealings of Brazilian investment banker Daniel V. Dantas.

Unger’s 2005 op-ed in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, accusing the Lula government of meddling in a dispute between Brasil Telecom management, controlled by Dantas, and Brazilian pension funds — and calling for the impeachment of “the most corrupt government in Brazilian history” — is causing quite a stir.

See Mangabeira Rewrites History!

Unger has now been named to a second-tier cabinet-level research and planning position in the Lula II government, as you recall.

He has said he will apologize to Lula in the speech commemorating his swearing in.

According to this reporter, Unger’s support for Dantas went a little beyond the moral and rhetorical.

Look, I cannot for the life of me get my head around this whole dispute, but I keep taking notes on it in the hopes of somebody being able to put two and two together.

And I have not checked out this reporting myself yet, mind you, so caveat lector; I merely translate pra inglês ver.

Amorim is one of the CC journalists allegedly wiretapped by Dantas and Kroll, so as you can imagine, they have a tremendendous, as they say in Brooklyn, hard-on for the “big-eared banker.” On the other hand, I have yet to catch CC lying to me. And I have tried.

A revista Carta Capital que chega às bancas neste final de semana traz uma reportagem que mostra como Mangabeira Unger ajudou Daniel Dantas a operar contra os fundos de Pensão e a Brasil Telecom.

This weekend’s CartaCapital magazine carries an article on how Mangabeira Unger helped Daniel Dantas to operate against the pension funds and Brasil Telecom.

O autor da reportagem e secretário de redação da Carta Capital, Sérgio Lírio, disse em entrevista ao Conversa Afiada que Dantas deixou um rombo de R$ 600 milhões na Brasil Telecom. E Mangabeira “embolsou” US$ 675 mil para ajudar Dantas.

Sérgio Lírio told Conversa Afiada in an interview that Dantas stuck Brasil Telecom with a shortfall of R$600 million, and Mangabeira “pocketed” US$675,000 for helping Dantas out .

Rio: “News from a Private War”

A Brazilian user uploads a 1997 documentary on drug trafficking and violence in Rio de Janeiro to YouTube that you really ought to see: “Notícias de uma guerra particular” (“News from a Private War.”)

I might have to work on a subtitled version, time permitting.

In the meantime, I will annotate the opening episode for you.

Ecuador Prexy Pimps the Penguin

Todos a utilizar software libre. Let’s use Free Software: President Correa of Ecuador has established an official government communications channel on YouTube.

He uses it here to promote his government’s official support for open-source technology as part of “reducing dependence on foreign sources” and the  “liberation of Latin America.”

São Paulo: RTFM, Says Folha Public Editor

 

Newly appointed Folha de S. Paulo ombudsman Mário Magalhães continues to rub the dominant São Paulo daily’s nose in its own manual da redação — the local equivalent of the AP Stylebook.

And more power to him.

If a newspaper decides to produce banana-republican journalism on a regular basis, it should redefine its mission  statement to reflect the fact.

O verbete “Jornalismo crítico” do “Manual da Redação” (pág. 44) define: “Princípio editorial da Folha. O jornal não existe para adoçar a realidade, mas para mostrá-la de um ponto de vista crítico. Mesmo sem opinar, é sempre possível noticiar de forma crítica. Compare fatos, estabeleça analogias, identifique atitudes contraditórias e veicule diferentes versões sobre o mesmo acontecimento. A Folha pretende exercer um jornalismo crítico em relação a todos os partidos políticos, governos, grupos, tendências ideológicas e acontecimentos”.

The entry under “critical journalism” in our newsroom guide (p. 44) defines the term as “the editorial principle of the Folha.

“This newspaper does not exist to sugarcoat reality, but to represent reality from a critical point of view. Without editorializing, it is still possible to report the news in a critical manner. To compare facts, establish analogies, identify countervailing points of view and publish different perspectives on the same event. The Folha‘s mission is to practice journalism that is critical in relation to all political parties, governments, groups, ideological tendencies and events.”

O oposto a este pilar do projeto editorial da Folha, o jornalismo crítico, foi publicado hoje na pág. B10: “Bancos encabeçam lista de investimento em cultura”. Linha-fina: “50% das instituições que responderam a pesquisa do Gife põem dinheiro na área”.

The very opposite of this pillar of the Folha’s mission, critical journalism, was published today on page B10: “Banks head list of investors in culture.” Tagline: “50% of institutions responding to GIFE survey invest money in the area.”

Do início ao fim, o texto tem parentesco mais identificável com a divulgação promocional do estudo do grupo _que reúne empresas ou suas fundações_ do que com o jornalismo.

From beginning to end, the provenience of this article is more readily identifiable as a promotional press release for the study by the group — whose members are commercial firms or their charitable foundations — than as critical journalism.

“Colombian Paras Train Bolivian Separatists”: O Globo

What O Globo has to sell today: Cheap appliances on credit and unsubstantiated rumor-mongering about worst-case scenarios for Bolivia.

Brazilian government news service Radiobrás clips this cover story from the O Globo newspaper today:

Um movimento que exige autonomia para a região mais rica da Bolívia ameaça deflagrar um confronto separatista armado contra o governo Evo Morales, se suas demandas por maior gestão de recursos não forem garantidas na nova Constituição. Com cerca de 12 mil homens armados, treinados por paramilitares colombianos, o movimento Nação Camba reivindica território que inclui os estados de Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni e Tarija, onde estão localizados os principais campos de gás e petróleo da Bolívia, exlorados pela Petrobras. Fontes militares brasileiras temem que, em caso de conflito, a Venezuela intervenha, criando instabilidade na fronteira, informa Leonardo Valente.

A movement demanding autonomy for the richest region of Bolivia is threatening to unleash an armed separatist confrontation with the Morales government if its demands for greater control over resources are not guaranteed in the new Constitution.

With nearly 12,000 armed men, trained by Colombian paramilitaries, the Camba Nation movement claims territory that includes the states of Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni and Tarija, where the principal natural gas and oil fields of Bolivia, which Petrobras is exploiting, are located.

Brazilian military sources fear that in case of conflict, Venezuela would intervene, causing instability on the frontier, reports Leonardo Valente.

The one “high-ranking military source” who “requested anonymity” describes this prognostication as a “worst-case” scenario.

Sources of the main factual assertions here are identified merely as “regional leaders” and “political analysts.”

Valente’s story, in fact, is principally based on statements by an anonymous ” high-ranking official” of the Santa Cruz provincial government who says he is a member of the movement.

“The Armed Forces Will Occupy Rio de Janeiro” — Not!

Reza pro Haiti: Brazil is not Mexico. Not anymore. We hope. Pictured above: Mexico’s PFP.

I read this off of Sinopse Radiobrás.

The Brazilian government’s daily press clippings note this item from the Jornal do Brasil, headlined Forças Armadas ocupam Rio em 15 dias (“Armed forces will occupy Rio de Janeiro in two weeks.”)

The implication of that headline — that the Armed Forces will “occupy” Rio — is, again, more than a little inaccurate. The last figures I read suggesting that maybe 1,000 military personnel will be involved in supporting roles.

In Rio, 1,000 military personnel might be enough to occupy the beaches of the Zona Sul all the way up to Arpoador. Might be.

The Jornal do Brasil has selectively rewritten the press release and slapped a misleading headline on it, it seems to me.

Compare, or example, Exército não irá para confronto nas ruas do Rio — “The army will not confront crime in the streets of Rio de Janeiro” — filed by the Agência Estado last week. “Ir para o confronto” pretty clearly implies armed clashes with criminals, I believe.

The Justice minister made it pretty clear once again that constitutional limits will prevent military personnel from exercising any police powers over the civilian population, or engaging in combat:

“… o fundamental é que a alocação das Forças Armadas será feita de tal modo a liberar os policiais para um combate mais direto, mais intenso e com mais contingentes contra o crime organizado”.

“The fundamental thing is that the Armed Forces be deployed in a way that frees up police to enter into a more direct, more intense combat against organized crime, with more personnel for the job.”

Martial law will not apply, although military personnel will have power of arrest similar to those of the military police (PM) — not to be confused with the Army Police (PE), who function like our Army MPs.

This is key.

And further down in the MiniJ press release:

Mas disse que as Forças Armadas terão um papel de respaldo e de sustentação às polícias fluminenses e não de ação direta nos confrontos. “Este não é seu papel (a participação direta) e nem o objetivo do plano que estamos apresentando”, defendeu.

But Genro said that the Armed Forces will play a backup and supporting role for Rio police and will not operation in confrontations with criminals. “That is not its role (direct participation) and is not the object of the plan we are presenting,” he said.

The JdoB’s short item today:

The PCC Online: State Computers Count Druglord Beans?

Carandiru Prison in São Paulo, torn down after 1993 massacre.

MP: PCC usou computador da SAP em contabilidade: Terra reports that São Paulo state prison officials are accused of letting the notorious drug gang use a state computer network to do accounting work for criminal enterprises run from inside the state penitentiaries.

Investigações do Ministério Público de São Paulo concluíram que líderes da facção criminosa Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) teriam usado computadores e papéis oficiais da Secretaria de Administração Penitenciária (SAP) do Estado para controlar a contabilidade dos lucros com o tráfico de drogas dentro e fora das prisões. A informação foi divulgada ontem pelo MP.

Investigators by the state prosecutor of São Paulo (MP-SP) have concluded that the PCC criminal faction used computers and official paper [letterhead?] from the state prison department (SAP) to control accounting of its revenue from drug trafficking both inside and outside state prisons. The MP-SP made the information public yesterday.

A constatação está no processo em que os promotores paulistas pedem à Justiça a condenação de 117 integrantes da quadrilha, liderada por chefes do tráfico e líderes do PCC presos nas penitenciárias de Mirandópolis, Valparaíso e Lavínia, no interior do Estado.

The assertion is made in a criminal matter in which São Paulo prosecutors ask the court to convict 117 members of the organization, led by drug lords and PCC leaders incarcerated in the prisons at Mirandópolis, Valparaíso and Lavínia, in the interior of the state.

Os principais chefes do bando, que foi desarticulado em 2004, eram Jair Carlos de Souza (Jajá), Mário Sérgio Costa (Esquerda), Edson José da Costa (Edinho), Marcos Roberto Ciconi (Marquinhos) e Anísio Pedro Gonçalves (Anisião), todos pertencentes ao PCC. Eles cumpriam penas em presídios de São Paulo e lá de dentro comandavam a rede de distribuição de drogas e venda de veículos roubados. Para isso, eles contavam com participação de donos de revendedoras de carros, traficantes e funcionários de cartório.

 The principal leaders of the group, which was busted in 2004 … are serving sentences in São Paulo prisons, where they continued to run a network for drug distribution and resale of stolen vehicles. For the latter scheme, the counted on the assistance of automobile resellers, drug traffickers, and public notaries.

A contabilidade teria sido registrada em papéis oficiais com computador da SAP instalados na Penitenciária Nestor Canoas, em Mirandópolis.

The accounting work was allegedly done on official paper using SAP computers at the Nestor Canoas prison in Mirandópolis. 

“É de causar espanto que documentos apreendidos na penitenciária Nestor Canoas, de Mirandópolis, revelem a contabilidade do tráfico, reproduzida em computador do referido estabelecimento”, diz um dos documentos do Grupo de Atuação Especial de Repressão e Combate ao Crime Organizado (Gaerco) mostrados à imprensa.

“It is just astonishing to see documents apprehended at Nestor Canoas that contain the accounting records of the traffic, printed on a computer belonging to the prison itself,” said one of the reports from GAERCO, a special organized crime unit, that was shown to the press.

A SAP distribuiu ontem nota afirmando desconhecer a acusação e que tão logo seja comunicada oficialmente determinará abertura de sindicância para apurar a suposta responsabilidade de seus funcionários.

SAP issued a statement yesterday saying it has not yet cognizant of the charge and that as soon as it received official notice will decide whether to open a disciplinary proceeding into the alleged involvement of its employees.

Dantas and Kroll: Early Daze

Accused telecoms dirty warrior Daniel Dantas (far right) approaches his judgment at Nuremburg?

In case the story finally generates some judicial action and headlines — access by police and prosecutors to computer hard drives seized in the case has been successfully held up for more than two years now, but that may come to an end soon — here is the original report from the Folha de S. Paulo on the first arrests in the Dantas-Kroll affair, from October 28, 2004.

E-mails reportedly leaked from the investigation — but not yet authenticated — suggest that Dantas was mounting a series of political “ratfuck” campaigns against officials who opposed his bid for control of the privatized Brasil Telecom — including senior officials of FHC II and Lula I, as I understand it.

The campaign allegedly included the mounting of phony “dossiers” on political figures in both government and opposition camps.

Veja magazine, for example, ran a story last year asserting that senior government officials, including the president of Brazil, maintained offshore bank accounts. When the story turned out to be utterly, putridly bogus, they burned Dantas as their source on those assertions.

The federal police report also stated that Dantas counted on willing or coopted journalists, including Leonardo Attuch of IstoÉ Dinheiro magazine — see The Crucifixion of Leonardo Attuch — to orchestrate a supporting noise machine.

Harvard Law professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger, reportedly a personal friend and associate of Dantas, made reference to the dispute between Dantas federal employee pension funds in a 2005 Folha de São Paulo op-ed.

In that op-ed, he called for the impeachment of the current president, head of “the most corrupt government in the history of Brazil.”

Unger wrote:

He [Lula] meddled, and let those close to him meddle, in private disputes and businesses. And he commanded, with one eye open and one eye shut, a political machine that traded money for power and power for money, and then tried to buy, with budget allocations, political support to interrupt the investigation of his abuses.

Recently named to a cabinet post in the Lula government, Unger has removed that article from a Harvard Web site that hosts his collected writing, reported the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper. See Mangabeira Unger: Reengineering the Record? and Mangabeira Rewrites History!

[For an update on Mangabeira’s cabinet appointment — and constructivist philosophy of good governance — see “Mangabeira Unger Rebuffed by Ethics Board”]

Unger’s defenders say he has merely “changed his opinion.” Will he state publicly what new information led him to rescind that rather drastic diagnosis? Or for that matter, what information he based his previous accusations on?

Brasil Telecom is suing Unger for allegedly going to bat for Dantas in the dispute. He denies that statements like the one cited constituted interference on behalf of Dantas.

At one point, a gag order prevented Brazilian authorities and journalists from reporting on the accusations against Dantas:

Carnage and Carnival: The Curious Career of Captain Guimarães

Guimarães (l.) with Rio mayor Cesar Maia (second from left)

Writing for the Agência Carta Maior, author Celso Lungaretti recalls the checkered past of one of the principal suspects in the Operation Hurricane scandal in Rio de Janeiro.

Federal and state judges, lawyer-lobbyists, police officials and gambling racketeers have been arrested in a scheme to buy and sell judicial rulings and political cover for criminal organizations that run underground lotteries, gambling halls and electronic gambling equipment.

Federal police caused a secondary flap by accusing bicho banker “Captain” Guimarães, semi-perpetual president of LIESA, the league of Rio’s largest carnival societies, of paying bribes to fix the results of this year’s nationally televised competitive carnival parades.

See Brazil: Hurricane Blows Lid Off Hummingbird Hype? and Rio: Carnival Carnage is Political Circus!

LIESA and the Mayor’s office have published all the judging notes from the 2007 competition in order to dispel the perception that the judging might have been rigged. They are available for download here.

Capt. Guimarães is an accused torturer from the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964-1985.

Nas últimas semanas, o ex-capitão do Exército Ailton Guimarães Jorge voltou a frequentar o noticiário policial, agora como um dos 25 contraventores cuja prisão foi pedida pela Polícia Federal, sob a acusação de explorarem jogos de azar no país, inclusive subornando membros do Executivo, Legislativo e Judiciário.

In recent weeks, former Army captain Ailton Guimarães Jorge returned to the police blotter, now as one of 25 scofflaws arrested by the Federal Police for running gambling rackets and bribing members of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary.

O presidente da Liga Independente das Escolas de Samba do Rio de Janeiro já havia sido condenado em 1993 por envolvimento com o jogo-do-bicho, ao lado de outros 13 banqueiros, pela juíza Denise Frossard. Sabia-se que eles todos eram responsáveis por, pelo menos, 53 mortes.

The president of the Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro (LIESA) was found guilty by judge Denise Frossard in 1993 of involvement in jogo do bicho [underground lotteries], along with 13 other bicho bankers. They were found responsible for at least 53 deaths.

Pegaram seis anos de prisão cada, a pena máxima por formação de quadrilha. Mas, em dezembro de 1996 estavam todos de volta às ruas, beneficiados por liberdade condicional ou indultos.

The were sentenced to six years each, the maximum sentence for racketeering. But in December 1996 they were all back on the streets, granted parole or clemency.

Mas, não são só os crimes atuais que fazem do Capitão Guimarães um personagem emblemático do que há de pior neste país. Ele é o mais notório exemplo vivo do banditismo inerente aos órgãos de repressão da ditadura militar.

But it is not Capt. Guimarães’ current crimes that make him a symbol of the worst of Brazil. He is the most notorious living example of the criminality inherent in the military dictatorship’s agencies of political repression.

Mexico: TRIFE Denies Ballot Recount

Times-series of the PREP quick count in the July 2, 2006 Mexican presidential election. Statisticians have said that the departure from the general trend as the count nears 100% is highly improbable.

El Tribunal de la opacidad: an op-ed in today’s El Universal comments on the failure of a freedom of information request, brought by Proceso magazine, to inspect the ballots used in national elections last July 2.

The federal elections tribunal found that public inspection of ballots would violate the privacy rights of voters and the principle of the secret ballot.

The ballots are not signed and the identity of the voter cannot be determined.

A Brazilian elections judge recently cited a similar rationale in a bid to prevent auditing of electronic voting equipment used in a state election in which fraud has been charged.

Menos de 24 horas después de que el Senado de la República aprobara la reforma para constitucionalizar nuestro derecho de acceso a la información, el Tribunal Electoral ha tomado los primeros pasos para vaciarlo de contenido. Recurriendo a argumentos sumamente cuestionables y violatorios de la Ley de Transparencia, nuestros magistrados electorales han confirmado la negativa del IFE de dar acceso a las boletas electorales. Como maestros regañones, han dado 48 horas a los consejeros electorales para que vuelvan a elaborar sus argumentos. Pero aseguran que una vez que los consejeros hayan hecho bien su tarea, se negará el acceso de manera definitiva.

Less than 24 hours after the Mexican Senate approved a reform that would make access to information a constitutional right, the federal elections tribunal has taken the first steps to empty that reform of content. Based on highly questionable arguments that contravene the Transparency Law, our elections judges have upheld the federal election commission’s (IFE’s) denial of a request to provide access to the ballots. Like strict schoolteachers, they have given IFE 48 hours to better elaborate its arguments. But they state that once the IFE commissioners have performed their task properly, they will deny access to the ballots in a definitive manner.

El Tribunal quisiera cancelar los cuestionamientos de las últimas elecciones presidenciales y facilitar la rápida quema de la documentación electoral. Pero no será tan fácil. La Suprema Corte todavía tiene que examinar un juicio de amparo de la revista Proceso en contra de la destrucción de la paquetería electoral.

TRIFE may want to put an end to questions about the last presidentia election and facilitate the prompt destruction of election documents. But it will not be that simple. The Supreme Court still has to deliberate on an appeal by Proceso magazine against the destruction of the ballots.

The W$J Vouches for Uribe

Government-paramilitary ties in Colombia reported on in 1997. Narco-paramilitary and narco-government ties were under study a decade earlier. Former President Samper has recently acknowledged receiving campaign contributions from both the Cali and Valle cartels.

You need to have on the payroll some very unsavory characters if, in fact, you’re going to be able to learn all that needs to be learned in order to forestall these kinds of activities. — Vice-President Dick Cheney

Gore’s Latin Diplomacy: The W$J editorial board gets down and dirty on the parapolitical controversy, which threatens to sink military aid and a free trade deal with Colombia.

El Tiempo reports on the W$J editorial in its coverage of Uribe’s upcoming diplomatic charm offensive, including meetings with Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.

The charges against the twice-elected and popular president are false, and Colombia’s newspapers are full of fury at what they are calling Mr. Gore’s “rude gesture.” But the fact that a former Democratic Vice President would so publicly insult the best U.S. ally in South America is, well, at the moment not so astonishing.

I would say — from reading a fair sample — that not all, or even most, Colombian newspapers are full of fury or characterizing Gore’s gesture in that way.

El Tiempo, for example, has approached the matter with a fair amount of sang froid, closely documenting the Washington lobbying junkets of government and opposition and leaving the debate over the trade agreement per se for the business section. See Mr. Petro Goes to Washington.

As to the truth or falsity of charges against Mr. Uribe, these include the charge that as Antioquia provincial governor, he knowingly gave legal cover, not to “far right” paramilitary groups — casting the issue in ideological terms is a red herring, I think — but to paramilitary groups with a long and documented involvement with the narcotraffic.

An involvement that officials and law enforcement who continue to serve in the Uribe government knew about because they were on the payroll of the narcotraffic at the time.

See Colombia: Uribe Accused Over Convivir and Convivir: Government-NGO Regulatory Arbitrage in Colombia.

Mr. Uribe’s televised rebuttal of the Petro speech did not exactly constitute a devastating refutation of its factual assertions. See

• Uribe Channels Howard Beale
• Uribe in His Own Words
• The Autumn of Uribe, II

Mr. Uribe’s chief accuser is Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, a former member of the pro-Cuban terrorist group M-19. The senator is also a close friend and political ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Other elements in the Alternative Democractic Pole are not former M-19 members. And the PDA does seem to mean what it says about this plank in its platform:

The party completely rejects the armed struggle of the FARC and ELN as an effective means to solve Colombia’s social, political and economical problems.

Uribe’s links with the narcotraffic were also explored in declassified military intelligence reports disclosed in this brief item from the August 2006 issue of Newsweek:

The declassified Defense Department intelligence report, dated September 1991, reads like a Who’s Who of Colombia’s cocaine trade. The list includes the Medellin cartel’s kingpin, Pablo Escobar, and more than 100 other thugs, assassins, traffickers and shady lawyers in his alleged employ. Then there’s entry 82: “Alvaro Uribe Velez—a Colombian politician and senator dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels. Uribe was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the U.S. … Uribe has worked for the Medellin cartel and is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar Gaviria.” Escobar died in a 1993 police raid. Two years ago this week, Uribe became president of Colombia.

The W$J resorts to a classic banana-republican trope here, according to which persons accused of official corruption are the victims of “political persecution.”

Mr. Uribe has become an ideological target because he has succeeded in reducing the influence of left-wing terrorists in Colombia. The human rights accusations are now getting a revival thanks to Mr. Petro and the hostility of the AFL-CIO for the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Pardons Revoked in Argentine Dirty War Case

Videla

La dictadura argentina se queda sin perdón (La Nacional, Chile): An Argentine court has declared “unconstitutional” the pardons issued by President Carlos Menem to five senior military officers sentenced in a 1985 trial of officers who ran the “dirty war” on “subversion.”

La prolongada lucha contra la impunidad de las masivas violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidos durante la última dictadura en Argentina (1976-1983) se anotó ayer una emblemática victoria sobre el oprobioso olvido. Esto, luego que la justicia anuló los indultos que beneficiaban, entre otros, a los ex represores militares Jorge Videla y Emilio Massera, dos símbolos vivientes de una de las más oscuras páginas de la historia trasandina.

The long struggle against impunity in the massive violations of human rights committed under the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) registered a notable victory yesterday … when a court overturned pardons that benefited, among others, former agents of military repression Jorge Vilela and Emilio Massera, two violent symbols of one of the darkest pages in Latin American history.

The reporter gets a little overwrought here. I will paraphrase.

La trascendente determinación judicial corrió por cuenta de la Cámara Federal en lo Penal y Correccional (apelación) de Buenos Aires. Ésta declaró “inconstitucional” el perdón que en 1990 el entonces Presidente Carlos Menem (1989-1999) otorgó a cinco jerarcas castrenses que fueron condenados en el denominado “Juicio a las Juntas”, de 1985.

The ruling from found the 1990 pardon granted by Menem to five senior officers founded guilty in the so-called “Judgement of the Juntas” in 1985 to be unconstitutional.

Mexico: Head Examination Prescribed for Soberanes

The Veracruz legislator questioned why a CNDH senior inspector mounted a media campaign in recent days to deny just what CNDH president Soberanes has affirmed, even assuring the press that the CNDH has read only the results of the two autopsies and the preliminary medical report.

Viola Soberanes Constitución al fungir como Ministerio Público (CIMAC): The Mexican news agency, which specializes in women’s rights advocacy, has this follow-up on yesterday’s hearing in the Mexican congress with José Luis Soberanes, president of the national human rights commission.

Mr. Soberanes complained that he had brought along a ton of medical evidence and medical experts to testify as to their medical conclusions in the case, but that legislators had not allowed him to present them. He held a press conference afterwards, essentially alleging a cover-up.

Instead, legislators maintained that the CNDH’s intervention in the case was illegitimate and improper and that evaluating medical evidence was off-topic for the hearing and outside their competence.

They focused on why the CNDH hastened to produce a competing medical report before the local authorities had completed their own investigation or released official findings.

PAN members of the joint committee defended Soberanes’ definitive conclusion in the case: that no crime of rape occurred.

Coverage in the Mexican press tends to break down into two basic headlines: “Soberanes says no rape occurred” and “Soberanes fails to dispel doubts.”

Notiver of Veracruz runs a virulent editorial saying that the rape case is “based on lies” by the PRD opposition party:

En resumen, ninguno de los datos, ni los relatos, ni los diagnósticos emitidos por las autoridades de Veracruz era correcto. Todo se inventó, todo fue un montaje, todo fue una farsa, apoyada por el PRD y sus voceros periodísticos.

The committee will try to summon the defense secretary, Gen. Galván Galván, to explain contradictory statements, both public and private, that he and SEDENA made about the case, reports Jorge Luis Sierra in a sharply worded editorial in El Universal yesterday.

See also Mexico: Defense Rewrites History in Ernestina Case.

A SEDENA press release had stated categorically that the woman was raped, and that comparison of semen samples found on the body with blood samples from soldiers operating in the area would prove that persons disguised as soldiers had committed the crime.

“What Would Halberstam Do?”

Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon after the death of journalist David Halberstam:

David Halberstam’s death yesterday is certain to prompt all sorts of homage from our media stars describing Halberstam as a superior journalist, someone who embodied what journalism ought to be. And it is true that he was exactly that.

Halberstam’s later turn to sports journalism, focused on individual superstar athletes was more in keeping with current trends than indicated by this hagiography, which portrays him as a lifelong bucker of those trends.

Not that sports are not a proper subject for legitimate journalism, mind you. And not that a journo should not turn his hand to a commercially valuable proposition once in a while to fatten up that retirement account — circuses to bring in some bread.

But to go out with a book-length profile of some basketball coach? That’s a bit anticlimactic.

But modern American journalists — as Halberstam himself repeatedly emphasized — have become the precise antithesis of those values. The functions Halberstam and the best journalists of his generation fulfilled are exactly those that have been so fundamentally abandoned, repudiated and scorned by our nation’s most prominent and influential media stars. And most legitimate media criticisms today are grounded in exactly that gaping discrepancy.

Peru: No Superpowers for García?

La República on Tuesday: “New weapons against crime.” Peru’s congress was to grant extraordinary powers to the Garcia government in antiterror matters. See also Peru: APRA Government Wants “Extraordinary Powers.” But congressional support for the superpowers vanished overnight.

Se rompe el consenso para delegar facultades al Ejecutivo (La República):The Lima, Peru daily ran a cover story on Tuesday (above) celebrating an imminent vote that would grant Alan García special legislative powers to revise the criminal code by decree.

They jumped the gun. Support fell through.

[UPDATE: The following day, last-minute negotiations produced a deal on a 60-day period of Executive legislation by decree. The Congressional opposition boycotted the vote.]

El Congreso nuevamente dejó en vilo al Ejecutivo. Cuando todo indicaba que ayer el pleno aprobaría la delegación de facultades para que el gobierno legisle en materia antiterrorista, narcotráfico y delincuencia por 60 días, los voceros de la oposición retrocedieron y anunciaron que no las otorgarán.

Congress has once again left the Executive in the lurch. Just as everything indicated that the plenary session would approve the delegation of powers for the government to legislate by decree on antiterrorism, narcotraffic and organized crime for 60 days, opposition leaders reversed course and announced they would not grant them.

Soberanes Sticks to His Story

With the exception PAN, representatives from all the other congressional parties questioned Soberanes for over three hours. Soberanes was not able to dispel doubts about his actions in the case or about the alleged causes of death. –Notimex, April 25, 2007

Ratifica Soberanes a diputados que Ernestina no fue violada: The presient of Mexico’s human rights commission reaffirmed the position he defended during a media blitz over the last month in the case of Ernestina Ascencio, an elderly Nahuatl woman from Veracruz who died after telling relatives and medical personnel she had been raped by “the men in green” — Mexican army personnel.

At this hour, La Jornada, Vanguardia, and El Financiero — the latter two carrying the Notimex wire service coverage — have reported on the hearing.

México, DF. El presidente de la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH), José Luis Soberanes, ratificó que Ernestina Ascencio, presuntamente violada por miembros del Ejército Mexicano en Veracruz, no fue violada y murió de anemia crónica aguda.

CNDH president Soberanes reiterated that Ernestina Ascencio, allegedly raped by members of the Mexican army in Veracruz, was not raped and died of chronic acute anemia.

El ombudsman nacional anunció, durante su comparecencia ante diputados federales, que la semana próxima emitirá las recomendaciones a las dependencias involucradas en el caso de la indígena de 73 años, entre ellas la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional.

The ombudsman announced, during an appearance before federal deputies, that next week he will issue recommendations to the agencies involved in the case of the indigenous woman, 73, including the Secretary of Defense [SEDENA].

Reveló que el presidente Felipe Calderón se enteró de que la Ernestina Ascencio murió de gastritis porque en la segunda necropsia practicada a la víctima estuvieron presentes médicos militares, reportó Formato 21.

He revealed that President Calderón learned that Ernestina Ascencio died of gastritis because in the second autopsy performed on the victim’s body was attended by military doctors, according to Formato 21.

Ratificó que visitadores, personal médico y peritos de la CNDH encontraron que Ernestina no fue violada y no murió por ataque sexual presuntamente realizado por cuatro militares.

He testified that visitors, medical personnel and CNDH experts found that Ernestina was not raped and did not die from a sexual assault allegedly conducted by four soldiers.

Mexico: “Fired Televisa Reporter Vindicated Over Phony Bust”

Versions of events obtained by the APRO news service indicate that there was a deal between the AFI director at the time, Genaro García Luna, and Televisa’s vice president for Information, Amador Narcia, to “recreate” the arrest. They agreed that a news report would be broadcast, “without any problems about time.” The report was originally broadcast during the afternoon newscast, Primero Notícias.

Logra el reportero Pablo Reinah victoria ante Televisa y la AFI (Proceso/APRO, Mexico): A Mexican journalist says he now has proof of a deal between federal investigators and Mexican TV semi-monopoly Televisa to stage a news story that he reported.

When the story came to light, Televisa blamed the reporter, and fired him. We have been reading about quite a few similar cases, most recently:

• Telemadrid: TV Aznar Under Fire
• Rede Globo Ratfinks Dissident Journos

México, D.F., 24 de abril (apro).- Un año después de haber sido despedido de Televisa, el reportero Pablo Reinah logró una victoria frente a la empresa para la que trabajó durante una década y ante la Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI), al concluir la averiguación de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), que establece que las autoridades federales le ocultaron información al periodista, al no advertirle que la detención de tres presuntos secuestradores, se trató de un “montaje” para la televisión.

A year after being fired from Televisa, reporter Pablo Reinah has won a victory over the employer for whom he worked for a decade, and over the Mexican federal bureau of investigations (AFI), when the federal prosecutor issued a finding that federal authorities hid information from him by not telling him that the arrest of three alleged kidnappers was “staged” for television.

Fechado el 2 de marzo de 2007 y firmado por José Luis Chávez Díaz, director jurídico adjunto de la AFI, la procuraduría notificó a Reinah que “la información que se le proporcionó sobre el operativo desarrollado por elementos de la Agencia Federal de Investigación, no se precisó que la detención de las personas ocurrió antes de su llegada y, por lo tanto, no se le proporcionó información completa, objetiva y veraz”.

Dated March 2, 2007 and signed by José Luis Chávez Díaz, associate general counsel of the AFI, the report notified Reinah that “the information provided to you on the operation carried out by AFI agencies did not inform you that the detention of the persons in question occurred before you arrived, and therefore did not provide you with complete, objective and accurate information.”

Peru: Giampietri Runs Cheney-Style OVP?

La República yesterday: “New weapons against crime.” Peru’s congress confers extraordinary powers on the Garcia government to rewrite the penal code. See also Peru: APRA Government Wants “Extraordinary Powers.”

Item: DESDE EL TERCER PISO: LAS OSCURIDADES DE GIAMPIETRI (April 16).

A Peruvian Web logger adds to the NMM file on the Peruvian vice president, who is already answering sharp questions about military procurement under the Fujimori government and cooperation between the military and death squads during anti-insurgent operations. The Lima blogger also aggegrates reports on the admiral’s alleged ties with extremist groups.

Prácticamente desaparecibidas han transcurrido dos denuncias que involucran gravemente al Almirante Luis Giampietri, primer vicepresidente de la República, y que ponen en demostración su poco compromiso con la transparencia en la gestión pública y la defensa de los valores democráticos.

Serious accusations against Adm. Luis Giampietri, first vice-president of Peru, have practically vanished from sight. These accusations demonstrate his scant commitment to government transparency and democratic values.

La primera se refiere a la irregular transferencia de fondos que la Presidencia del Consejo de Ministros ha hecho para que Giampietri implemente un despacho como Vicepresidente. Recordemos que, de acuerdo a la Constitución, este cargo tiene como únicas funciones reemplazar al Presidente de la República si es que fallece, queda incapacitado de manera permanente o es vacado y encargarse del Despacho Presidencial cuando el titular se encuentre fuera del país. Por tanto, tener un despacho para atender sus funciones como vicepresidente es innecesario.

The first accusation has to do with an irregular transfer of funds by the president of the Cabinet so that Giampietri could organize and staff a vice-presidential office. We should recall that under the Constitution, the first vice-president’s only function is to replace the President if he dies, is permanently incapacitated or vacates his office, and runs the presidency when the President is out of the country. For that reason, he does not need an office to fulfill his duties as vice-president.

Esta denuncia fue hecha por el congresista Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde en la presentación de Jorge del Castillo en el Congreso.

The charge was made by congressmember Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde during Jorge del Castillo’s presentation in Congress.

Will the Army Patrol the Streets of Rio de Janeiro?

Haiti é aqui
Haiti não é aqui –Caetano Veloso

A press release from Brazil’s Ministry of Justice defends the current government’s approach to demilitarizing civilian law enforcement and addresses the pending question: Will the Army patrol the streets of Rio de Janeiro?

The government line: The answer remains no way, Zê Mané.

The outgoing commander of the Army, Gen. Albuquerque said in his farewell address that the Brazilian military’s peacekeeping operations in Haiti prove that it can play a role in civilian policing. See Brazil: A General’s Farewell to the Troops.

But the implication that Rio de Janeiro, which will host the Pan-American games this (Southern Hemisphere) winter, is comparable to Port Au Prince must have made the local tourist board grind its teeth, I imagine.

See also  “The Army Will Not Patrol the Streets of Rio de Janeiro”: Pan-American Games Edition and Military Intervention in Rio de Janeiro?

Meanwhile, the O Globo newspaper of Rio de Janeiro runs a sharp op-ed on the subject today, which I will translate for you as well as part of NMM’s ongoing sample of public debate on the subject.

See also “The Army Should Not Patrol The Streets of Rio de Janeiro”: Rio Cop Unions

Brasília 20/04/07, 17h45 (MJ) – Um dos objetivos do plano de segurança dos Jogos Pan-Americanos, que começam no dia 13 de julho no Rio de Janeiro, será aproveitar a competição para colocar em prática a política nacional de segurança pública. A afirmação foi feita nesta sexta-feira (20) pelo secretário Nacional de Segurança Pública, Luiz Fernando Corrêa, durante reunião do Conselho de Segurança do Nordeste.

One of the objectives of the security plan for the Pan-American Games, set for July 13 in Rio de Janeiro, will be to use the games to put in practice the national public safety policy. That statement was made on Friday (April 20) by the national publicy safety secretary, Luiz Fernando Corrêa, during a meeting of the Northeastern Security Council.

PAN Swift-Boats the Abortion Issue?

The Supreme Court justices complain about the message spoken by a character in the ad [who is costumed as a judge]: “Because he would interfere in the future plans, both personal and professional, of this young woman, the accused is found guilty and sentenced to be aborted [suffer the abortion penalty].”

Se inconforma SCJN por espots antiaborto del PAN (La Jornada): Mexico’s Supreme Court (SCJN) has slapped the National Action Party (PAN) over anti-abortion television advertising.

The Federal District, as you read, has just decriminalized first-trimester abortions.

Bringing “moral” issues to the forefront of political debate is, of course, a classic Rovean “changing the subject while filibustering” strategy.

México, DF. La Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) interpuso un recurso de inconformidad ante la Secretaría de Gobernación (Segob) y el Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE), por los espots suscritos por el Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) que se manifiestan contra la iniciativa para despenalizar el aborto.

 The SCJN filed a protest with SEGOB and the federal elections commission over “spots” sponsored by PAN that argue against the initiative to decriminalize abortion.

La inconformidad se debe a que se muestra una imagen equivocada de los jueces, que distorsiona de manera grave entre la población la función que corresponde a los impartidores de justicia y “se torna lesivo para su imagen”.

The protest alleges that the spots paint an erroneous picture of judges that seriously misrepresents the role of judges to the population and “is becoming detrimental to the image” of the judiciary.

Banging the Bingo Bongo: São Paulo State Pension Authority Leased Land to Gambling Joint

Bingo Jabaquara, Southern Zone, São Paulo. Jumping-off point for Santos. Source: Fotoagência NMM(-TV)SNBCNNBS-Tabajara (me).

Bingo funciona em terreno do governo de São Paulo: a “bingo” — a gambling parlor, with bingo games and videopoker machines and the like — has been operating since 2000 on property leased to it by the state government of São Paulo, reports the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper today.

A nice little investigative scoop, that. This entire saga — see São Paulo: Judgment Day for Judges in Big Bingo Bust if you are not up on the preliminary newsflow — is going to make fascinating reading for months, if not years, to come.

The “total promiscuity” denounced by the judge in the parallel case in Rio is readily observable throughout the Brazilian legal and political system.

When the former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, ran for president, for example, his campaign was represented by a former judge of the federal elections court who was pleading before his former colleagues.

His name: Eduardo Alckmin. For a couple of cases involving Alckmin’s party, see TSE Clips Toucans Over Tirades, Cancels Communists and Tse-Tse Fly Awakens Rip Van Winkle of an Elections Governance Case.

SÃO PAULO – O Bingo Tancredo funciona desde 2000 em um terreno do Instituto de Previdência do Estado de São Paulo (Ipesp) na Avenida Tancredo Neves, no Ipiranga, zona sul da capital. Desde 2006, entretanto, o bingo funciona no local sob autorização especial do Ipesp, uma vez que a licitação para renovação do contrato de cessão do terreno está sob liminar da Justiça.

The Bingo Trancredo has been operating since 2000 on a property belonging to the São Paulo State Social Security Institute (IBESP) on Tancredo Neves, in Ipiranga, in the southern zone of the city. Since 2006, moreover, the bingo has been functioning in the location with special authorization from IBESP, since the petition to renew the lease is suspended by court order.

A empresa que administra o local – Comércio e Serviços Complexo 2002 Ltda. – barrou o prosseguimento da concorrência porque teve um de seus documentos impugnado pela comissão julgadora. Detalhe importante é que o primeiro colocado na licitação é um dos sócios da própria Complexo 2002, Antonio Carlos Venceslau.

The company that manages the property —  Comércio e Serviços Complexo 2002 Ltda. — prevented the competitive bid solicitation from proceeding because one of its documents was rejected by the oversight committee. An important detail is that the leading proposal in the competition is that of one of the partners in Complexo 2002, Antonio Carlos Venceslau.  

Para o Ministério Público Estadual, a concessão do terreno do Ipesp para funcionamento de casa de jogos de azar, mesmo que antiga, é totalmente ilegal. O caso deverá ser investigado, segundo o promotor de Justiça e Cidadania Sílvio Antonio Marques.

According to the state attorney’s office, the concession of IPESP land for the operations of a gambling establishment, even one that has operated for some time, is totally illegal. The case should be investigated, said prosecutor Sílvio Antonio Marques.

Telemadrid: The Bill of Particulars

Subtitled and overdubbed — and not especially well, but you get the idea — video from the employee’s union representing Telemadrid workers.

INFORME MANIPULACIÓN 2005: Salvemos Telemadrid, a Spanish organization dedicated to denouncing alleged disinformation broadcast by the public television channel Telemadrid, published this report in 2005 on its “manipulations.”

The most garish charges have to do with Telemadrid’s promotion of the government’s position on the M-11 attacks, which was that they were carried out by Basque separatists.

The document is practically a textbook on how to lie, cheat, cover up, censor, ratfuck, intimidate the professional staff, spin phony numbers, and generally deluge the public with gabbling nonsense, all on the public dime.

I would not be surprised if certain Brazilian “news organizations” had not made use of it for that purpose, in fact: as a practical guide to banana-republican public disinformation.

I translate. Roughly. In my spare time, when I get to it. So caveat lector.

Desde la llegada de la actual dirección a Telemadrid en diciembre de 2003 el ejercicio del periodismo en términos de pluralidad, objetividad e imparcialidad, contenidos en la ley de creación del Ente Público Radio Televisión Madrid y coincidentes con los principios básicos de esta profesión, se ha convertido en una quimera. Esta afirmación no es una opinión sino la constatación de una realidad que se ha impuesto en los servicios informativos de este medio en los últimos dos años.

Since the arrival of the current management of Telemadrid in December 2003, its journalistic ethics — in terms of plurality of opinion, objectivity and impartiality, as provided for in the law that created the Madrid public television and radio corporation — have disappeared. This is not an opinion but a statement of the reality that has been imposed on Telemadrid’s public information services in the last two years.

Desde entonces la dirección general, así como la de informativos, han ejercido una progresiva pero constante manipulación de los contenidos informativos a fin de utilizar esta televisión como instrumento de propaganda partidista.

Since that time, Telemadrid’s general management and news directors have carried out a progressive but constant manipulation of the informational content of the station’s broadcast in order to use it as an instrument of partisan propaganda.

La contundencia de esta aseveración está avalada por los hechos diarios y por la experiencia personal de decenas de periodistas de Telemadrid, quienes han visto mermados sus derechos, su libertad de expresión, su capacidad profesional y han sido objeto de un control continuo, cuando no han sufrido directamente la represión en forma de traslados, despidos u ostracismo.

The stark quality of this statement is supported by daily events and by the personal experience of dozens of Telemadrid journalists who have seen their rights, their freedom of expression, and their professional integrity trampled on and have been the subject of constant control, where they have not suffered direct repression in the form of transfers, firings or ostracism.

Rio: Hurricane Proceedings Will Be Public

Bingo Jabaquara, Southern Zone, São Paulo. Jumping-off point for Santos. Source: Fotoagência NMM(-TV)SNBCNNBS-Tabajara.

Juíza do Rio suspende segredo de Justiça da Hurricane (Estado de S. Paulo): Court proceedings against defendants in the “Operation Hurricane” case — judges and policial officials are accused of taking payoffs from gambling interests in return for favorable rulings — will not be conducted under seal, a federal judge has ruled.

She also approved the extension of pretrial custody for 20 of the defendants charged so far. The most senior judge implicated in the case, Carreira Alvim, has been released pending trial, as have 4 other defendants.

In a parallel and possibly related case in São Paulo — it’s called Operation Têmis (Themis), appropriately enough, but is better known as “O Bingão da Justiça” — a state supreme court justice refused to issue arrest warrants for judges under investigation.

This has provoked quite a bit of comment, as you can imagine. See also São Paulo: Judgment Day for Judges in Big Bingo Bust.

In ancient Greece, judges were known as themistopoloi, or “the followers (people) of Themis,” the goddess of justice.

RIO – A juíza da 6ª Vara Federal Criminal do Rio, Ana Paula Vieira de Carvalho, revogou o segredo de Justiça em parte do processo contra 20 acusados – 17 já presos – da Operação Hurricane (furacão, em inglês), que não têm direito a foro privilegiado. Ana Paula acolheu a denúncia do Ministério Público Federal contra estes acusados, cuja prisão preventiva ela havia decretado na semana passada.

Judge Vieira de Carvalho of the 6th Federal Criminal Bar of Rio unsealed part of the case against 20 defendants — 17 of them now in custody — in Operation Hurricane who have no right to a privileged forum. Ana Paula accepted the federal prosecutor’s criminal complaint against the defendants, whose preventive detention she had authorized last week.

O inquérito sobre a Hurricane, que apura a suposta rede de venda de decisões judiciais favoráveis a empresários do ramo de jogos de azar, foi desmembrado. Por causa do foro privilegiado, os três magistrados e o procurador-geral da República serão investigadas e processadas perante o STF. Os outros, advogados, empresários, bingueiros e bicheiros responderão perante a Justiça de primeira instância.

The Hurricane investigation into an alleged network for the buying and selling of judicial rulings favorable to business in the gambling sector, has been broken up into different legal proceedings. Because they have a privilege forum, three judges and a federal attorney will be investigated and tried by the Supreme Court. The others — lawyers, businessmen, and bingo and numbers racket operators, will be tried by a lower court.

On a signficant and, ahem, highly spirited recent debate in the Supreme Court over the “privileged forum,” see also Brazil: Extra-Large Pizza With Everyone On It? and Mendes Defended.

Em seu despacho, a juíza revelou que dois réus tentaram sacar R$ 1,75 milhão no Brasil e outros dois têm contas bancárias no exterior. Essa constatação ajudou a reforçar a convicção da magistrada de que era necessário manter na prisão os 21 presos – entre bicheiros, advogados e policiais – pela Polícia Federal na sexta-feira 13 de abril. A juíza também marcou os depoimentos dos acusados, três por dia: eles vão começar na quinta-feira, 26, e acabam dia 7 de maio, uma segunda-feira.

In her ruling, the judge disclosed that two defendants had tried to withdraw R$1.75 million from bank accounts in Brazil and another two have offshore bank accounts. That finding strengthened the judge’s conviction that it was necessary to maintain 21 of the defendants, including bicho bankers, lawyers, and police agents — in jail. The judge also scheduled testimony by the defendants, three per day, starting on Thursday, April 26 and ending May 7, a Monday.

Telemadrid: TV Aznar Under Fire

Telemadrid, its critics say, distorted information to try to blame ETA — the armed group that defends the autonomy of the Basque Country — for the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks by a group that said it was linked to Al Qaeda.

Vi o Mundo (Globo/G1, Brazil) reports that Spanish public television is being investigated by the European Parliament for banana-republicanism.

Compare the case I described in my post PBS: Political (Banana-Republican) Spoils.

Former president Aznar is the son and grandson of Falangist journalists and media executives.

His father, Manuel Aznar Acedo, was a propaganda officer in the nationalist army during the Spanish Civil War, then worked for radio and TV and founded three newspapers, Hoja Oficial de Alicante, Avance and Levante. His grandfather, Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, was a former Basque Nationalist radical who embraced Franco and went on to edit La Vanguardia, founded the EFE news agency, and served as UN Ambassador.

A Telemadrid é uma das cinco tevês públicas criadas na Espanha para refletir os diversos interesses regionais do país. Representa a região da capital espanhola. As outras são da Galícia, Catalunha, País Basco e Andaluzia.

Telemadrid is one of five Spanish public television channels created to reflect the diverse regional interests of the country. It represents the region of the Spanish capital, Madrid. The others operate in Galicia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Andalucia.

A emissora é acusada de distorcer o noticiário para beneficiar o PP, partido conservador do ex-primeiro ministro José Maria Aznar, que controla a Comunidade Autônoma de Madrid através de Esperanza Aguirre – que também preside o Partido Popular na região.

The broadcaster is accused of distorting the news to benefit the Partido Popular, the conservative party of former prime minister José Maria Aznar, which controls Madrid through Esperanza Aguirre, who is also the PP regional president.

The EU Parliament has invited the director of Telemadrid to testify at a hearing, reported the El Pais newspaper — itself the object of a PP-sponsored boycott — yesterday.

What makes this of interest to Latin American journalists is the ambitious plan, in partnership with Mexico’s PAN, to export the PP worldview throughout the continent.

See Aznar on the Phantom Menace and “Bulwark Against Populism”, on the Pinochetist revival those folks are sponsoring. And see “Here’s How It Works”: Political Ownership of the Media in Brazil for how that business model has worked in Brazil since the birth of the Rede Globo itself.

The G1 news portal seems to be sort of a hotbed of Globo dissidents. See also Rede Globo Ratfinks Dissident Journos.

Denúncias de jornalistas, sindicatos e da oposição levaram a emissora a ser investigada pelo Parlamento Europeu, que avalia se a Telemadrid violou o artigo 11 da Carta dos Direitos Fundamentais da UE, segundo o qual “a liberdade de opinião e a liberdade de receber ou comunicar informações ou idéias não pode sofrer ingerências de autoridades públicas.”

Complaints from journalists, unions and the opposition caused the broadcaster to be investigated by the European Parliament, which will evaluate whether Telemadrid violated Article 11 of the EU Bill of Rights, according to which “freedom of opinion and freedom to receive or communicate information or ideas cannot suffer interference from public authorities.”

Brazil: “Hey, Bill! Leave Our LANs Alone!”

Agência Carta Maior (Brazil) reports:

Casas de acesso público pago à internet já se tornaram os maiores empreendimentos de inclusão digital nas periferias brasileiras. No entanto, ofensiva dos donos dos códigos e de softwares proprietários ameaça esse negócio em expansão ainda informal. Segundo especialista, softwares livres são alternativa.

Paid internet access centers have already become the most significant expression of digital inclusion in poor Brazilian communities. But an offensive by the owners of proprietary code and software threatens an expanding business sector that is still primarily informal. According to an expert, open-source software provides a way out.

On Brazilian LAN houses as a cultural and political phenomenon, see also this analysis by Vi o Mundo, a Web column on Globo’s G1 news portal.

Luis Carlos Azenha makes the case that the inexpensive Internet access centers are at the forefront of the “democratization of the media” and the rise of a new, politically active lower-middle class.

My own last look at the (often fuzzy) numbers suggests that Microsoft’s digital inclusion efforts in Brazil since 2000 have yielded minimal results, while the LAN house model — where access can be had for as little as R$1 per hour, or less — accounts for as much as one-third of all Internet usage.

Disclosure: Neuza and I are frequent LAN house users, especially during our travels.

The CM report is by Carlos Gustavo, er, Yoda.

Sigo rumo à terceira zona residencial de Praia Grande, o lado de lá da pista para aqueles que desfrutam os jardins da orla dessa cidade do litoral paulista. O objetivo é encontrar um velho amigo, Ramiro, velho companheiro de campanhas passadas. Há mais de ano que não o vejo, e lembrei-me de ter dito ter aberto uma dessas casas de acesso à internet, uma lan house, na Vila do Sapo, área periférica de Praia Grande.

I am on my way to the third residential zone in Praia Grande, on the other side of the highway from the beachside gardens in this São Paulo seaside city. My objective is to meet an old friend, Ramiro, an old comrade from past campaigns. I have not seen him for more than a year, and I remember him telling me that he has opened up one of those Internet centers, a “LAN house,” in the Vila do Sapo, on the periphery of Praia Grande.

Fato é que a lojinha de Ramiro cresceu. O que começou com três computadores usados já conta com 13 máquinas trabalhando em rede. Entre as histórias de maravilhas e tristezas de seu negócio, ele conta que o momento de maior dificuldade foi quando começou a comprar mais computadores e, por lá, apareceram dois funcionários da Microsoft. O aviso foi claro: ou ele comprava as licenças de uso dos softwares que ele havia adquirido como cópias não autorizadas ou a empresa, proprietária dos direitos de cópia dos softwares, entraria com uma ação contra o micro e informal empresário.

The fact is that Ramiro’s little storefront has grown. What began with three used computers now has 13 machines, networked together. Among the stories of triumph and heartbreak that Ramiro has to tell about his business, he says that the most difficult moment was when he began to buy more computers and two Microsoft employees came around. The warning was clear: Either he bought licenses for the unauthorized copies of software he was using or the company, which owned the copyright to the software, would sue the informal small business.

Black Eagles: Colombian Paras in Hugoland?

Billboard for the Colombian Army’s Fourth Brigade, Medellin. “I feel protected because I can count on my Fourth Brigade.” “The brigade is accused of killing dozens of civilians in the past two years, dressing their bodies in camouflage and presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat” in areas outside Medellin, according to a report from the CIP.

Águilas Negras coordinan delitos cometidos desde Venezuela, denuncian en la frontera (El Tiempo, Bogotá): “The Black Eagles organize crimes committed from Venezuela, says sources on the border.”

One of the most garish charges made by the extradited Colombian drug trafficker El Rasguño in an interview with the Bogotá daily, shortly before he left the country, was that “Venezuela is a temple of the narcotraffic.”

In this April 13 report, the Bogotá daily also reported on the presence of demobilized Colombian paramilitaries in the Bolivarian republic of Hugo.

Like Brazil, it seems, Venezuela has farflung areas in which the government is not present. Uribe ordered Colombian police to combat the “Black Eagle” groups back in October of 2006, according to an earlier El Tiempo report:

Las ‘Águilas’ nacieron hace dos años en Norte de Santander y hoy ocupan el espacio dejado por los ‘paras’, especialmente en ese departamento, Santander, Cesar, Caquetá y Antioquia.Según las autoridades, son patrocinadas por narcos. El presidente Álvaro Uribe ordenó perseguirlos hace 12 días. Según los investigadores, nacieron tan solo tres meses después de la desmovilización del Bloque Catatumbo de las Auc.

The “Eagles” were born two years ago in the norh of the Santander province and now occupy the void left by the paras in [five provinces]. According to the authorities, they are sponsored by narcotraffickers … [and were] organized only three months after the demoblization of the Catatumbo block of the AUC.

The Bloque Catatumbo, led by Jorge 40 and Salvatore Mancuso — key figures in the current parapolitics scandal because of their participation in the Convivir program under Uribe when he governed the Antioquia province — was one of the paramilitary groups alleged to have operated jointly with Colombian military units.

On the Convivir flap, see Uribe in His Own Words and The Autumn of Uribe, II, a translated transcript of a television appearance by the Colombian president on the eve of his recent visit to the United States. Plan Colombia and Beyond, a CIP Web log, has published an updated list of persons involved in the “parapolitic” investigations.
The Colombian Support Group, a human rights advocacy NGO, details some of the Catatumbo allegations.

The April 13 report:

En ocho poblaciones venezolanas, en la frontera con Colombia, están operando bandas emergentes de las desmovilizadas autodefensas del Catatumbo.

April 13 — Emerging bands of demobilized Catatumbo paramilitaries are operating in eight Venezuelan border towns.

Así lo denunció Wilfredo Cañizares, director de la ONG Progresar. Lo hizo en la instalación de la regional Noro riente de la Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación (Cnrr), que desde el jueves pasado funciona en Bucaramanga.

That is what Wilfredo Cañizares, directed of the NGO Progresar charged at the opening of regional [] of the national reparations and reconciliation commission (CNRR) that has been operating in Bucuramanga.

Basado en información – según él- de fuentes serias, y comprobada por la ONG en trabajo de campo, el dirigente aseguró que, entre otros lugares, hay ex ‘paras’ que extorsionan en Machiques y en el sector rural de Maracaibo.

Based on information from what Cañizares claims are serious sources, and corroborated by the NGO in the field, the Progesar director says that there are former “paras” practicing extortion in Machiques and rural Maracaibo.

Esa información fue ratificada por el coronel Éver Aguilar, comandante de la Policía en el estado Táchira (Venezuela). Sin embargo, el uniformado desconoció de que se tratara de ‘Águilas Negras’.

This information was ratified by Col. Éver Aguilar, police commandant in the Venezuelan state of Táchira. However, the official was not familiar with the term “Black Eagles.”

Mangabeira Rewrites History!

Mangabeira retira artigo com ataque a Lula de sua página: the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper of São Paulo, Brazil, now confirms what historian Elio Gaspari had stated previously. See Mangabeira Unger: Reengineering the Record?

Prof. Mangabeira Unger of Harvard University has rewritten the historical record on his 2005 comments regarding the Brazilian government he has just been appointed to the cabinet of. If I may use a preposition to end a sentence with.

SÃO PAULO – O professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger retirou de sua página na internet um artigo de 2005 no qual acusava o governo Lula de ser o “mais corrupto de nossa história”. Publicado originalmente no jornal Folha de S. Paulo, o texto intitulado “Pôr fim ao governo Lula” desapareceu do índice de artigos da página onde o professor disponibiliza toda a sua obra.

Professor Robert Mangabeira Unger removed from his Web site an article from 2005 in which he accused the Lula government of being “the most corrupt in [Brazilian] history. Originally published in the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, the article, headlined “putting an end to the Lula government” disappeared from the index of articles on the page where the professor provides access to his complete works.

Brazil: Military Police in Pernambuco Death Squad Case

Boa Viagem, Recife, Pernambuco. That beach has a serious, serious shark problem, I happen to know.

[For an update, see Homicídios, SA: 1,000+ Corporate Actions From Brazilian Murder, Inc.. For a parallel case, see Rio: “Militia Leader Is Suspect in More Than 100 Deaths.” Examples can be multiplied.]

Gravações da Polícia Federal serão usadas para investigar matadores em Pernambuco (Agência Brasil, Brazilian government news service): Some 1,000 murders in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco — home to one of Brazil’s most violent cities, Recife, with a homicide rate of some 60 per 100,000, as I believe I read — are attributed to death squads run by professional assassins and military police.

Recife also has the highest concentration of gambling parlors that I have seen in Brazil — one on every corner, it seems like, all with the same branding, like some kind of Kentucky Fried Chicken of vice.

Rio receives all the international press attention — the international press corps never leaves the Zona Sul, after all, and cribs all their coverage from “local press sources” — but Recife is (1) at least as stunningly beautiful and culturally dynamic, and (2) much, much more violent and corrupt.

I love Recife. Recife deserves to prosper as a tourist destination and a major cultural and business capital of the Northeast. But Recife scares the living snot out of me.

Recife – Uma força tarefa da Polícia Civil de Pernambuco inicia hoje (24), em Caruaru (PE), reuniões para definir o método de investigação dos mais de mil homicídios ocorridos nos últimos cinco anos no Agreste do estado. Os crimes eram encomendados a um grupo de extermínio formado por assassinos profissionais, empresários, policiais militares e comerciantes por preços que chegavam a R$ 5 mil.

Recife — a task force of the Pernambuco state police will commence meetings today in Caruaru to define a method for investigating more than 1,000 murders that occurred in the state in the last 5 years. The crimes were commissioned from a death squad formed by professional assassins, business owners, military police and merchants at prices of up to R$5,000 (US$2,500).

This is not a shocking and novel case. Groups like this have operated all over the place for decades, including — especially — in Sâo Paulo. One reads. Homeless bums driving away your business? Call the exterminator. Having the federal police busting them is a positive trend, however.

Caruaru is about 135 km inland from the port city of Recife and bills itself as “the capital of forró,” a popular country music form. Its mayor is a certain Tony Gel of the PFL. Which, I am sorry to say — the party has recently renamed itself the Democratic party — tends to makes you tend to think immediately of Carlismo.

Vinte e nove envolvidos permanecem presos na capital pernambucana desde o último dia 12, quando a Polícia Federal deflagrou a Operação Aveloz. No entanto, outras pessoas suspeitas ainda estão sendo procuradas.

29 suspects have been in jail in Recife since April 12, when the Federal Police unleashed Operation Aveloz. But other suspects are still being sought.

IBOPE: Mexican Media Monitoring Muffed?

Mexico’s IFE — the national elections commission — hired AC Nielsen — yes, the media audience measurement firm — to produce a counterargument to the charge that the PREP results published live on July 2 presented “systematic statistical anomalies”

The common front was driven by an initiative of the PRD with IFE, but was backed by representatives of PAN and PRI as well, in the face of IFE’s insistence on denying that the monitoring system contained errors.

Señalan 10 errores en monitoreo del instituto electoral (La Jornada): More trouble for Brazilian digital beancounters abroad — see Brazilian E-Vote Techie Jailed in Ecuador and Peril in Paraguay — as the Mexican subsidiary of Nielsen NetRatings partner IBOPE is accused of botching a database designed to assist Mexico’s federal elections commission in monitoring TV spots during the last national elections.

Campaign advertising is closely regulated in Mexico’s elections system. In theory.

But see From the Armed Media Monopoly File: Televisa Vacillates: the Mexican broadcast monopoly has failed to render accounts for ad contracts it entered into during the last presidential campaign.

Nielsen, by the way, was hired by IFE to produce a refutation of charge that statistical anomalies suggested irregularities in last July’s PREP election quick count. See Nielsen: Alternate X-Ray of IFE’s Black Box.

Does the IBOPE-Nielsen nexus mean something here? I do not know. But stay tuned.

IBOPE has a long and colorful history in Brazil and I have often wondered out loud — idly, as a matter of pure speculation, mind you — about the quality of its audience measurements. Maybe I need to dig into it some.

I translate.

Los ocho partidos con registro nacionales detectaron al menos 10 errores graves en el sistema de monitoreo de radio y televisión realizado por la empresa Ibope, y aplicado en la revisión de sus informes de gastos de campaña 2005-2006 y que, a su juicio, “impiden que se reúnan condiciones mínimas de certeza”.

Mexico’s eight nationally-registered political parties have detected at least 10 serious errors in the monitoring system for radio and television, set up by IBOPE and applied to the review of their campaign financial statements for the 2005-2006 season, which in their view “prevent the attainment of minimal conditions of certainty.”  

YouTube and PeruTube: Media and Monstrosities in the Trans-Andean TAZ

“Garcia gets Bush backing, but Democrats condition support for free trade agreement”: Today in La República.

Among television channels, one was state-owned, Channel 7, and Montesinos had control over its content. The five privately owned television broadcasters, Channels 2, 4, 5, 9 and 13, were bought off, as was a cable service, CCN. One alone offered independent investigative journalism: the other cable channel, Channel N, owned by El Comercio. (It was on this channel that the Kouri videotape that brought everything down was first aired).

The scope of massive banana-republian scumbaggery on the contemporary Latin American infotainment scene is pretty astonishing — Televisa, TV Azteca, the Cisneros Group, Telefónica, the Grupo Abril, the Organizações Globo, NEWS Corp. and its subsidiaries and proxies, and more — but the case of Peru under Fujimori may be the most jaw-dropping case of all.

See, for example, HOW TO STEAL A DEMOCRACY / In Peru, bribes were bigger for media barons than for judges (SFGate, January 22, 2006).

I have been doing some archives research on the story from the good old Brooklyn Public Library recently, after picking up the trail in some of the hasty research I did for my post Peru: Meet The New Boss, Same as the Old Boss? More on that as I get it organized.

As you may recall, that story has to do with a corruption investigation into Peru’s current first vice-president, Vice-Adm. Giampietri, relating to arms procurement deals during the Fujimori era.

Vice-Adm. Giampietri is now fighting a summons to give evidence to the anticorruption special prosecutor in the matter of the Colina Group and the massacre at La Cantuta. Source: La República (Lima).

He has refused to cooperate unless he is assured that he will receive parliamentary immunity due to his current status as an elected member of the Peruvian national legislature.

A potentially related political scandal is brewing with respect to Alan Garcia’s Defense Minister, who is accused by the Armed Forces there of pulling a Gonzalez in selecting new officers for Peru’s equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. La República again.

Garcia declared martial law in parts of Peru to deal with an alleged resurgence of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla groups. An erosion of military backing could be an ominous sign, I would venture to guess.

Fujimori bribed legislators, judges, military officers and police to support his program of government, but as this report notes, the primary beneficiaries of his, ahem, largesse, was the mass media.

The typical bribe paid to a television-channel owner was about 100 times larger than that paid to a judge, which was about the same as that paid to a politician. That’s because television was the most forceful of all the checks and balances on the Peruvian government’s power.

Rede Globo Ratfinks Dissident Journos

According to a Globo TV journalist, who preferred not to identify himself, before the first round of the presidential elections [in 2006], Mello commented that he had received instructions to “go easy” on economic indicators that might be interpreted as favorable to the government.

The kinder, gentler Rede Globo, with its business ties to NEWS Corp., Televisa, the Cisneros Group, and other skeevy actors, likes to portray itself as a different operation than the one that in the 1980s aired despicably mendacious coverage of the Diretas Já movement — when not ignoring the massive demonstrations altogether, causing the president-general at the time to chortle, “If the Jornal Nacional does not report it, it never happened” — or set out to ratfuck Leonel Brizola, as I showed you the other day: See NMM(-TV)SNBCNNBS Television Zeitgeist Newsreel: Brizola Comes to Brooklyn.

But Agência Carta Maior — which is in danger of going out of business, one reads — gives you some idea of why that vintage broadside from the former Rio governor gets tens of thousands of hits on YouTube these days.

It follows up on the case of a prominent business editor who was fired by the Rede Globo after he refused to sign a petition circulated among employees by Globo ownership, supporting the network’s coverage of the 2006 national elections.

For previous coverage, see Omertà: Globo Gonzalezes Another Top Editor.

And on that petition, see also “Dear John”: Rodrigo Mouths Off to Marinho Media Mafia and Latgé Responds to Vianna.

Globo business coverage, particularly Conta Corrente, the daily market wrap-up show, is one of the only things I find worth watching — aside from those hypnotic historical primetime soap operas in the genre of JK and Amazônas.

On the quality of journalism at the JN, my Globo’s Port Report Comes Up Short provides another paradigm case.

I translate pra inglês ver.

Direção nega, mas é evidente a perseguição política aos jornalistas que não concordam com a linha editorial da emissora. Essa discussão é importante porque a Globo não é apenas uma empresa privada. É uma empresa privada que opera uma concessão pública.

Management denies it, but the political persecution of journalists who dissent from Globo’s editorial line is obvious. This is an important debate because Globo is not merely a private firm. It is a private firm that operates under a public concession.

Avenida das Nações Unidas 13.301. Este é o endereço do novo distrito empresarial da Marginal Pinheiros, onde se encontra o Hotel Grand Hyatt São Paulo, um dos mais luxuosos da cidade. Se você quiser dormir ali, terá que desembolsar no mínimo 600 reais. Por noite. Em compensação, dormirá ao lado de “importantes centros empresariais, comerciais e financeiros, além dos Shoppings Morumbi, Market Place e D&D”, como informa a página oficial do hotel na internet. Há outras vantagens. Por exemplo, não é preciso se hospedar na suíte diplomática (R$ 1.600,00 por noite) para desfrutar dos magníficos travesseiros “king-size e edredons de pena de ganso, não alérgicos” ou da “roupa de cama 100% algodão egípcio”. Eles estão em todos os apartamentos.

13301 Av. Nações Unidas. That is the address in the new business district along the Pinheiros Beltway where you will find the Grand Hyatt São Paulo, one of the most luxurious in the city. If you want to sleep there you will have to fork out at least R$600. Per night. In compensation, you will sleep right next to “important business, commercial and financial centers, as well as the Morumbi, Market Place and D&D shopping malls,” as the hotel’s Web site states. There are other advantage. For example, you need not stay in the diplomatic suite (R$1,600 per night) to enjoy the magnificent king-size mattresses and hypoallergenic down comforters” or the “100% Egyptian cotton sheets.” Those come standard in every room.

I attended a conference there recently.

Foi no Grand Hyatt que Ali Kamel, diretor-executivo de jornalismo da TV Globo, decidiu se reunir em meados de março com editores do Jornal Nacional. O encontro-almoço foi realizado no Restaurante japonês Kinu, onde o preço do rodízio por pessoa fica em R$ 60,00. Seu folheto afirma que o “restaurante Kinu oferece um ambiente em que predominam as cores e formas do oriente. Essa atmosfera de modernidade faz um contraponto com a cozinha de Yasuo Asai, chef japonês que procura reproduzir em suas criações a autenticidade da culinária japonesa tradicional. No Kinu, o sabor do Japão está presente nos sushis e sashimis, nos pratos quentes e também no menu de sobremesas, todas sugestões acompanhadas de uma carta de saquês única no país”.

It was here that Ali Kamel, executive director of journalism at TV Globo decided to meet in mid-March with the editors of the Jornal Nacional prime-time newscast. The lunch meeting was held in the Kinu Japanese restaurant, where the lunch buffet goes for R$60 a plate. …

Entre um sushi e outro, Kamel deixou claro que seu objetivo era desanuviar o clima. Sempre de maneira muito polida, afirmou que a TV Globo é uma empresa democrática, pluralista e que nunca iria fazer jogo partidário.

Between one piece of sushi and the next, Kamel made it clear that his purpose was to clear the air. In an extremely polite tone, he told the editors that TV Globo is a democratic and pluralist company and would never engage in partisan politics.