ARGENTINA: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Scandal 'Toxic' for President

• by Marcela Valente (buenos aires)
• Friday, June 17, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The latest survey by pollster Enrique Zuleta found that nearly 53 percent of respondents believe the scandal is a serious problem that will have far-reaching consequences for politics and the country's institutions, and that the effects are not merely limited to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The Mothers, a world-renowned human rights group, emerged 34 years ago during the 1976-1983 dictatorship to protest the forced disappearance of their children.

The scandal involves Sergio Schoklender, who was the chief adviser to activist Hebe de Bonafini — the head of the Mothers Association — and the financial manager of the foundation set up by the human rights group.

Early this month the Association fired Schoklender and several of his associates after legal charges were brought against them for fraud, illegal enrichment and money laundering in relation to government funds that went to the foundation for the purpose of building low-income housing to replace slums.

The case has been investigated by the Fiscal Unit for Combating Money Laundering (UFILAVDIN), based on accusations made a year ago by two opposition legislators. The Association has asked the judge to consider it a plaintiff in the case.

The investigation is now focused on Schoklender, his brother Pablo, and several associates. But the Office of the Auditor General, which falls within the sphere of Congress, is also investigating whether any public officials were implicated in the alleged corruption.

Sergio Schoklender got involved with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo after he was released from prison in 1995, where he had served time for the 1981 murder of his father and mother, in complicity with his brother. In prison he earned degrees in law and psychology.

The police searched the offices of the foundation, where the Schoklenders' had their offices.

The investigation is tracking some 185 million dollars transferred from the Federal Planning Ministry to municipal governments to pay for affordable housing built by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo foundation through its Shared Dreams programme.

The case, which could lead to a court summons for Bonafini, one of the founding members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, has put egg on the face of the Fernández administration, which has helped finance the Association's humanitarian and social programmes.

Next week, Fernández will officially announce whether or not she will seek reelection in October. She is the front-runner in the polls, far ahead of any potential rivals.

Analysts say the crisis in the human rights group, which has been closely associated with the government, could hurt her candidacy.

The close ties between the Mothers and the government of the centre-left faction of the Justicialista (Peronist) Party began with the presidency of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), Fernández's late husband and predecessor, in the context of the administration's policy of support for the clarification of the dictatorship's human rights crimes.

As a group, the Mothers emerged a few months after the 1976 coup d'état that ushered in the bloody seven-year de facto military regime that filled prisons and clandestine torture camps with leftists, trade unionists and other opponents and carried out a systematic plan of forced disappearance of political prisoners. Human rights groups estimate that 30,000 people were 'disappeared'.

Wearing their trademark white headscarves, the Mothers became famous in the country, and eventually around the world, with their silent walking vigils every Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo, the square in front of the seat of government in Buenos Aires, held to demand that their sons and daughters be returned to them alive.

The activists, who are all over the age of 80 now, became a symbol of the fight against the dictatorship and, after the return to democracy in 1983, of the fight against the impunity enjoyed by the human rights violators, who were protected by presidential pardons and two amnesty laws.

The pardons and amnesties were repealed and annulled at the initiative of the Kirchner administration.

In time, differences among the Mothers arose, and in 1986 they split into two factions: Bonafini's Association and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo — Founding Line.

Alliances

Kirchner was elected in the first round of voting in 2003 with a mere 22 percent of the vote because his rival, former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) withdrew prior to the runoff, in the face of certain defeat.

With that low level of support and a badly fragmented Justicialista Party, Kirchner expanded his support base by forging ties with social sectors like rights groups, which backed his strong human rights agenda and his focus on getting the trials against the military reopened.

The strategy was effective. Never before had human rights groups been so close to a government — they were much more used to being on the opposite side of the fence.

Now, the survey carried out by Zuleta's polling firm found that just 21 percent of those interviewed said the scandal shaking the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo foundation will not compromise or jeopardise the government, while 67 percent say it will.

Political scientists who spoke with IPS pointed to the limits of the way 'Kirchnerismo' has built up its political support base, saying it is no different from the informal strategy to which Peronism has always resorted.

Carla Carrizo, who teaches political science at the Catholic University of Argentina, said it is 'a commonplace' to say that the Justicialista Party bases its capacity to govern on social coalitions, more than electoral alliances.

'They don't build governance capacity by strengthening mechanisms and actors in the electoral and political party spheres, but by weakening them, and in their place strengthening the social actors in their coalition,' she said.

She added that in the Justicialista Party, 'formal rules don't count,' because the party is characterised by 'an informal institutional structure.' The problem, she said, is when that practice, which is useful within the political grouping itself, spreads to the rest of the political system.

The way the party operates ends up 'creating non-state actors' that play a major role in certain areas, like the Mothers foundation and the Tupac Amaru association led by another woman, Milagro Salas, who also builds housing for the poor.

For his part, sociologist Marcos Novaro of the Political Research Centre (CIPOL) said the crisis in the Mothers Association, whether or not it has electoral repercussions, 'will have a very corrosive symbolic impact on the legitimacy built up by the government.'

'Fernández's inability to distance herself from her relationship with Bonafini is highly toxic' for the president, he said.

But Novaro also said that helping the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo become a social organisation that is active in different areas, while at the same time gaining legitimacy by identifying itself with the Association's causes and prestige, was not in and of itself a bad strategy on the part of the government.

'The problem is that they did it in a misguided manner; they gave Bonafini and Schoklender a lot of space, and they didn't control what was happening to those funds,' he added.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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