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The
government Complicity and Silence
By Diego
Melamed
It's
curious. What might be one of the most interesting non-fiction
books has come out already.
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Carlos
Menem, President of Argentina.
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In
the Argentina of President Carlos Menem, an inventory of attacks
on the press in 1998 is the result of a hostile situation
in which the incorruptible press is considered a political
rival by those who believe that power is impunity.
"Attacks
Against the Press" (Ataques a la Prensa) (Editorial Planeta)
is also a detailed work of Periodistas (Association for the
Defense of Independent Journalism) which tells of actions
intended to frighten journalists all over the country. Joaquín
Morales Solá says in the introduction of the book,
"Carlos Menem, with his royal-like vision of life and power,
is far from understanding the role of the news media in a
democratic society."
In
a decade noted for the corruption and the enthronement of
profit as an end, the work of those who should inform suffered
restrictions and unacceptable risks. In the Menem years, Argentina
has also suffered attacks against the Israeli Embassy (March
17, 1992) and the Jewish AMIA (July 18, 1994). Since then,
everything related to Judaism had occupied new space in the
public agenda.
In
this book of denunciations, there's a page on how news coverage
about the terrorist attacks on the Alef Network, the cable
channel dedicated to Jewish culture, was manipulated.
As
a journalist for Alef, I went every Monday to cover the protest
carried out in Plaza Lavalle by Active Memory group. After
the third anniversary of the attack and a fiery speech against
Rubén Beraja, president of the political arm of the
Jewish community and also a board member of Alef, the channel
decided to stop covering Active Memory. Beraja was also president
of the liquidated Mayo Bank. From a banker's logic, it appeared
understandable to refuse to finance news coverage of an activity
organized by those who publicly criticized his closeness to
the government.
I
expressed my disagreement verbally and in internal correspondence.
E-mail messages arrived from around the world, indignant because
the only Jewish channel was not covering the protest that
was covered by the main news stations. Later I proposed and
led an investigation, News AMIA-Embassy. Every Thursday
I broadcast live a report on the two causes. I included elements
that were not officially privileged.
On
that program, the silence and the confusion of the answers
that ex-police chief Pedro Klodczyk gave to questions about
the fortune of ex-commissioner Juan José Ribelli were
broadcast. As well, congressman Emilio Morello stood mute
before the cameras when asked about a tape mentioned in his
file on which he appears to be looking for bombs. The minister
of Justice, Raúl Granillo Ocampo, had no misgivings
in saying he was satisfied with the work of the Supreme Court
in the Israeli Embassy case. Over a seven-year period, the
court has issued only a mild political condemnation of Iran
and it has no one on trial nor detained.
The
program News AMIA-Embassy was cancelled August 27,
1998. I announced on the air that the channel had ended a
cycle on Argentine television dedicated to the systematic
follow-up and analysis of these topics.
On
September 1, the newspaper Página 12 reported
on the closing of the program, noting that "the last broadcast
of News AMIA-Embassy covered the detention of family
members who went to deliver a petition to the minister of
the interior, Carlos Corach." Journalist Gabriel Levinas,
in his book "The Law beneath the Debris," includes the abrupt
end of the program in a section entitled "Negotiating with
the Press."
It's
notable that the only cable channel with a Jewish theme has
been silenced on the two occasions it delved into massacres
not clarified by the justice sector. The journalists association
has noted this in its annual report.
Looking
at the broad picture, there is tension between "the Jewish
street" and the leaders. Five years after the deaths of 86
people in the AMIA bombing, few people are up to questioning
judge Galeano. The DAIA has always said that it was not necessary
to upset the equilibrium with the Menem government, to which
rabbi Daniel Goldman has already replied: "The equilibrium
was broken by the bombing and only justice will bring back
harmony."
The
general context in the decade in which the community has been
Menemized suggests including what happened at the channel
as part of the strategy of not angering the government, in
the framework of the suspicious rapprochement between the
Jewish leadership and the national leadership.
After
the events at News AMIA-Embassy, I replied to a call
from the Periodistas organization that included part of my
testimony in its annual report. I suggested in February of
this year that the program return tot he air.
Although
it's hard to believe, the Menem era is reaching its end. Also,
the community and the channel seem to be breathing easier.
The
authors of this book link the very existence of the association
with the world of journalism as seen by the Menem government.
For its part, the Jewish leadership of the last decade has
imitated some of the style of the government.
Faced
with a new millennium, perhaps the next report on censorship
will be less voluminous (and won't have a "Jewish page").
The
channel that Beraja can no longer subsidize has ended up in
the hands of Fernando Sokolwicz, the editor of Página
12 and a man connected to the fight for human rights.
Horacio
Verbitsky – another of the members of the association who
edited the "Attacks Against the Press" report – proposes a
definition of journalism that's brilliant as well as opportune.
In his book "A World Without Journalists," he writes: "Journalism
is making public that which somebody doesn't want known; the
rest is advertising."
(Diego
Melamed is an Argentine journalist who was anchor of News
AMIA-Embassy of Israel on the Alef cable channel. He has
been a professor of journalism at several Argentine universities).
(May
12, 1999)
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