Dirty Wars and Democracy

After reading “The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights” in Dirty Wars last semester, this name popped right out of the page while I was reading the newspaper this morning.

Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge now famous for his efforts to prosecute former Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet, has opened an investigation into the former Bush Administration over alleged torture and human rights abuses at Guantánamo Bay.

 Full article from the New York Times

Crusading Judge’s Exit From Probe Of Civil War-Era Mass
Graves May Leave Truth In The Ground
By Christine Spolar
Chicago Tribune November 19, 2008

PINILLA DE LA VALDERIA, Spain-Many people in this
verdant countryside know their hills and valleys hide a
terrible treasure from the Spanish Civil War: Skeletons
of loved ones, just a few generations gone. Read the rest of this entry »

El País, 20 de noviembre de 2008

Unos 30 intelectuales artistas y familiares de la víctimas del franquismo han presentado hoy en Madrid un manifiesto de apoyo al juez Garzón. El documento, con el título ‘Hemos conocido’ cuenta con el respaldo del premio Nobel de Literatura José Saramago, el escritor argentino Ernesto Sábato, el historiador Ian Gibson o el cantautor Paco Ibánez, quien ha presentado el manifiesto junto a Cristina Almeida en el círculo de Bellas Artes

A partir de ahora el texto podrá firmarse. Sus promotores quieren entregarlo con el mayor número de apoyos al Gobierno el próximo 14 de abril, día en que se conmemora la proclamación de la Segunda República. .

Durante la presentación del manifiesto, el presidente de la Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica, Emilio Silva, ha denunciado que el fiscal de la Audiencia Nacional que se opuso a que el juez Garzón instruyera el caso de las fosas ha hecho “injusticia” con una mano y “política” con la otra.

El representante de la asociación ha afirmado que lo que ha hecho Garzón es una “inhibición activa”, gracias a la cual “da a conocer los hechos” sucedidos bajo la dictadura franquista “tal como fueron”.

Además, un grupo de unos 40 juristas suscribe hoy otro manifiesto de Amnistía Internacional con el título ‘Para pasar página primero hay que leerla’ en el que se denuncia que la justicia española haya investigado crímenes contra la humanidad en varios países y se hayan abstenido de hacerlo en su propio Estado.

New York Times, November 19, 2008

By VICTORIA BURNETT

MADRID — A high-profile judge on Tuesday dropped a sensitive inquiry into atrocities that took place during the era of Franco, Spain’s former dictator, ending what had promised to be the first criminal investigation of wrongs committed by Franco and his allies.

The judge, Baltasar Garzón, last month declared himself competent to investigate the killings of 114,000 people at the hands of Franco’s supporters during the 1936-1939 civil war and the dictatorship that followed and ordered the exhumation of at least 19 mass graves. He accused Franco and 34 former generals and ministers of crimes against humanity.

However, Judge Garzón said Tuesday that he was dropping the case against Franco and his allies after state prosecutors questioned his jurisdiction over crimes committed 70 years ago by people who are now dead and whose crimes were covered by an amnesty passed in 1977. In a 152-page statement, he passed responsibility to regional courts for opening 19 mass graves believed to hold the remains of hundreds of victims, including those of Federico García Lorca, the Spanish poet. Read the rest of this entry »

[This from the BBC. See also the the New York Times.]

Spanish judge to probe Franco era

A Spanish judge has launched a criminal investigation into the fate of tens of thousands of people who vanished during the civil war and Franco dictatorship.

Judge Baltasar Garzon – Spain’s top investigating judge – has also ordered several mass graves to be opened.

One is believed to contain the remains of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was murdered by fascist forces at the start of the war in the 1930s.

Correspondents say the historic ruling will be controversial in Spain.

They say there has been a tacit agreement among political parties not to delve too deeply into the civil war and Franco era.

In his 68-page ruling, Judge Garzon says that Francoists carried out “illegal permanent detentions” which he says falls within the definition of crimes against humanity.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the Guardian.

10 years of the Pinochet principle

The arrest warrant served on the Chilean head of state in 1998 changed history and has implications for the US government now

On October 16 1998, a magistrate signed a warrant for the arrest of Senator Augusto Pinochet and changed the course of history. The former Chilean head of state was arrested a few hours later, at the request of a Spanish prosecutor who charged him with a raft of international crimes, some dating back to the early 1970s. Over the next 18 months, one dramatic development followed another. The House of Lords rendered three landmark judgments in the space of five months; home secretary Jack Straw defied expectations by giving a green light to the continuation of proceedings that could lead to Pinochet’s removal to Madrid; Pinochet made a dramatic appearance in the dock at Belmarsh magistrate’s court; and eventually Straw decided that Pinochet was too unhealthy to stand trial and he was returned to Chile in April 2000. For the rest of his life he was dogged by legal proceedings.

One central question lay at the heart of the whole affair: was a former head of state entitled to claim immunity before the English courts, where it was alleged that he had participated in crimes, in violation of international conventions, such as torture? This question had never before been decided. It pitted two competing views of international relations against each other: traditionalists argued that the maintenance of serene relations between states required the courts of one state to refrain from sitting in judgment over the highest officials of another; the modernists argued that no person was above the law where the most serious international crimes were involved, and that the system of human rights laws put in place after the second world war substituted a rule of immunity with a new rule against impunity. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a YouTube clip from a broadcast on Sept. 17, 2008 from Radio Caracol in Miami with Senator John McCain. In the image, the man on the right is Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. It becomes clear from the interview that McCain is attempting to answer a question about whether he would meet with Zapatero, a member of Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE) without having any idea who Zapatero is.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/WItI9It_Swc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

John McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann defended McCain’s comments in a letter to the Washington Post arguing that McCain knew who Zapatero was and was simply restating his policyof refusing to commit to “a White House meeting with President Zapatero.” (Scheunemann, by the way, identifies Zapatero as Spain’s President; in fact he is the Prime Minister. What is odd is that five months ago McCain, breaking from the White House, said that he would be happy to meet with Zapatero and that the U.S. and Spain should put their differences behind them (Zapatero pulled Spain’s troops out of Iraq after becoming Prime Minister).

From “Talking Points Memo” of September 19, a handy update and summary:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9mP8tuIMHMI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

As TPM points out, the most straightforward response for the McCain camp would have been to “spin” about how the candidate had had a grueling day, didn’t quite understand the interviewer’s accent, and had made an honest mistake. Instead, they now have turned his mistake (and we all make them) into an actual, honest-to-god diplomatic row…rather than admit a mistake. To make this as clear as possible: The McCain camp is now advocating stupid policy (i.e., isolating a NATO ally) rather than admit the ignorance of the candidate on this issue. Am I missing something here?