The influential rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is struggling with a corruption scandal that forced it to fire a top executive accused of misusing taxpayer funds meant to build housing for the poor.
The group is a close ally of Argentina’s president and the scandal could have political consequences with only months to go before an Oct. 23 election.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez enjoys a wide lead in the polls and is favored to win re-election should she announce her candidacy this month.
The judicial investigation has already been broadened to include any politicians and government appointees found to be involved in the scandal.
“If there wasn’t complicity, there was negligence in terms of government controls. This case is yet more proof that the controls aren’t working in Argentina,” Ricardo Alfonsin, the president’s leading challenger, said in an interview he promoted on Twitter.
On Wednesday, opposition members of Congress called for more transparency and controls in government spending, and governing party deputies defended the Mothers group as key to the president’s populist programs.
The human rights group began during the 1976 to 1983 dictatorship when its founders demanded information about their children who had disappeared in the military junta’s campaign to eliminate political dissenters. In recent years, the group has evolved into a political movement that backs specific candidates and unions. It is a fixture at governing party rallies and it runs a wide range of social programs, as well as radio and television stations.
Since 2008, the government has given the Mothers group about US$187 million for more than 2,000 housing and related construction sites, Argentine Deputy Public Works Secretary Abel Fatala told a congressional committee on Wednesday, but he insisted that local officials, not the federal government, were responsible for making sure the money was properly spent.
Opposition leaders said the Mothers and federal officials showed a shocking failure of responsibility.
Fernanda Reyes, a deputy with the opposition Civic Coalition, said that since 2004, only 35 percent of housing that should have been built with taxpayers’ money was actually finished. A Peronist party deputy, Gustavo Ferrari, countered that the Mothers group is now Argentina’s second-biggest house builder in terms of the number of people it employs.
Sergio Schoklender, the right hand of the Mothers’ president, Hebe de Bonafini, is accused along with his brother Pablo and more than a dozen others of fraud, money laundering and illegal enrichment. Sergio Schoklender served as the rights group’s legal representative, which gave him key financial and administrative responsibilities.
Prosecutor Jorge Di Lello’s complaint alleges Schoklender made a series of suspicious operations that shifted taxpayers’ funds into businesses he owns.
While earning about US$16,000 a year to help Argentina’s poor, Schoklender amassed a 19-room mansion, Ferrari and Porsche sports cars and a yacht, according to the opposition Clarin newspaper. Schocklender also frequently flew around the country in private jets, the paper said.
Judge Norberto Oyarbide barred the Schoklender brothers from leaving Argentina and ordered a series of raids to recover documents. At one point, Sergio Schoklender showed up unexpectedly at court to give the judge evidence, such as receipts, bank statements and other financial documents, that he said would prove he had committed no crimes, according to his lawyer, Adrian Tenca.
The government, meanwhile, has moved forcefully to support Bonafini and fix any blame on those who worked for her.
Bonafini, who visited the presidential palace on Wednesday, is seeking to distance herself from the Schoklenders, whom she had treated like sons. She founded the group after her own two sons disappeared during the military dictatorship and has long defended the Schoklenders, who were released early from life terms in prison after killing their parents in a 1981 crime that shocked Argentina.
“I’m neither the first nor the last mother whose son gets into big trouble,” Bonafini told the pro-government Tiempo Argentino on Sunday in an interview that set the tone for this week’s wagon-circling. “The accusations are against the legal representative, who was Sergio, and against his brother, and if they committed crimes, they will have to pay.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of