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The instruction manual for autocratic governing was written just south of here

Mark Botsford

Jan. 23

Botsford spent most of his professional career in Latin America, providing strategic advice to more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies doing business in the region.
Having lived and worked for more than 30 years in countries including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia — all places with authoritarian regimes elected democratically — I have watched plenty of times as democratic institutions were systematically weakened and corruption allowed to flourish.
The comparisons between these countries and the United States today should be alarming to all of us, as the similarities are striking. An instruction manual exists on how to destroy the rule of law.
The United States is in the process of becoming authoritarian. No need to look any further than our hemispheric neighbors in Central and South America. Authoritarianism, as a result of military dictatorships, has become engraved into their societies and honed to perfection. Generals became strongmen, preferred by a society dependent on paternalistic leaders -- conservative or liberal, but always nationalist. Think Panama's Manuel Noriega or Argentina's Juan Peron on the right, or Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Bolivia's Evo Morales on the left.
Why are many countries that were colonized by Spain, Portugal or France more corrupt in nature than countries colonized by England?
It's cultural and began with the Rule of Law. Napoleonic law governs much of Latin America, while English Common Law governs much of North America. So, depending on where you live in the hemisphere, private property can become fungible.
Political corruption was rare in the United States from the 1960s until the election of Donald Trump. Down south something close to the opposite is true: Vibrant postcolonial democracies mirrored on the U.S. Constitution were the norm until the 1920s, but since then their democratic institutions have been systematically dismantled.
The pattern has been consistent: A leader has been elected along with a loyal legislative branch, then he's set about to systematically corrupt the Rule of Law, hold power with a divide-and-conquer strategy and use his office for enriching himself and his family.
In order to succeed, these demagogues have dominated their nations' institutions of power:

• The legislature. (Just this month, the Venezuelan Congress was effectively taken over by its president.) 
• The judiciary. (Ecuador's Supreme Court always obeys the president.) 
• The media. (Brazil's president has suppressed its once free press.)
• Corporations. (Bolivia's president nationalized the private sector.) 
• The spies. (The Argentinian president gutted the intelligence community.)
• The treasury. (The Peruvian president outright stole from government coffers.)
• Voting. (Nicaragua's president controlled the conduct of elections.) 

Moreover, clientelism has been the currency of these authoritarian regimes. Webster's defines this as "a social order that depends upon relations of patronage; in particular, a political approach that emphasizes or exploits such relations."
Finally, these leaders have focused on cultivating a political base from a portion of the population that feels aggrieved — economically, socially or because of race. Their form of indoctrination builds slowly, starting with small innocuous changes. The analogy is to the frog who never realizes it's been boiled alive. The victim has been democracy itself, with the rule of law decapitated across a continent in favor of the leaders' rules and laws.
These demagogues have needed lots of cash, or the ability for great accumulation once in office, to spread around to their allies. Campaign fundraising kick-started these efforts, inauguration festivities accelerated them exponentially and then re-election campaign financing kept up the pace.
Kickbacks derived from government contracts became common practice. So too the notion of the national treasury as the leader's personal bank account.
The national legislature then readily becomes the dictator's rubber stamp, ushering his judicial picks onto the courts and keeping unwanted legislation stymied. Along the way, members of the opposition party have been systematically bullied into submission — or opted for early retirement.
Quickly installing a corrupt general prosecutor or attorney general has proved essential to demagogic success, followed by the selection of nothing but compliant judges and prosecutors.
While their work has commenced, the leaders' have labeled the press as the enemy of the people — corrupt media partners serving as echo chambers and drowning out balanced coverage. Opposition media has been stifled through economic pressure, allowing leaders to go unquestioned when they tell their people that what they see and hear elsewhere is not the truth — and that the executive is knowledge and wisdom's one true source.
Willing corporate allies have been rewarded with lucrative government contracts, while perceived enemies in the business community have been starved by the treasury until they submitted to the leader's will.
Corrupt foreign allies have also routinely been enlisted — to attack opponents or bring in investments, national security be damned, and even if it requires a hollowing out of the government's own intelligence-gathering community.
And if all this has not assured these leaders' indefinite hold on power, bureaucrats have been lined up to rig elections — timing them for the boss's maximum advantage, suppressing the opposition's path to the polls and stuffing ballot boxes for good measure.
All this has allowed these demagogues to hold power even when their red meat rhetoric has succeeded at herding only a third of the people into their blindly loyal base. In regional political jargon, it's known as controlling the street.
It's worked time and again for leaders who stage frequent political rallies, portraying themselves as men of the people who share many of the public's grievances. Scapegoating immigrants, accusing them of taking jobs from the natives, has proved a winning part of this formula. And portraying themselves as empathetic victims has had the added benefit of keeping the majority silent, out of fear of severe retribution from the riled up base.
Education across the continent is now all about indoctrination. To dominate the people requires starving them intellectually and stuffing them ideologically, their leaders have concluded, so writing critical of the government is often banished. "Shoes yes, books no" has been the demagogue's slogan across Central and South America since the 1940s.
Obfuscation, self-dealing, lies and corruption have been normalized for these leaders to succeed. It is very difficult to turn the clock back in the region. And it is impossible to avoid noticing parallels in our own country now.

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Martes 24 de julio de 2012 | Publicado en edición impresa

Audiencia en Nueva York

Nueva batalla judicial por el default

Los fondos buitre piden igual trato que quienes entraron en los dos canjes; no hay plazo para el veredicto

Por Silvia Pisani  | LA NACION

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WASHINGTON.- El Gobierno tuvo ayer un nuevo round en la batalla que libra con los llamados "fondos buitre", que piden recibir "igual trato" que quienes aceptaron los dos canjes de deuda que ellos rechazaron. "Los argentinos encontraron bastantes más dificultades de las que esperaban", se indicó a LA NACION. Lo que ocurrió ayer en la Cámara de Apelaciones de Nueva York fue una audiencia "técnica" en la que ambas partes expusieron argumentos sin que se llegara a veredicto. "No hay plazo determinado para eso, todavía", se indicó.

La audiencia respondió a una apelación de la Argentina respecto de un fallo producido en febrero pasado por el juez de Nueva York Thomas Griesa en favor de los fondos EM y NML. En esa instancia, Griesa se pronunció a favor de que los bonistas cobraran intereses "en igualdad de condiciones" que aquellos que sí aceptaron los dos canjes de deuda que ofreció el gobierno y que los llamados "fondos buitre" rechazaron.

La cuestión quedó pendiente ante el pedido de apelación de la Argentina. En medio hubo pronunciamientos tanto en favor de nuestro país como indicadores en contrario. A favor, el ministro Hernán Lorenzino celebró un pronunciamiento del gobierno de Barack Obama por el que "desaconsejaba" a la Corte de Apelaciones seguir el camino indicado por Griesa. La Argentina "debe normalizar" la relación con sus acreedores, pero seguir el curso indicado por Griesa podría implicar "tensión" en "nuestras relaciones internacionales", dijo, en abril último, un escrito del Departamento de Justicia, denominado Amicus Curiae.

Con ese escrito como paraguas, la representación legal argentina se presentó en la Corte de Nueva York para argumentar a favor de la revisión de la medida.

Fuentes familiarizadas con el caso dijeron a LA NACION que una de las "sorpresas" de la audiencia fue el criterio deslizado por uno de los integrantes del tribunal en el sentido de respaldar a Griesa. "No hubo veredicto aún, pero la impresión es que al Departamento de Justicia le está costando un poco hacer entender su criterio" político, fue el argumento.

Consultadas por LA NACION, ninguna de las partes involucradas hizo comentarios formales sobre lo ocurrido.

Los bonistas reclaman que se les paguen intereses, pese a que ellos no aceptaron los canjes de deuda, y sin que esto obstaculice sus otras causas judiciales contra la Argentina.

La representación argentina sostuvo que acceder al reclamo de los fondos EM y NML sería poco menos que "dinamitar" acuerdos internacionales de renegociación de deuda. "Acceder a una cosa así sería sumamente complicado para otras operaciones de renegociación de deuda que están en curso y de las que depende mucho, como es el caso de España o de Grecia", ejemplificó, en su momento, el embajador en Washington, Jorge Argüello.

Para los demandantes, eso es usar "la estrategia del miedo". La embestida sigue con el agravante para la Argentina de que, días atrás, los bonistas lograron un fallo a favor por el que se podrían embargar activos estatales en poder del Banco Hipotecario por US$ 23 millones. "Lo que ocurrió ayer en los juzgados de Nueva York demuestra que a la Argentina le queda mucho antes de volver a convertirse en un país confiable para los mercados financieros. Mejor sería que se sentara de una vez a negociar de buena fe", dijo Mark Botsford, uno de los principales tenedores de deuda individuales y que, como tal, no forma parte del proceso ventilado ayer..