Argentine President Lashes Out at Corruption Charges

Argentine President Carlos Menem defended his government Wednesday against escalating accusations of corruption that have provoked an all-out political brawl here.

Meeting with foreign journalists, Menem criticized as “irresponsible” those of his political rivals who have implicated powerful officials in scandals involving drugs, murder, fraud, judicial corruption and alleged infiltration of politics by criminal mafias.

“There are no mafias in power,” he declared. “I can assure you that democracy functions completely in Argentina, as does liberty, justice and judicial security.”

His words were part of a duel of accusations that has turned nasty even by the standards of Argentina’s pugilistic political arena.

Menem, whose once-impressive popularity ratings have declined this year, took the initiative last week by announcing an offensive against corruption, an issue that tops public opinion polls and generates headlines at a dizzying pace. The centerpiece of his campaign is a crackdown on federal customs officials who allegedly smuggled billions of dollars of merchandise into Argentina through a clandestine “parallel” customs agency.

In another spectacular case, anti-drug police last week arrested a jet-setting sports impresario who is charged with cocaine dealing but has been regarded as untouchable because he manages soccer star Diego Maradona, a friend of the president and his aides.

This week, though, the corruption issue boomeranged against Menem via a familiar nemesis: former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, a hard-charging technocrat who was fired by Menem this summer. In a radio interview, Cavallo accused Menem’s interior and justice ministers of protecting organized crime.

“In Argentina, there is neither security nor justice,” said Cavallo, a potential presidential candidate in 1999.

Cavallo criticized Interior Minister Carlos Corach and questioned his handling of such sensitive cases as unsolved terrorist bombings against Jewish targets and a contraband case in which a prosecutor has suffered repeated mob-style attacks. Cavallo asserted that Corach manipulates verdicts and investigations; he described a private conversation in which the minister allegedly wrote names of judges on a napkin and boasted that he controlled them.

An enraged Corach responded Tuesday. He said the denunciations revealed Cavallo’s “state of emotional imbalance,” while a federal judge challenged Cavallo to produce the napkin as evidence. Corach recently predicted that the anti-corruption crackdown would snare “more technocrats than politicians”--an apparent reference to Cavallo allies at customs and other agencies.

Menem and Cavallo’s forces also are fighting in the trenches of the judicial system, analysts say. As economy minister, Cavallo made similar charges about high-level corruption last year. He was hit with civil lawsuits and criminal actions that he has called heavy-handed attempts to silence him. In another spat, two Peronist congressional representatives may file suit against former Interior Minister Gustavo Beliz, a Cavallo ally who this week reportedly called Menem the “chief of the mafia.”

Although Cavallo paints himself as an ethics crusader, critics note that he was an influential insider until recently. The conflict is a “contest between two mafias,” scoffed Carlos Alvarez, leader of the opposition Frepaso party.

Despite the furor, Menem did his best Wednesday to maintain his characteristic suavity. He defended Ramon Hernandez, his personal secretary, who has been linked to a scandal because of his friendship with Guillermo Coppola, the manager of Maradona and a formerly frequent visitor to the presidential estate who was arrested last week on drug charges. Coppola has also been investigated in the murder of a nightclub owner with whom he and Hernandez dined on the night of his death.

“By hitting Hernandez, my secretary, they are trying to hit the president,” Menem said.