A Small Thing for Justice

The judge stood in the hot sun before the wide gate, waiting for the powerful man inside.

She was a small woman, with a cheap green jacket and a worn briefcase. Drops of sweat rolled down her face.

She was there to interrogate the man on the other side of the gate, the nation’s former president, accused of corruption.

But Nicaragua is a place where the rich and powerful have long escaped justice, and simple district judges don’t dare probe too deeply into their lives.

And so Gertrudis Arias waited, and she sweated, and she wondered whether she would become yet another symbol of justice thwarted.

“I felt completely impotent,” she said.

Instead, Gertrudis Arias became a hero.

This is the improbable story of Arias--former maid, former sweatshop worker and now substitute judge--and her quest to investigate Arnoldo Aleman, the former president and current head of the nation’s Congress.

It is also a larger story about corruption in Latin America, about its continued, debilitating effect on the region’s people and politics. Corruption is a black shadow that afflicts nearly every country in Central and South America, gnawing at people’s faith in government, hampering development and scaring away foreign investment.

The fight against corruption has become a pillar of U.S. policy in the region, and legal tools developed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have resulted in aggressive new policies designed to clean up crooked governments.

The fight is difficult, fought in legislators’ back rooms and overcrowded judges’ offices, by crusading journalists and concerned citizens groups.

But it is one that a growing number of people--both powerful and ordinary--have come to see as crucial if Latin America is to escape the misery that mars the daily lives of millions of its people.

“Corruption is the problem that touches all of our other problems,” said Jaime Lopez, head of Probidad, an anti-corruption group based in El Salvador. “It puts the brakes on development, slows us down and stops us from arriving at the solution to our problems.”

Gertrudis Arias learned her values growing up poor.

There were 11 children in the house, and none ever wore shoes. Giving a pair to one child would have meant giving a pair to all--and her parents couldn’t afford that.

Her parents “would say, ‘You may see money lying on the ground, but don’t touch it,’ ” she said. “They taught me that it’s OK to be poor, as long as you’re honest.”

She started work as a maid at 14, graduated from high school and then went to work in a sweatshop.

But toward the end of the Communist Sandinista era, she began attending college and law school on Saturdays, thanks to a scholarship. In 1993, she received her degree and a year later passed the bar.

Arias wanted to become a judge. To gain experience she took a job working as a clerk for a lower court judge, eventually moving up to felony-level court.

Her strategy worked. In Nicaragua, where there is a shortage of full-time judges, each court has a substitute judge, who fills in when the regular judge is on vacation or at a seminar. Arias was appointed as a substitute last year.

The system of substitute judges has long been considered particularly prone to corruption. Defense lawyers manipulate case schedules so their clients conveniently appear before the substitute, often a low-paid attorney, who dismisses the charge for a price.

Shortly after her boss left to attend to bureaucratic court matters in March, Arias got a petition from prosecutors to subpoena Aleman. Under Nicaragua’s legal system, judges act much like district attorneys in the U.S., taking statements from witnesses.

The Aleman case centered on a shady transaction involving the state television station in the waning days of Aleman’s administration.

Allegedly acting under orders from Aleman, station officials bought $1.3 million in new transmission equipment from Mexico’s TV Azteca. The money never reached TV Azteca, instead winding up with a company run by two Aleman advisors.

The subpoena had an expiration date. Arias had only 10 days to interrogate one of the most powerful men in Nicaragua.

Arias takes the bus to work and makes $300 a month. She is married, the mother of two grown children. Hers is a simple life, filled mostly with work. She declined to be interviewed at her home in a modest neighborhood of Managua until she had a chance to clean up.

But her broad, flat face betrayed no hesitation when she was asked if she was daunted by the task in front of her. She laughed and waved her hand, as if it were silly to suggest such a thing.

“He was called as a witness. The law establishes that the judge must interview him,” Arias said. “I had to do it.”

Stories accusing Aleman of corruption dominate the headlines in Managua, the capital.

When he started in politics as mayor of Managua in 1990, Aleman listed his net worth as about $26,000. When he left the presidency early this year, he filed a disclosure form putting his worth at $1.4 million.

During his term, he was accused of using state money to build a helicopter pad at his ranch. He is being investigated for allegedly using a state credit card to buy more than $1.7 million in jewelry, clothing and hotel stays. His opponents call him “Gordoman”--not only for his 300-pound bulk, but for the sheer rapacity of the alleged corruption.

Aleman has never been found guilty of any of the accusations against him. With every allegation, he has either refused to comment or blamed underlings for any misdeeds.

He did not respond to requests for interviews for this article, but an ally blamed the charges on a “political fight” between Aleman and current President Enrique Bolanos, who was Aleman’s vice president.

U.S. officials say they don’t accept the explanations but are waiting for hard evidence before acting against Aleman.

Under recently appointed Assistant Secretary of State Otto J. Reich, the U.S. has been aggressively yanking the visas of those considered corrupt. The idea behind the policy is that corruption is a chief threat to democracy and free markets in Latin America, where a series of populist, leftist movements has arisen in response to the persistent poverty.

“Can you say that [Aleman has] been guilty of all kinds of sins? The circumstantial evidence would suggest yes,” said a State Department official. “This was a country where everything happened because Aleman said so. It’s not a place he can say: ‘It’s a bunch of bad apples. I didn’t know.’ ”

But for now, it seems, Aleman has ironclad protection. All legislators in Nicaragua, as in most of Latin America, have immunity against prosecution. And Aleman, as part of a deal worked out with opposition Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, automatically became a congressman when he left office. Presidents are barred by law from running for a second term.

That immunity, however, didn’t prevent him from being called as a witness in the TV station case. Soon after news surfaced that the prosecutor had issued a subpoena, Arias says, a man approached her in the crowded office where she works and pulled her aside.

“I understand you want to be a Supreme Court magistrate. It’s good to remember that Aleman still controls the assembly,” she said the man told her.

Arias ignored him. She called Aleman’s office and set up an appointment. Then, on March 15, five days before the scheduled interview, she learned from reporters that Aleman had invited various political figures to a going-away party. He was bound for a vacation in Greece the next day.

“I knew by then what he was doing. He had bad intentions,” Arias said.

Tailed by a gaggle of reporters who were following the case and by two prosecutors, Arias immediately set out to find Aleman. First, she stopped at his office, but he had left for the day. So she decided to drive to El Chile, his hacienda-style ranch about 15 miles outside the capital. There, two guards blocked her entry. One told her the former president wasn’t there.

She waited.

The reporters accompanying her made some phone calls. One told Arias that a source said Aleman was definitely inside. Arias told the guards and insisted that Aleman see her.

Finally, after an hour had passed and Arias was drenched in sweat, one of Aleman’s emissaries invited her and the two prosecutors inside.

Once there, she glimpsed a party going on in a distant room. She noticed two Supreme Court magistrates and several congressmen.

Then Aleman came into the room. He had a typed statement in his hand.

“Here is the document,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave the country without giving it to you.”

But Arias, citing the law, insisted that Aleman give an oral statement and answer questions. Surrounded by six advisors, Aleman had to agree.

He read his statement, then answered questions for four hours, the first time in recent Nicaraguan history that a former president had testified before a judge in a corruption case.

He denied all knowledge of the transaction. His appointees at the television station acted without his consent, he said.

Then he left the room.

But Arias had gotten what she came for.

“In spite of his plans to avoid it, we got the declaration. It was worth it,” she said with a small smile.

Six days later, she ordered the arrest of all those originally accused, including Aleman’s former advisors and three former government officials.

And she asked the assembly to strip Aleman of his immunity, so he could stand trial.

The assembly, controlled by Aleman, has so far not acted on the request.

But a growing number of government officials, intellectuals and ordinary people are calling for the legislature to take away Aleman’s immunity.

In early August, Bolanos presented on television an exhaustive set of documents that he said proved Aleman had stolen nearly $95 million from the state.

He joined those asking for an end to Aleman’s immunity and pledged to lead a public protest.

“Arnoldo, I never imagined that you would betray the people,” Bolanos said during the presentation. “You took pensions from retirees, medicine from the sick, salaries from teachers.

“You robbed the trust of our people,” he said.

Aleman angrily lashed back the next day, denying the charges and accusing Bolanos of a political attack.

At last count, he continued to hold a majority in Congress.

Arias has returned to her work as a clerk. Her office is about the size of a Winnebago, and she shares it with five other people.

Accused criminals in handcuffs come and go. Typewriters clack away--no one has a computer. There is a constant murmur.

She eats at a small restaurant down the street, where the lunch special--a ham sandwich, a drink and a bag of chips--costs $1.50. Everywhere she walks, people call out her name. Poets have written her praises in newspapers. Local human rights groups have held parties in her honor. To many, she is a hero, walking proof that sometimes the little guys win.

But Arias worries about her future. Aleman defenders have accused her of being a Sandinista and a former state security member, which she denies.

She still hopes to be a Supreme Court magistrate one day. But for now, she is happy to have done some small thing for justice.

“I’m glad if I’ve done society some good,” she said. “But if I did, I didn’t mean it. For me, I was just doing my job.”