2000 Argentina Bribe Scandal Reopens After New Confession

A congressional official’s emotional confession in a report published Saturday has reopened one of Argentina’s most notorious scandals, shedding light on the behind-the-scenes dealings that doomed a president and set off years of political instability.

In an interview with Buenos Aires magazine TXT, former Senate Secretary Mario Pontaquarto described how he personally delivered a $5-million bribe to nine senators at the behest of President Fernando de la Rua in April 2000.

The money, Pontaquarto said, was provided from the Argentine intelligence service’s secret funds and delivered in two briefcases to senators of the nation’s dominant political parties, the Radicals and the Peronists.

“I asked him why me, why couldn’t someone else do this,” Pontaquarto told TXT, remembering the moment a senator told him he would be the go-between delivering the money. “But I didn’t turn him down. They were telling me it had to be done, the government needed it to be done.”

Pontaquarto spoke to the magazine three weeks ago and repeated his story late Friday to a judge investigating the case. He has been granted immunity from prosecution, and the judge has called his testimony “convincing” and “very precise.”

Several senators were named as defendants when the scandal first broke in 2000, but over the years all charges in the case had been dropped for lack of evidence. The charges could be reinstated, however, as a result of the new testimony.

The bribery allegations split De la Rua’s ruling center-left coalition. Frustrated with De la Rua’s apparent unwillingness to pursue the case, Vice President Carlos Alvarez resigned and his leftist Frepaso movement left the government. The weakened De la Rua was himself forced from office amid rioting and protest in December 2001.

The alleged bribes bought yes votes for a business-backed employment reform law demanded by the International Monetary Fund but which faced strong resistance from organized labor and its allies in the Argentine Congress.

Elected president in 1999, De la Rua inherited a country that was burdened with a growing public debt and was increasingly dependent on IMF loans. The IMF insisted that Argentina implement reforms.

De la Rua denied Saturday that he authorized bribing anyone, calling the accusations “absolutely false.” He accused current President Nestor Kirchner’s government of planting the story as part of a “political operation” against him.

Kirchner’s government announced that it has provided protection to Pontaquarto -- who says he fears for his life -- and has helped his family seek refuge abroad.

Presidential Cabinet chief Alberto Fernandez said Kirchner had been aware of Pontaquarto’s confession for several days before its publication. “Those who are responsible must fall,” Fernandez said.

Pontaquarto was the highest-ranking bureaucrat in Congress, a 20-year functionary who had won the trust of the legislature’s many factions. Despite media reports naming him as a likely conduit for the suspected bribes, he had always denied involvement.

In the TXT interview published Saturday, he describes the bribery episode as a cloak-and-dagger operation that included visits to the president’s office and to a vault inside the Argentine intelligence agency, known by its Spanish initials, SIDE.

Argentina’s powerful labor movement had been pressuring lawmakers for months to vote against the law that, among other things, made it easier for businesses to dismiss employees. Pontaquarto says that at that point, he was summoned to the president’s office for a meeting with a small group of key senators.

Classical music was playing loudly in the background -- apparently, the president feared his office might be bugged, Pontaquarto said.

“Something more” was needed to pass the law, one of the senators said.

“Arrange it with Santibanes,” the president responded, referring to his intelligence chief, Fernando de Santibanes.

A few weeks later, Pontaquarto was summoned to a meeting with the intelligence chief. He was told to return later that evening to pick up the money. Inside the vault, he was given two briefcases, Pontaquarto told TXT.

After placing them in his car, he drove to Congress, a SIDE security escort trailing behind him. But some complications arose, he said, and he ended up hiding the money in his house for a few days before turning most of it over to Sen. Emilio Cantarero, a Peronist.

Pontaquarto said he watched in the senator’s apartment as the lawmaker counted the bills. When he was done, Cantarero handed him a list detailing how he and other Peronist senators would divvy up the bribes, Pontaquarto said.

“He told me to keep it as a receipt,” Pontaquarto said, adding that he hid it “in a secure place.” He said he delivered the second briefcase to Radical Party Sen. Jose Genoud, then provisional president of the Senate.