Eleven Chubut officers were detained Thursday following accusations of beating and sodomizing a 16-year old male.

They are accused of “seriously offensive sex abuse”…”committed by police personnel.”

Six of the original officers arrested for the alleged abuse have been freed, while the other five remain in custody. If found guilty, they could face 8 to 25 years in prison.

Of those still detained, four are suspected to have been responsible for the actual abuse, while the fifth is said to have stood by.

The youth was arrested on Wednesday while having a discussion with his girlfriend, under an anonymous accusation that he had attacked a woman on the highway.

After being released into the custody of his mother, the youth told her that he was beaten by the officers, and was taken to the hospital to seek medical attention.

Shortly thereafter, the minor revealed to his mother that he had additionally been anally raped with a blunt instrument, likely by an officer’s baton. Forensic results of the youth’s wounds confirmed his accusations.

After the adolescent’s mother reported the incident, ten officers were arrested after lending their services in a Trelew raid. Citing the “gravity” of the acts in this case, Chubut governor Martin Buzzi dismissed the leader of the provincial police, general commissioner Néstor Siri, and displaced Trelew precinct leader Juan Carlos Contreras.

“It is an aberrant event, one that is being investigated for the attorney general María Tolomei,” said Jorge Miquelarena, ombudsmen of the province Chubut.

The troops implicated in the incident were from the second precinct of Chubut; the same who were involved in repressing a recent truck driver demonstration with rubber bullets on Wednesday.

The 15th December marks a year since Nilda Garré took up her position as head of Argentina’s Security Ministry. The new ministry was created in the aftermath of last year’s occupation of the Parque Indoamericano, taken in protest at the desperate lack of social housing in the city, which had left thousands living in squalor. The result was the death of three people during clashes between settlers, residents from the surrounding area, and police.

The creation of a new ministry, the fifth to be set up during Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s presidency, came as a swift answer to the problems laid bare within Argentina’s internal security forces during the occupation.

Evidence showed that, decades after military rule, the police were still operating repressively. Instead of dealing with protestors in a non-violent way, police were tempted into conflict. A culture of impunity within their ranks at the time meant they had little fear that they would be held accountable for their actions, resulting in many human rights violations.

This culture of impunity has been a long-standing problem in Argentina, and was most famously prevalent during the military government of 1976-83, a time when the state was synonymous with repression. A recent report written by Francesca Lessa, from the Latin American Internal Affairs Programme (LAIAP), points out worrying similarities between that period and now. “Impunity continues to prevail, giving rise to a culture and an environment in which human rights abuses are routinely practised, not thoroughly investigated and largely tolerated.”

Since the ministry’s creation, Garré’s response has been a sweeping renewal of the Federal Police’s top staff, which meant the removal of over 60 officers from their positions in January of this year alone. Jorge Carpio, from the Citizens’ Participation Forum for Justice and Human Rights (FOCO), sees the Federal Police as “a body pierced with corruption and impunity”, and for him this constituted a significant step.

However, critics at the time of the ministry’s creation were sceptical as to the ability of this new body to erase such a legacy. Ultimately, for them, purging simply meant a masking of real progress. “Unlike the quite successful reforms to the judiciary and the armed forces since democratization…there has been a failure to transform police,” Lessa tells us, “success has been limited to the purging of corrupt officers and some of those accused of human rights abuses.”

Repression

The repressive tactics used by the police during the occupation of Parque Indoamericano have resulted in a revised training programme, so that specific instruction is given on how to deal with social uprising or conflict. A new telephone reporting service was set up as well for members of the public to report on the conduct of officers.

Clear instruction and transparency are essential, according to Carpio, if the police are to avoid a “criminalization of social protest to which [they] are accustomed”. The training programme is yet to yield results however, and in June of this year six police officers, on trial for torture charges, were sentenced to prison, and deaths during clashes between land occupiers and police in Jujuy resulted in the resignation of both the chief of provincial police and the governor. Such events indicate that the wrong approach is still being taken.

Insecurity

The problem of public insecurity is also a large part of the ministry’s inheritance. A victimization survey conducted in 2008 by Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), revealed that perceptions of insecurity were higher in Argentina than in any other Latin American country, with 27.47% of respondents saying that they felt “unsafe” having been victims of crime.

The ministry’s response has been to step up police presence on the streets in Buenos Aires, in response to “legitimate demands of public safety”. This has meant the deployment on the streets of 6,000 Gendarmerie officers in January of this year, and a further 3,500 officers of the coast guard, Gendarmerie and Federal Police deployed in July.

A new command centre will control a more extensive camera system on roads, throughout the city and in train stations; all measures that have confirmed the move towards a state more closely watched and managed at a micro level at all times.

Organised Crime

Organised crime has long been a problem in Argentina, with the country historically ranking amongst those most favoured for the production and trafficking of drugs, trafficking of people, weapons and contraband goods, money laundering, car theft and road pirating.

A number of reasons have been given to explain this fact. Firstly, the difficulty in policing the vast amounts of land that make up Argentina’s borders has facilitated the practice of trafficking and smuggling; with security forces spread thinly, and a previous lack of sophisticated detection technology, slipping past “under the radar” has been relatively easy. Equally, a lack of adequate police presence has previously meant that car theft and road pirating have been a worthwhile business for those involved in organised crime.

The Security Ministry’s approach to these problems has been seemingly comprehensive. The so-called ‘Northern Shield’ operation came into effect in October with a view to combating trafficking and smuggling in the north of the country.

According to the ministry, it is “an intelligent strategy aided by all the resources at the State’s disposal, from relief agents of the Gendarmerie and Coast Guard, to modern military radar, helicopters, planes and boats from the systems of security and defence.”

For Ricardo Gil Laavedra, a politician with the Radical Civic Union (UCR), this comes as too little, too late. In a speech given to Congress, he explained that concerns about the country’s radar system had originally been voiced in 2004. Since then, he claims, there has been an “absence of relevant measures”. He has also suggested that the operation’s announcement, just months before the elections, was a manipulating tactic, adding “unfortunately, we have become accustomed to such manoeuvres.”

Corruption

An underlying problem though, and one that seems to surface frequently, is corruption – which seems to go to the highest levels. In 2001, ex-President Carlos Menem was placed under house arrest for five months following charges that he had headed an “illicit association” which dealt arms to Croatia and Ecuador during his years in office, showing that the problem infects even the highest in the chain of command. A leaked US embassy cable from December of last year explained the situation in the frankest of terms: “The near complete absence of enforcement coupled with a culture of impunity and corruption make Argentina ripe for exploitation by narcotraffickers and terrorist cells.”

Money laundering has previously been badly confronted, prompting the Financial Action Task Force (FAFT) to add Argentina to its list of “jurisdictions that have strategic AML/CFT [anti-money laundering /combating the financing of terrorism] deficiencies”. Since October 2011 however, they have been removed from that list, and are now qualified as a jurisdiction that has provided “a high-level political commitment to address the deficiencies”.

Cooperation

A difficulty in cooperation between the various internal security forces was also highlighted at Parque Indoamericano, and the ministry has sought to tackle that problem through a series of technological advances to facilitate open sharing of criminal information at a federal level.

Also, the creation of a Security Council has meant the meeting of representatives from every province, each security force, and ministers for security, justice, public safety and education, to debate matters of federal security. In this way, the ministry hopes to drastically improve the effectiveness of criminal intelligence in the country so that crime and organised crime, from mugging to road pirating, can be brought under control.

Progress?

The question as to whether or not any of the operations, such as ‘Northern Shield’, have been successful remains to be answered definitively since no figures have been published as yet. But during the period since the ministry’s creation there has been a record amount of cocaine and marijuana seized according to Garré; an increase of 8% on last year with cocaine, and 5% with marijuana.

With regard to actions taken by police during the occupation of Parque Indoamericano, the chamber of crime announced in September the prosecution of six Federal Police officers for their use of physical violence that resulted in the death of a young man. But according to Marcela Perelman, from the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), this is not enough.

For her, like Lessa, real progress can only be achieved with reforms to the police, as has happened with the judiciary and armed forces since the military government. In an interview with Infosur, she noted that while “there are specific policies [to combat police autonomy], some symbolic, others more substantial, [they are] still not talking about structural reform.”

Carpio believes that the actions taken by the ministry represent progress however, since for the first time “we can say that there is political will to break the pact of coexistence with the police.”

Although it is still too early to judge the success of any of the ministry’s new policies decisively with so little hard evidence, it is clear that there is still much to be done. While it seems like there has been a decisive step towards confronting some of Argentina’s biggest problems, it is hard to be totally optimistic given the habit of creating policies that “go along the right path”, as Perelman puts it, but that are not followed through with significant conviction. A habit which seems to have existed throughout this government’s time in power. Ultimately, the message seems to be that without a complete structural reform of the police in Argentina any policies created will be in vain.

It is also worth considering that the issue of crime and insecurity should not be dressed at a security level, but rather a social one. In an article written for the newspaper Clarín, Laavedra explained that whilst devising new policies might look good on paper, they will be ineffective unless the underlying problem – inclusion – is addressed.

He explains: “The structural exclusion suffered by Argentina, with people who know they will die in poverty and that that is the fate of their children, is not the appropriate framework for the State to claim adherence to its rules.”

Until the State offers basic rights to all its citizens, such as housing, health, education and employment, the problem of exclusion will continue he argues, making sure that crime and insecurity follows with it.

A judge in Chile has dismissed criminal charges against a Roman Catholic priest accused of abusing children, despite admitting that allegations against him were “truthful and reliable”.

Judge Jessica Gonzalez said that she was forced to dismiss the cases against Father Fernando Karadima, who is accused of abusing three minors, since the five-year statute of limitations on his actions had expired. A fourth case was dismissed because it could not be confirmed that the victim was a minor at the time of the abuse.

The four cases came to light last year, when Chilean television broadcast a series of interviews with the men who accused Karadima of abusing them between 1980 and 1995.

An internal Vatican inquiry, that took place in February, found Karadima guilty of the charges. The inquiry resulted in his removal from service in the Church and placement in a monastery in the capital city Santiago, where he was ordered to follow a life of “penitence and prayer”.

The cases have deeply affected Chile, often considered one of Latin America’s most staunchly Catholic countries.

Uruguayan President José Mujica has sent a letter of apology to the people of Haití following the release of a video that showed Uruguayan militia abusing a young Haitian. He assured that the case will be investigated “up to the most extreme consequences.”

Mujica also confirmed that “those responsible will be subject to the highest form of punishment,” in his letter to Haitian President Michael Martelly.

The leaked video revealed the abuse and harassment of a young Haitian boy by four Uruguayan soldiers. The detained officers are members of the United Nation Mission to Stabilise Haiti (Minustah).

Uruguay’s Minister of Defense, Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, also expressed his regret.

The official revealed that Minustah have authorized the return of the implicated soldiers to Uruguay. In a statement made in the House of Representatives, Fernández Huidobro added that the defendants are now isolated from each other.

There are currently three judicial cases under way, one held by the United Nation, one by the leaders of the Mission itself, and one by Uruguay’s Ministry of Defense.

A treaty between the UN and countries with externally based troops states that this kind of crime should be judged in the soldiers’ home country.

Fernández Huidobro further stated that they will not permit defendants to refer to the case as “a joke.”

He said: “The use of that word is already disgraceful and shameful on our Armed Forces.”

 

Story courtesy of Agencia Pulsar, the news agency of AMARC ALC

The video titled “Police in Action” shows naked inmates running from guards wielding metal bars in the San Felipe prison in Mendoza. Released yesterday on Vision 7 news, it is one of many clips of prison torture exposed in the last year.

“The torture is not isolated, it is part of the institutional problem of prisons in Mendoza,” said Pablo Salinas, an attorney for the Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights.

Diego Lavado is another lawyer who agrees with Salinas. He provided the courts with 400 videos last February after a prisoner’s relative found a prison guard, Daniel Perón’s, cell phone with the violent images on it.

Lavado and Salinas agreed it is important to adopt the UN’s optional protocol that prevents violence in prisons, juvenile institutions and psychiatric hospitals. The protocol is supplementary to signing the UN’s Convention against Torture. It establishes an independent committee, that works pro bono, and a prison attorney, that is elected similar to the way judges are selected, which can do inspections without any restriction.

Salinas said in the penal institution “there are still dictatorship influences, especially in the (Julio Caesar) Santuchone school”.

There are still videos in the Perón phone that have not been released. “There is one where a guard puts his male member into the mouth of another who fell asleep on duty. It seems they were on a graduation trip. Torture mixed with stupid jokes,” said Lavado who believes the videos not only serve the justice system but could be of “interest to the psychologists of prison staff.” Perón had 1.600 videos in total.

Surprisingly, my initial anxieties about stepping into the tiger cage had abated, “how silly”, I thought, to have worried about socializing with these calm and majestic creatures who were now slurping up milk from my palm. My heart jumped, however, when one of the tigers crept up from behind, slithered around my waist and nudged its massive head under my arm to get in on the action. “Gently, gently,” one of the cats’ trainers instructed. I found the advice reassuring as well.

Luján zoo, about an hour and a half outside of Buenos Aires, provides visitors the opportunity intimately interact with its animals. Visitors can feed lions and tigers milk from their hands as they caress their fur. They can hand feed grapes to the grizzly bears or, if so inclined, follow the trainer’s lead and allow the bears to use their tongues to snatch the grapes from between their lips. They can stroke the leathery skin of the elephants and toss fishes to the sea lions.

All of this feeding and petting of the animals takes place without patrons being required to sign any legal waivers, and there seems to be no worry that anything could go wrong. Since the zoo opened in 1994, there haven’t been any attacks or other violent incidents, and the zoo’s director, Jorge Semino attributes this to his unique methods of raising the animals.

Semino’s methods are centred around the animals’ constant interaction with people. The big cats receive the most attention, and immediately following the birth of a new litter of kittens Semino and his trainers begin working to diminish the aggressive behaviours associated with the competition for food. During nursing, the trainers make sure that each kitten is able to gain access to one of its mother’s teats, and that nursing time is distributed equally.

As the kittens grow they begin to be hand fed meat. Using vocal cues, the trainers teach the kittens to recognize the difference between their hands and the meat. In the same way that dogs are taught to recognize vocal commands, the lions and tigers respond to the command suave, or gently, as an instruction for them to both ease their bite and generally behave more calmly.

The kittens are also raised in the constant presence of dogs, and they witness how the dogs peacefully and obediently interact with people, and theoretically learn to model this behaviour.

Semino says of his methods, “the only way is to raise them from when they are babies  and educate them with love, affection and respect, and they will return the same.” Juan José Bianchini, a biologist who works with the animals at the zoo, states, “the early learning causes the animals to lose their aggressiveness in a total and irreversible way. They learn to live with other species and lose the aggressive drives which are primarily related to the competition for food.”

Many people, however, do not see the zoo as an example of peaceful coexistence among species, but rather as an extraordinary demonstration of how zoos exploit animal’s welfare for their own commercial gain. The Born Free Foundation, an international animal rights group, has called on local authorities to launch an immediate investigation into the zoo’s practices. The group has started an online petition against the Luján zoo, which so far has collected 1,400 signatures. The petition states, “No one wants to see animals forced to behave in ways which are abnormal and degrading to them, and no one wants to see Luján Zoo (or any zoo) putting its visitors at risk.”

Martha Gutiérrez, the president of the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Animals (ADDA) which successfully campaigned for the closure of one of the biggest circuses in Argentina, thinks that the mission of the zoo, to show that such diverse species as humans and tigers can live together peacefully is altogether misguided. She says, “I think it gives a terrible message to the public about the relationship between animals and people. These are wild animals, and are not meant to be under our control.”

Dr. Juan Romero of the local animal rights group Association SOS Vida, vehemently condemns the zoo: “It is one of the worst in Argentina on multiple accounts: conditions, objective, structure but especially for allowing close contact between animals and people. It puts both people and the animals at risk. Like most zoos, there is no useful function, it is only a business and made at the expense of abuse.”

In response to such accusations, Semino says that he respects these groups for their work towards the welfare of animals, but asserts that the issue is more complex: “We know that this is not the ideal place for an animal to live, but many zoos, including ours, give protection to animals that were abandoned or born in captivity. An animal born in captivity and who has spent many years in contact with humans can not be released into the wild. They don’t know how to survive on their own.”

Semino points out that while zoos might not be the ideal place for wild animals, at least at the Luján zoo they are well fed and receive constant attention. He says, “in most zoos, all they do is throw the food over the bars and hardly give any attention and love to the animals. It is much easier to not risk anything and prevent any potential human error by only taking care of the ticket office and not the animals. In our case, our animals have to be in a good mood, so we always try to make them happy and give them the best possible quality of life.”

Still, other critics claim that it is not Semino’s methods and affection that pacify the animals, but instead accuse the zoo of sedating them. Past visitors have speculated on this in online postings, and Martha Gutiérrez says she has heard the same from  concerned animals rights groups.

When asked for his comment on the matter, Dr. Daniel Mudrovici, a Buenos Aires veterinarian who specializes in exotic animals and has attended to those at the Luján zoo for many years, called the claim “a pure invention”. He added, “if it appears that way it is because their eating habits have been altered. They are constantly satiated, and have lost their drive to hunt prey. They are mostly overweight and don’t get enough movement; the secret is that, there is no mistreatment that makes it worse than other zoos.”

Dr. Mudrovici went on to say that he would prefer to see wild animals in their natural habitats as opposed to in zoos or circuses, but the unfortunate reality is that these places exist. He believes that the owners of such venues are less to blame than the government organizations that allow them to continue.

One recent visitor to the Luján Zoo, Lee Ann Jensen, a college student from Texas and a committed vegan, said that the animals appeared to be treated much better than those at both the Buenos Aires Zoo and the one in La Plata, where, “the animals looked sad and emaciated.”

It is undeniable that the animals at the Luján Zoo live in a manner entirely different from their natural existence. It is debatable, however, how their quality of life compares to that of other wild animals in captivity.

The Luján Zoo is located just outside of Luján, at the 58km exit off of the Acceso Oeste highway. The easiest way to get there is to take the 57 bus from Plaza Italia. The fare is $20 roundtrip, and the trip takes about an hour and a half each way. The bus line has a ticket office outside of La Rural, on Avenida Sarmiento, but if the office is closed you will have to pay with coins, so come prepared.

The Luján Zoo is open everyday of the year from 9am until sunset. It closes during heavy rains. Entrance costs $40 for adults, and $30 for children under 12 years old.