As growing numbers of people around the world will know by now, investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzón is in hot water. The man best-known for having ordered the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in 1998 is being investigated by his colleagues in the Supreme Court on three counts. If found guilty, his career will be over. There is something of a whiff of conspiracy about this sudden fall from grace. The first investigation is into accusations that he dropped tax fraud charges against executives of Banco Santander in return for $302,000-worth of sponsorship by the bank for a series of lectures on human rights he gave at New York University in 2003. This hearing is currently underway. The … [Read more...] about Garzón, the PP, and a Byzantine justice system
Politics
The rebirth of corruption
A flick through a Spanish daily newspaper one particular day in early April made for instructive, if depressing, reading. The national news pages were dominated by the latest on a series of corruption scandals, all involving politicians. In Catalonia, the ‘Pretoria’ case saw members of the Socialist Party and the nationalist CiU embroiled in a scam involving construction contracts; in Estepona, Andalusia, the town’s former Popular Party mayor Rosa Díaz faced charges of illegally selling off land; in the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas, a former Popular Party regional premier and national environment minister, had been told he needed to post €3 million bail in order to avoid being jailed … [Read more...] about The rebirth of corruption
Politics is ETA’s problem as it seeks global stage
When Nobel Peace Prize laureates F.W. de Klerk, Desmond Tutu and John Hume all back an initiative together with the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, it is bound to carry some weight. It is also likely to be a project with major international repercussions. But when South African human rights lawyer Brian Currin presented to the European Parliament a resolution backed by the above and another 17 figures from the world of politics and conflict mediation on March 29, the issue at hand was the relationship between the Basque Country, the small region in northern Spain, and Madrid. The statement sought to contribute to resolving what it called “the last remaining conflict in … [Read more...] about Politics is ETA’s problem as it seeks global stage
The industrialisation of prostitution
For the first time, the Spanish police have released figures on the number of women reportedly forced into prostitution by traffickers and pimps. Last year, the authorities say police rescued or were approached by around 1,300 women working in the sex industry against their will, most of them from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. The real figure is undoubtedly much, much, higher: over the last three years, the police have smashed more than 40 prostitution networks alone. Official estimates put the number of female prostitutes in Spain at around 100,000. Other sources put it as high as 400,000. More than 80 percent are foreigners, and most were brought here by international … [Read more...] about The industrialisation of prostitution
The curse of the EU presidency
In retrospect, Spain might be seen as one of the unluckiest ever holders of the EU rotating presidency. A host of unfortunate developments – most not of his own making – have conspired to make the first half of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s six-month term, which began on January 1, difficult and at times hapless. With Spain among the bloc’s most economically troubled members, it was always going to be hard for Zapatero to lead the EU out of recession from the front. Moreover, major institutional changes were implemented just as the term presidency was starting, with a degree of mystery surrounding the new system and its roles, including that of European Council president. As if that were … [Read more...] about The curse of the EU presidency
FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda: the terror connection
When the US Drug Enforcement Administration announced in December that it had arrested three suspected Al Qaeda operatives in Ghana and brought them to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges, investigators unveiled some astonishing allegations. The defendants had offered to help rebels of South America’s oldest active guerrilla front, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), traffic cocaine into Spain using North African routes. While there had been speculation regarding such a connection in the past, this was the first time US law enforcement authorities had linked the dots between Islamic extremists and the FARC in a criminal indictment. Then in early March, … [Read more...] about FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda: the terror connection
Bullfighting’s Catalan accent
It was meant to be a reasoned, informed debate about the pros and cons of bullfighting. Politicians, philosophers, writers, scientists and even a bullfighter were all due to give their views on the fiesta nacional and whether or not it should be banned in Catalonia. And yet, in one session alone, crucifixion, Colombian kidnappings and female circumcision were all invoked, insults such as “intellectual pigmy” and “hypocrite” were used and at one point, the scientist Jorge Wagensberg pulled out a sword to illustrate how much spearing the weapon into a bull’s back would hurt the animal. This passionate and often fractious debate was the result of a petition by anti-bullfighting … [Read more...] about Bullfighting’s Catalan accent
March 11’s divisive legacy
In the middle of February, the Spanish government announced that it was going to “repair” the memory of the poet Miguel Hernández, a Republican former goatherd who was jailed by the dictator Francisco Franco and died in prison in 1942, at the age of 31. The Socialist government pledged to offer Hernández, whose centenary is being celebrated this year, “the tribute, the memory and the admiration that his work merits,” said Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. “We all share that same rejection of any form of oppression, that same rebellion in the face of injustice and that determination to dream and create a decent country and a better world.” The news of this homage … [Read more...] about March 11’s divisive legacy
Morocco edges closer to Europe
Question: Which country applied for EU membership the same day as Turkey in 1987? Answer: Morocco. While full membership for the Maghrebi nation is viewed as impossible, the weekend of March 6-7 does signal a landmark on the long road toward a truly advanced status of integration into European structures and political realities onto which the Moroccan ruling elite is pinning so many of its hopes. The EU-Morocco summit, held within the architectural gem of Al Andalus, Granada’s Alhambra palace, is designed to celebrate the achievements of the past few years; Rabat has secured an advanced partnership status with the EU, unique in the Arab world, and agreed to an extensive trade deal – … [Read more...] about Morocco edges closer to Europe
Falklands commentators wage virtual war
In his account of the Falklands War and its build-up, The Land that Lost its Heroes, Jimmy Burns wrote: “In a sense it was the last war of modern times not subject to immediate scrutiny. The concept of twenty-four-hour news and Internet-based ‘real time’ was yet to come.” Twenty-eight years after the conflict, as tensions between Buenos Aires and London rise once again following the British decision to start drilling for oil in waters around the small Atlantic islands, news, real-time and otherwise, rages, with the media voicing the opinions not just of its columnists and editorial boards, but also readers and citizen journalists. What’s more, with the click of a mouse, a journalist in … [Read more...] about Falklands commentators wage virtual war